Karen Rose - Count to Ten

"Until he catches you unaware. I didn't see either of their faces, but you did. You're the only one who can identify Getts. We wanted them for murder before. Now we're tacking on attempted murder of a cop. You think he's gonna want you around?"

She'd already considered it. "I'll be careful."

"You tell Spinnelli you want a partner to watch your back. Until 1 come back."

"I got one already. Temporarily," she added hastily when his dark brows went up.

"Really? Who?"

"I've been loaned to OFI. Arson/homicide case. Guy's name is Reed Solliday."

Abe leaned forward. "And? Is he old, young? Rookie, experienced?"

"Experienced enough. A little older than you. Old enough to have a fourteen-year-old." Her shudder was exaggerated. "Keeps his shoes too shiny."

"He should be flogged."

She chuckled. "He seemed obnoxious early on, but it looks like he might be okay."

Abe opened the bag and she knew all was forgiven. "You don't want any, do you?"

"I ate mine on the way. And if the nurse asks, the bag's got mugshots in it."

He cast a furtive glance at the door. "Do you hear her?"

Her lips twitched. "I thought you weren't afraid of the nurses and their trash talk."

"I lied. The night nurse is the antichrist." He snagged a piece of the dessert and settled back against his pillow. "Tell me about the arson case. Don't leave out anything."

Monday, November 27, 11:15 p.m.

Penny Hill wasn't home. Why wasn't she home ? He glanced at his watch, then fixed his gaze back on the house he'd scoped so carefully the night before. She'd been here last night, tucked into bed by eleven. He'd returned tonight, ready to roll and she wasn't here. He peered in her front window, hidden from the street by thick evergreens. There was only a great big dog sleeping on the living room floor. He clenched his teeth.

He had three choices. One, come back tomorrow night. Two, torch the place without her in it. Three, be patient and wait. He considered the options. The risks of waiting here, of perhaps being seen. The rewards of the hunt. Last time he surrendered the kill, anxious for the fire. Tonight he wanted more. He remembered little Caitlin with a shiver of restless pleasure. He could remembered the energy pulsing through his body. That incredible rush.

He wanted that rush again. The complete and total power of life and death.

And pain. He wanted the bitch to feel such pain. To plead for mercy.

He wanted Penny Hill to pay. His lips curved, wolfish. He"d wait. He had time. All the time in the world. She didn't. She'd count to ten and go to hell.

Monday, November 27, 11:25 P.M.

Mia climbed the stairs to her apartment. She'd hoped an hour run would get rid of all her nervous energy, but all it had done was soak her in sweat and make her taped shoulder throb. The second she pushed her door open she felt the difference. The air was warm and it smelled like… peanut butter?

"Don't shoot. It's just me."

A breath rushed from her lungs. "Dammit, Dana, I could have shot you."

Her best friend sat at her dinette table, hands up. "I'll replace the peanut butter."

Mia closed her apartment door and flipped the deadbolts. "Ha-ha. Nobody loves a dead comedian. When did you get home?" Dana and her husband had taken their foster kids to Maryland's Eastern Shore to spend Thanksgiving with Ethan's old friends.

"About midnight last night. Getting the kids up for school this morning was such a joy. Ethan and I put them on the school bus and went back to bed."

Mia pulled two beers from the fridge. "Going to bed with Ethan is such a hardship."

Dana grinned. "I'll survive." She shook her head at the offered beer with a grimace. "No thanks. Doesn't go with the peanut butter." She waited until Mia was slouched in a chair. "You didn't return any of my phone calls. I was worried."

"Join the chorus." Then she sighed when irritation flashed in Dana's brown eyes. "I'm sorry. God, I feel like a fucking broken record today. Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Dana lifted a brow. "You done?"

"Yeah." It came out surly and childish. Which was about right at this point.

"Okay. Look, I just wanted to check on you. Make sure you weren't dead or something. Nobody loves a dead sulker. So what have you been doing with yourself the last two weeks, Mia, besides avoiding me, and apparently everybody else?"

Mia took a long drag from the bottle, then went to her kitchen cabinet and pulled out… the box.lt was a simple wooden box, no decoration or labels. It was incredible that such a little box could hold so much hurt. She put it down in front of Dana. "Ta-da."

"Why do I feel like Pandora?" Dana murmured and lifted the lid. "Oh, Mia." She lifted her eyes, understanding now. "At least now you know. About the boy, anyway."

"I found the box in Bobby's closet when I was pulling together clothes to bury him in. I didn't open it until I got home from the cemetery. I was going to put his shield in it."

With great ceremony the shield had been presented to her mother at Bobby Mitchell "s graveside, lying atop the flag that had draped his coffin. Her face haggard and worn, Annabelle Mitchell had turned and placed them in Mia's hands. Too stunned to react, Mia had accepted them. The tri-folded flag was now propped up against her toaster. The flag probably had Pop-Tart crumbs in its folds, but apart from a reluctance to dirty an American flag, it was hard to care.

She pointed at the box with her bottle. "Instead, I found that."

Dana pulled the photo from the box. "Damn, Mia. He looks just your baby pictures."

Mia's laugh was hollow. "Bobby had some powerful genes." She walked around to look over Dana's shoulder at the chubby-faced boy sitting in a little wooden rocking chair, a red truck clutched in his fist. The boy she'd never seen, although she now knew his name. His birthday. And his death day. "That should look like my baby picture. That's our rocking chair, mine and Kelsey's. Bobby had our pictures taken in it, too."

"How tacky." Dana's words were bland, but her mouth was set in a firm line. "But then we knew that about him."

Only Dana knew. Dana and Kelsey. And perhaps Mia's mother. Mia wasn't entirely sure what her mother knew. She stared at the little boy's face. "He has Bobby's blond hair and blue eyes, just like me. And like her , whoever the hell she is."

"You've spent the last two weeks trying to find her. I thought you would."

She was the stranger Mia had seen at her father's burial. A young woman with blond hair and round blue eyes… just like mine . For one brief instant it had been like looking in a mirror. Then the woman had dropped her eyes and disappeared into the crowd of cops paying their final respects. After the burial service Dana had searched the crowd, leaving Mia to accept the respects of each and every cop there.

That had been the hardest part of the whole sham. Nodding soberly to each uniform as they grasped her hand, told her in hushed tones that her father had been a good cop. A good man. How could everyone on God's earth have been so damn snowed?

When the last uniform was gone and Mia stood alone with her mother she'd lifted her eyes to Dana who'd shaken her head. The woman was gone. One look at her mother's face had told her all she'd needed to know. Annabelle Mitchell had seen her, too. But unlike Mia, her mother hadn't seemed the least bit surprised. And like so many times in her life, her mother's eyes had shuttered. She was unwilling to discuss the woman, the little boy. The damn headstone, //smc liam

CHARLES MITCHELL, BELOVED SON.

"I'm glad you saw her, too. Otherwise I might be on the shrink's couch right now."

"You didn't imagine her, Mia. She was there."

Mia finished off the beer. "Yep. I know. Then and later."