“Two words. Feng Shui. It means ‘Wind and Water’.”
Bud and John exchanged glances.
“Your house is wind and water?” Bud asked, carefully.
It was good to have something to smile about. “It’s the ancient Chinese art of decorating a space to make best use of energy flows. The Chinese believe energy flows in specific directions and you arrange furniture and objects to direct that flow in beneficial ways. But it also means that furniture and objects aren’t arranged in concentric boxes like in the West. The man found a footstool where he was expecting a chair, and a table where he was expecting nothing at all.”
She might as well have been speaking Chinese. Bud looked at his techs, at John, then shrugged. “Okay. So you saw this guy stumbling around in the dark in your office, which is—“ he hesitated, “whatever. What did you do then?”
“I went back through the rooms as quietly as I could and called John.”
“Why John? Why not the police? Why not me?”
Suzanne lifted a shoulder. ‘Why John’ was evident in every line of John’s big body, in the fiercely controlled grace of his every move. In the way he handled his gun, in the way his constant vigilance ensured nothing could surprise him. Why John was clear.
John’s eyes were narrowed as he looked at her. She couldn’t breathe properly while he was staring at her so intently. His hard jaw was dark with black stubble. He’d been close shaven the night they’d had dinner together. Had had sex together. He was probably one of those men who needed to shave twice a day. The beard made him look even more disreputable, even more dangerous. The kind of man no one crossed.
“I thought he might be close by,” she whispered. John had stopped his careful quartering of the room and was focused on her. She’d almost forgotten that feeling of being in the presence of a force of nature. Now, the focus of his intent gaze, she remembered. She remembered how alive she’d felt walking by his side, how every single person in the restaurant had faded into insignificance and how he filled her entire field of vision. She remembered the ferocity of his kisses, the power of his hands on her, his penis thrusting hot and hard inside her.
She also remembered that fierce moment in the closet, one of those defining moments in a person’s life. That moment the plane plunges, the car slides out of control, the earth shakes. That clear cool view of life as you might be dying.
In that moment, she’d wanted John Huntington by her side with every fiber of her being.
In that moment she’d known that he would come for her without question and that he would die for her.
In that moment, she knew that in some primal way, more a matter of blood and bone than mind and heart, she was his.
“I punched in the alarm code, like you told me,” she said to John. “Honest. I remember doing it when I came home. I don’t know how he got in.”
“Whoa.” Bud stared at John. He shook his head. “I don’t believe this. That guy got past your security? Tell me it’s not true. You’re slipping, Midnight Man.”
“Not my security,” John answered tightly. “I was going to install my system tomorrow. She had XOL.”
“Okay. Whew. For a minute there I thought you’d lost your touch.” Bud scribbled some more then looked up. “What then, honey?”
Suzanne pushed her hair wearily out of her eyes. God, she was tired. She was on her second night without sleep. “I got in touch with John. Called him on my cell phone. He said he was a few blocks away. He said to lock the doors, and to go to my closet and wait.” Eyes closed, she remembered those moments, filled with panic and fear. “So I did.”
Bud turned. “John?”
His eyes were dark and cold. His voice even. “I got the call from Suzanne at seventeen minutes past midnight. She said she’d seen an intruder in the house, that he was armed. I was a few blocks away. I parked out of view of the building and proceeded to the front door. The alarm system and phone lines had been disabled. I entered the building—“
“Were you armed at the time?” Bud asked sharply.
John’s eyes glittered like ice. He just looked at Bud.
“Okay, okay.” Bud said. “With what?”
“Sig Sauer.”
“Why didn’t you use it?”
“In the end, I opted not to.” John shrugged a broad shoulder. “I thought he might be wearing body armor. Which he was. My weapon would have blown his face away. If his prints weren’t on file, we’d never know who he was. I used my K-Bar.”
Suzanne could just imagine the scene. The dark, silent room, John moving like a ghost, his big knife whipping through the air, the intruder clutching his throat, crumpling to the ground, wheezing uselessly for air while his blood pulsed and sprayed…
Bud sighed. He was sitting in male mode—legs spread wide, hands on knees, pen and pad dangling from one big hand. He sighed again, slapped his thighs and stood up.
“Okay. Let’s take this down to the station house.” He gestured to the technicians. Two unfolded a gurney and lifted the dead man on to it. He spoke to them. “You guys got everything?” They nodded.
John put his hand to Suzanne’s elbow and helped her out of the couch. He held her thick quilted jacket. Suzanne fitted her arms into it and he lifted her hair at the back for her. His hands—heavy, warm, reassuring—lay on her shoulders while she zipped the jacket up. For just a second, Suzanne allowed herself to lean back against him a little, savoring the strength and steadiness of him.
John squeezed her shoulders gently, and then lifted his hands. “Get your things,” he said quietly.
She made a wide circle around the bloodstains on the floor and wheeled her little suitcase out. Bud lifted an eyebrow and John shook his head sharply. Don’t ask, his look said.
Oddly, John didn’t help her with the suitcase. It was on four wheels, so it was easy for her to push. Still, he seemed like the kind of man who wouldn’t let a woman deal with luggage.
Then he placed his left arm around her waist, picked up his big black gun and she understood. He wanted one hand on her and one hand on his weapon.
What an odd little procession they made as they trooped outside, Suzanne thought. Bud first, Suzanne and John together, then the techs with the body, two carrying the gurney, two flanking it. Suzanne stood just outside the door, blinking. Two more police cars had joined the others haphazardly parked along her street. Their lights were flashing and she could hear the squawk and hiss of the radio. Police officers milled around, their low voices muffled in the thick night air. They were already cordoning off the house with yellow police tape.
The light snowfall had left white patches on the ground. It wasn’t snowing now but the air felt heavy and damp. It would snow later, maybe at daybreak in a few hours. Suzanne lifted her head and breathed in deep, trying to dispel the smell of violent death. The oxygen helped clear her brain. She felt unreal, at the center of a scene she’d seen a thousand times on TV but never imagined would be part of her life.
She watched two technicians maneuver the gurney down the steps. The body, zipped up in a black plastic bag, shifted. One of the police officers reached out to brace it before it could slip off.
She’d never seen the dead man before. How strange that a perfect stranger should want her dead. He’d come to kill her. Instead, he was the one leaving her house in a body bag and she was standing right next to the man who’d killed him.
Suzanne looked up at John. His arm was tight around her waist, though he wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at anything, really. His gaze raked the street, up and down, not focusing on anything in particular, but Suzanne could tell he was intensely aware of his surroundings, of everything and everyone on her street. Then he turned to look at her and she felt caught in the beam of a searchlight. A muscle in his jaw jumped and he pulled her even more tightly toward him, turned slightly inwards, his gun hand free.