Give it one minute, she told herself. Stay still, be a statue for a count of sixty and be done with this.
She cursed herself for her nakedness and how vulnerable it made her feel. Indulged in the bubble bath and now look. Stop that and focus, she thought. Just focus and listen to every square inch of the night.
Maybe it was a neighbor. How many times had she heard lovemaking, and coughing, and dishes stacking, come across the air space into her open windows?
The windows. They were all open.
A mere fraction through her minute, she lifted one bare foot off the runner and set it down one step closer to the kitchen. She listened.
Nothing.
Nikki chanced another slo-?mo step. In the middle of it, her heart skipped when a shadow moved across the slice of floor she could see in the kitchen. She didn’t hesitate or stop to listen again. She bolted.
Racing past the kitchen door to the living room, Nikki hit the light switch, killing the one lamp that was on, and lunged for her desk. Her hand landed inside the large Tuscan bowl that lived there on the back corner. It was empty.
“Looking for this?” Pochenko filled the archway, and he was holding up her off-?duty piece. The bright kitchen light behind him cast him in silhouette, but she could see that the Sig Sauer was still in its holster, as if the arrogant bastard wouldn’t be needing it, at least not yet.
Confronted by facts, the detective did what she always did, pushed fear aside and got practical. Nikki ran a checklist of options. One: She could scream. The windows were open, but he might start shooting, which, for the moment, he didn’t seem inclined to do. Two: Get a weapon. Her backup gun was in her handbag in the kitchen or the bedroom, she wasn’t sure which. Either way she would have to get past him. Three: Buy time. She needed it to improvise a weapon, to escape, or to take him out. If she had been confronting a hostage situation, she would have used conversation. Engage, humanize, slow the clock.
“How did you find me?” Good, she thought, to her ear she didn’t sound afraid.
“What, you think you’re the only ones who know how to tail somebody?”
Nikki took a small step backward to draw him into the room and away from the hall. She retraced the places she had been since she had left the precinct—Soho House, Rook’s poker game—and got a chill realizing this man had been watching her each stop.
“It’s not hard to follow someone who doesn’t know they have a tail. You should know that.”
“And how do you know that?” She took another step backward. This time he moved with her a step. “Were you a cop in Russia?”
Pochenko laughed. “Sort of. But not for police. Hey, stay there.” He took the Sig out and tossed the holster aside like litter. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.” And then he added, “Not till I’m through.”
Game changer, she said to herself, and prepared for the worst option. Nikki had drilled the handgun disarm only a million times. But always on a mat with an instructor or cop partner. Still Heat thought of herself as an athlete, in constant training, and had run it only two weeks ago. As she choreographed the moves in her head, she kept talking. “You’ve got balls coming here without your own gun.”
“I won’t need it. Today, you tricked me. Not so tonight, you’ll see.”
He reached for the light switch when he turned, and this time she took a step toward him. When the lamp came on he looked at her and said, “Daddy like.” He made a show of looking her body up and down. Ironically, Nikki had felt more violated by him that afternoon in Interrogation when she had her clothes on. Still she folded her arms over herself.
“Cover all you want. I told you I’d have it, and I will.”