“Well, you can’t do your job if whoever wants you dead is more successful next time, either,” Moore pointed out in response to my negative reaction. “We don’t know whose body that is. If it wasn’t the person who rigged your car, then whoever did is still out there somewhere, and he’ll try to get at you again.” There was some truth to what he said, I had to admit to myself, but that didn’t make his plan any more palatable.
“How do you know someone tried to kill me?” I asked. “Maybe something mechanical caused the car to blow up. It’s more than twenty years old, you know. Things go wrong. Parts wear out.” I didn’t believe it for a minute, but if it helped convince Moore that I didn’t need a baby-sitter, then I would let him think I did.
“The ATF guys say their initial reaction is that it looks like dynamite,” Moore replied patiently. “I assume that ‘76 VWs didn’t come equipped with that as a standard item.”
I sighed, knowing I probably was defeated, at least temporarily.
“Maybe the dead guy was the one who planted the bomb,” I said hopefully. “He can’t very well try to kill me again.”
“It’s a possibility,” Moore agreed. “But what if he had a partner, someone else who isn’t dead? And I have to tell you that from the looks of the body, I’d say the dead guy was just a kid. Most likely, he was trying to hot-wire your car or steal something from it, and he set off the dynamite in the process. The building manager says there have been several cars broken into in the last couple of weeks. Chances are this guy was responsible. This morning, he just happened to pick the wrong car.”
“You’re going to stick me with a bodyguard whether I want one or not, aren’t you?”
“We can’t force somebody on you, but I can’t advise you strongly enough to agree. How about if we take it a day at a time? You agree to let us send someone home with you for now, and tomorrow we’ll see where the investigation is.”
So I rode back to the apartment building with Officer John Baillin, who was walking closely behind me a few minutes later when I entered the chromed-and-mirrored lobby and saw Noah Lansing sitting there. Seeing me come in, Lansing stood up, concern evident on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked back, coming forward to meet me at the top of the interior steps that led up to the lobby’s main level.
“What are you doing here?” I asked back, ignoring his question. He was about the last person I wanted to see at the moment and under the circumstances. And we weren’t in Fairfax County.
“A detective Perez called one of our investigators to ask questions about you and what you’ve been covering,” Lansing said, looking a little taken aback at the tone of my voice. “Our guy called Bill Russell, figuring he needed to know about it, and Bill called me. I came over to make sure you were all right.”
“Why would Bill call you?” I asked in irritation, which was made more pronounced when it dawned on me what I must look like at the moment, given that I had gone with the Alexandria police without even going back upstairs to change clothes or brush my hair. “It’s not your case or even your jurisdiction,” I pointed out.
Lansing started to answer, then paused, apparently to consider his words carefully in view of the reception he had just gotten from me.
“I suppose he thought I would be interested anyway in what happened to you,” he said.
The thought that Bill Russell already had figured out there was something going on between Lansing and me, and that the two of them thought I needed checking on just pissed me off even more. It would be a gross understatement to say that I don’t react graciously when something makes me feel vulnerable or when I think someone else perceives me as being unable to take care of myself. As the initial shock of the morning’s events had worn off, I had gradually become angrier and angrier at the unknown person who had tried to kill me, who had made me feel less than competent to watch my own back. Detective Moore’s insistence on a protective escort had added fuel to the fire. Lansing had just stoked it several degrees hotter.
“Well, why don’t you just tag along with my other knight in shining armor here,” I said sarcastically, gesturing toward Officer Baillin. “Apparently, all of you think I’m just some helpless woman who needs a bunch of men around to make sure she’s safe.”
With that, I stomped off to the elevators and tried to push the Up button out through the other side of the wall. Behind me, I could feel Lansing and Baillin looking from me to each other and wondering what they had done to piss me off. Both joined me in the elevator when the doors slid open, however, and the three of us rode in silence up to the fourteenth floor.
At my door, Baillin insisted I stand in the hall with Lansing while he checked out my apartment to make sure there were no killers lurking around who had been stupid enough to go inside while police had been running around everywhere.
It’s only common sense, my niggling little voice pointed out, apparently having decided that Officer Baillin needed defending from me. It did nothing to improve my mood.
“All clear,” Baillin said when he reappeared in my living room. Lansing and I stepped inside. Baillin walked past us, into the hallway. “I’ll be on duty out here,” he explained.
I gave him another angry look and walked over to get one of my dining room chairs, which I carried back out into the hall.
“At least sit down, for God’s sake,” I told him, putting the chair down at his feet. “And if you need to use the bathroom, you’re welcome to use mine!”
Baillin colored slightly at that, but thanked me for the offer.
His manners are sure better than yours, my personal critic observed dryly.
I closed the apartment door to cut off its annoying voice and turned to deal with Lansing.
“If you’re just here to tell me I need a bodyguard,” I said to him, “you can go back to work! I’ve already had that lecture several times over from the Alexandria police.”
“McPhee,” he said, grasping my arms with both hands.
“What?” My mood wasn’t getting any better.
“Would you please just shut up for once?”
To ensure that I did, he immediately pulled me to him and kissed me. I wanted to hit him, but since I couldn’t easily do that with my arms in captivity, I kissed him back instead.
You are so easy.
And you are so not welcome here, I thought back.
Lansing let go my arms and put his own around me, continuing to kiss me all the while. I found myself responding in kind and holding onto him as if he were a life raft. Finally, he raised his face from mine.
“Well?” he asked, looking at me. “Surely you must have something to say to that.”
I shook my head from side to side and then put my face down against his chest, thinking, Don’t let me go yet. My defenses had momentarily disappeared with his embrace, and I just wanted to sink into him, to spend a few minutes someplace where I didn’t have to worry about who wanted me dead.
“I think we ought to sit down,” Lansing said into my hair, his voice carrying over the beating of his heart that I could hear clearly in his chest. “You’ve had a rough morning.”
I raised my head and looked at him. “What I’d really like to do is go to sleep,” I said, having just realized that it was so.
I had gone to bed at one A.M. and had been awakened three hours later by the explosion. It was now almost noon, and I had been dealing all that time with the shock of what had happened, with the constant questions from the police, and with my own reaction to the attempt on my life. I was no longer numb, but as the reality of the morning’s events was seeping into my brain, I realized I was exhausted and becoming more so by the minute. The practical part of my mind knew that there were things I had to do: call Rob Perry again to keep him updated, call my car insurance agent with the bad news, arrange for a rental car so I could get back and forth to work. But the rest of my brain was saying that, except for the call to Rob, it all could wait a couple of hours.
“That’s prob
ably a good idea,” Lansing said, looking at me assessingly. His expression said he wasn’t pleased with whatever he was seeing in my face. “Would you like me to stay?”
Would he never learn?
“I’m not three years old,” I answered, my irritation flaring again. “You don’t have to sit by my bed and hold my hand. I just need a nap. And I already have one armed cop sitting outside my door!”
Lansing thought about it for a minute.
“Okay,” he agreed finally. “I need to get back to work, anyway. But I’ll go only under one condition.”
“Which is?”
“At six o’clock, I’ll be back here to pick you up. You’re coming home with me. I don’t want you here alone tonight, guard or no guard.”
“What?” It takes a lot to surprise me, but that certainly managed to do it.
“Not just for your safety,” he was quick to reassure me, “even considering how little you regard that. I also don’t think you ought to be by yourself tonight. Do you really think you’re so superhuman that what you’ve seen and dealt with this morning isn’t going to hit you all over again once the shock wears off?”
It was clear that we could argue about this all day without either of us budging an inch, but I was getting more tired by the minute. I really just wanted to find my bed. Alone. I gave in, though not good-naturedly.
“Fine,” I said, conceding the battle. “I’ll go. But just for tonight and just to get you out of here.”
I fully expected to see the smug expression of victory on Lansing’s face, but he continued to surprise me.
“Okay,” he said simply, his expression neutral. “I’ll be here at six. I’ll come upstairs to get you.”
Once more, he put his arms around me and kissed me. Then he was gone. Still feeling his lips on mine, I stumbled off to the bedroom to call Rob Perry and then to find short-term oblivion.
Nine
When my alarm clock went off and called me back from frightening dreams of bombs and dead bodies, I washed my face in cold water and then called my insurance agent to tell him my car was scrap metal.
After expressing his initial shock at my news, he congratulated me on having had the foresight to pay the extra premium for comprehensive coverage that would cover even someone having blown up my car. I couldn’t steel myself to ask him whether I would ever be able to afford—or even get—such coverage again, from any insurance company, once they learned that people wanted to kill me.
When he had all the information he needed from me, including Detective Moore’s name and number so he could get a copy of the police report, he gave me the phone number for the rental car company I needed to use to ensure reimbursement. I called them next.
I was hanging up from the conversation with the rental car company when my doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock by my bed. It was 4:45 in the afternoon. Lansing would be here in slightly more than an hour. My earlier exhaustion had enabled me to drop off into a deep sleep for a couple of hours, though not untroubled by images from the morning’s carnage, and I now was feeling a little more clearheaded and alert. I got up from my seat on the bed and went into the living room and foyer to answer the door. It was Vance Ellert, the building’s manager.
“Hi, Sutton,” he said when I opened the door. He was putting his wallet back into his back trouser pocket, apparently having had to identify himself to Officer Baillin’s satisfaction. “May I come in?”
I stepped back into the foyer and held the door open for him.
“Please sit down,” I said, closing the door and motioning over to the sofa and club chairs in my living room. I had seen him in the parking lot all through the morning’s insanity, his red hair atop his six-foot-six frame easily visible in the crowd, but between his conversations with the investigators and my own, I had spoken to him only once, when he had come over to where I stood near my smoking car to make certain I was okay. Now, Vance thanked me and walked over to take a seat on the sofa. I joined him in a facing chair.
“Other than my having a really bad day, what’s up?” I asked. Clearly something was, judging by the anxious expression he wore.
He crossed and uncrossed his long legs, then swallowed hard a couple of times before finding the words he wanted.
“Ah… Sutton,” he began. “Ah… this isn’t easy to tell you. But because of what happened this morning, the building’s owner has decided that your living here presents a danger for the rest of the tenants.” He reached up for a sheaf of folded papers protruding from the left breast pocket of his white sport shirt. “This is an eviction notice. You have ten days to move out.” He held the papers out to me.
I looked at them for a moment as if they were a snake, then finally put my hand out to take them. Vance wasn’t joking, I saw as I opened them and glanced at the first page. They clearly were eviction papers.
“Why?” I asked him, looking back up.
“I tried to talk her out of it,” Vance said quickly, wanting me to know that this wasn’t his idea. “But she said that if you have a job that makes people want to kill you, she doesn’t want you living in her building. She said the bomb this morning could have killed a lot of people and that even one was bad enough. I couldn’t change her mind. I’m sorry.”
All things considered, I supposed I actually could see her point. If the car bomb had exploded a couple of hours later, as I started the car to go to work, it would have happened in a parking lot full of other people leaving at the same time. Though he had died for it, the young man who apparently had tried to steal my car at four o’clock in the morning probably had prevented a far worse outcome. I knew that I could challenge the eviction in court and probably delay my ejection from the building by several months, if not completely.
“Why only ten days?” I asked. “I thought the lease required thirty days’ notice.”
“Ordinarily, yes,” Vance explained. “But if you go back and read it, you’ll see that, if a tenant represents a safety risk to the other tenants, we don’t even have to give you ten days. You actually could have been evicted effective immediately. I managed to convince her to give you time to find a new place.”
Oh, what the hell was the point in arguing, I thought.
“It’s okay,” I told Vance finally. “I appreciate your going to bat for me. Tell your boss I’ll be gone within ten days.” Although where I would go, I had no idea.
“Thanks for understanding, Sutton,” Vance said, standing up from the sofa, the glum look on his face echoed by my own. “And I really am sorry.”
Beginning to understand a little of how Job must have felt, I showed Vance out and then walked back over to where he had sat on the sofa. Sitting down myself, I stared for a while out the expanse of windows on my apartment’s west wall, my thoughts chaotic and nonproductive. First my car and a dead guy, and now this, I thought, feeling depression threatening to settle heavily over me. What on earth could I possibly have done to have brought all this down on my head, I wondered. To whom did I represent such a threat? Was this job really worth putting my life and others’ at risk? One young man already was dead because of me. Granted, he might not have been a completely innocent bystander, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be blown to bits for trying to steal a car. My funk deepened.
I know how you love self-pity, my self-appointed mentor took that moment to offer, but hadn’t you better postpone it long enough to go pack your bag before Romeo gets here? And let the cops know they can call off your bodyguard for the night?
“Shit!” I said into the empty room. The little bugger was right. I had forgotten to call Detective Moore and tell him where I would be going so he wouldn’t send a relief officer over for Baillin. I dug into the pocket of my sweatpants for the business card Moore had given me that morning—which said his first name was Edward—and dialed the number for his pager.
When Moore called, I explained to him that I wouldn’t need a night nurse, because I would be at Lansing’s tonight, or a baby-sitter the following day,
when I would be at the newspaper, surrounded by dozens of people. Although he wasn’t too thrilled about not having me under the watchful eyes of one of his own people, he finally gave his blessing to my plans for the evening. But only because Lansing was an armed police officer, too, he said. Fortunately, Moore didn’t express whatever opinion he might have had about my apparently personal relationship with a member of the same police department that I covered as a reporter. As for my refusal of an escort during my working hours, however, he did voice, in the strongest terms, his opinion that I was putting my life at risk needlessly.
“Whoever tried to blow you into little pieces is still walking around out there,” he said, forcefully and graphically. “And you have no idea who it is. It could be anyone, including the person who’s standing next to you at any time.”
But I was adamant, agreeing only that we would talk the next afternoon about whether I would need an officer at my apartment for the following night. We hung up, and I went back to the bedroom to take a quick shower and put on clean clothes and to pack the things I would need for the night and the next day. And to wonder what Lansing and I would have to say to each other during the hours ahead, and how David would react to an overnight guest.
Ten
“Do you really think this was necessary?” I asked Noah Lansing as we turned into an older neighborhood just east of Fairfax City. Lansing had appeared at my apartment right on schedule at six o’clock and had taken me downstairs and out a service door, where he had parked his Explorer in a fire zone. We had taken I-395 to the Beltway and then followed that to Route 50 West, with Lansing glancing into his rearview mirror every few seconds throughout the entire trip.
“Do you think I would put up with all your abuse if I didn’t think so?” he asked by way of reply as he negotiated the curving residential streets along which a variety of two-story brick or brick-and-wood-sided homes sat back among heavy canopies of mature trees.
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