“Well, maybe. I don’t really—I mean, I’ve never thought of it like that, but I usually do go for my walk after lunch.”

  “Who would have known that?” Hazard asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not helpful.”

  She leaned forward, planting her hands on her knees. “I don’t! Anyone, I suppose. The doorman. My neighbors. Pick someone!”

  “Did you call the police?”

  Loretta’s eyes widened, and her shoulders rolled up. “It was a bad driver in Manhattan. Nobody got the plate. It was over before I even knew what was happening.”

  “So, you didn’t report this to the police?”

  “Later,” Ayelet said. “After the water bottle.”

  Hazard waited.

  “I write in a coffee shop.” Loretta’s hands tightened around her knees. “And yes, it’s a routine. And yes, anyone who wanted to know would know that. The same coffee shop. More or less at the same time.”

  “But not the same days,” Ayelet put in.

  “No, not the same days.” Hazard opened his mouth, but before he could ask, Loretta scowled. “Yes, enough days that someone had a good chance of finding me there.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went to the bathroom. It’s a little place, and the baristas know me. I left my bag and my laptop the way I always do. When I came back, I wrote some more. I buy coffee and a pastry when I work, but I bring my own water—I have an infuser I prefer. I went to take a drink, and—and it was bleach. I spat it out—”

  “Thank God,” Ayelet murmured.

  “—and then I went to wash out my mouth. It was horrible; my mouth was on fire, but at least I hadn’t swallowed any. When I came out of the bathroom, everyone was watching me, of course. I told the barista what had happened. She called the police. The poor thing was so scared she was shaking.”

  “And you?”

  “I was fine. Some minor discomfort that lasted a few days.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I was furious. Naturally. But there wasn’t anything anyone could do. No one had seen anyone tamper with my water bottle. The police took it to test for fingerprints, but they told me the only prints on it were mine.”

  Hazard studied her: the set of her jaw, the line of her shoulders, her eyes like holes made with the end of a pry bar.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  “You said it was a small coffee shop.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The baristas knew you.”

  “Yes.”

  “But no one saw anyone tamper with your belongings.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Someone might have seen something. But you have to understand, I was in the bathroom a long time. People came and went. By the time I told the barista what had happened, anyone could have left without knowing anything had happened. And when I tell you it’s small, it’s small—someone could have been sitting at the table next to mine and been close enough to mess with my water without anyone noticing.”

  “And at this point, you also reported the attempted hit-and-run?”

  “I thought of that the next day,” Ayelet said. “I was up all night after what happened. I was scared to death that Mom had drunk some of the bleach and was going to die.”

  “She worries too much,” Loretta said. “She should be getting in trouble, living her own life now, not tagging along with me.”

  For a moment, something rippled in Ayelet’s face. Then she bit savagely at one nail and looked away.

  “And after you reported the attempted hit-and-run?” Hazard asked.

  “Nothing.” Loretta made a disgusted noise. “They came and talked to me. Took statements. They were professional and polite and sympathetic. The whole time, I knew they thought I was bonko. The only follow-up I ever got was about the fingerprints, and that was only because Ayelet kept calling and asking.”

  Hazard looked at the young woman, but she kept her gaze focused on something out the window. After a moment, he turned back to Loretta. “And the man?”

  “The first time I saw him, he followed me home from the gym.”

  “Why did he stand out?”

  “He’s—he is unusual looking. He wears a mask, I think.”

  Ayelet didn’t say anything, but she gave a tiny shake of her head. Her anemic reflection in the glass mirrored the gesture.

  “He followed you home from the gym. And do you—”

  “Yes,” Loretta said. “Yes, yes, yes. Routine. But it’s not always routine!” She stood and began to pace. “It’s not. He was waiting for me after I met with an editor. Let me tell you, that wasn’t a routine meeting. God, I wish it was. He was standing outside her building, at the end of the block, when I came out. I spotted him right away. I—I got into a cab.” She fumbled at the hem of her shirt, her eyes sliding away from Hazard. “He couldn’t have been there unless he was following me.”

  Hazard shrugged. “I don’t think he needed to follow you. How many people knew about the meeting?”

  “No one!” Loretta let out a sharp breath. “I don’t know, a few people. Me. The editor.”

  “Assistants?”

  “Yes. Hers and mine.”

  “Your agent?”

  Loretta’s smile was cutting. “Former agent. It’s his fault I’m in this mess. He couldn’t sell snow cones in the desert.”

  “Friends?”

  “No. I don’t know. I may have mentioned it at brunch one day.”

  “Ayelet?”

  “Yes, of course. What does that mean?”

  Hazard ignored the question. “And you saw him again, is that correct?”

  “Yes. We were walking home from—where were we coming home from, Ayelet?”

  “We’d gone to Marcy’s.”

  “We were walking home from a friend’s. We had to pass through a sidewalk bridge—you’re familiar with them?”

  “The covered walkways,” Hazard said. “When they’re doing construction work.”

  “And there he was, standing right there.”

  “And Ayelet was with you?”

  “Yes. She told you that.”

  “And you both saw this man?”

  Her voice was ragged with impatience. “Yes.”

  “And you froze.”

  Loretta stopped pacing. She spun toward Hazard. “I didn’t freeze!”

  “Ayelet said—”

  “I was watching him. Waiting for him to make his move.”

  Hazard waited.

  “I don’t freeze, Mr. Hazard. I’ve been in far worse situations. I can keep my head under pressure.”

  Hazard leaned forward, elbows on knees.

  “Freeze,” Loretta muttered, and she turned to glare at Ayelet. “I did not freeze.”

  Ayelet rolled her eyes at the glass.

  “Ms. Ames,” Hazard said, “is there someone in particular you believe might be threatening you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Who would want to hurt you?”

  “Almost everyone.” She spoke as though she were keeping score. “The religious right. Neo-Nazis. The Republicans. The incels. The military-industrial complex. PTOs across the nation. The state of Texas. Every straight, white, cis man who feels entitled to run the world in spite of his own mediocrity.”

  Hazard stood. A spring in the chair, compressed under his weight, squeaked now as it relaxed.

  Loretta eyed him. She crossed her arms. Then she shifted to stand hipshot. Fifty years old and too cool to care; she could probably teach Colt a thing or two.

  “Well?” she finally said.

  “I’ll be frank: I took this job because Ayelet seems to think you’re genuinely in danger. I find it hard to believe. What you’ve told me sounds like someone’s idea for a forty-five-minute episode of Law & Order that my son will make me watch because I lost a bet. The hit-and-run is a joke; if someone wanted to run you down with a car, they would have picked a better time and place, and they wouldn’t have swerved. Same with the water; nobody in their right mind would have believed that bleach in a water bottle would kill you. Hell, it barely inconvenienced you. If anything, it gave you a splash of notoriety and attention. And, of course, there’s this mysterious man following you, even though no one else has seen him, and there’s no explanation of who he might be or what he might want.”

  “He wants to kill me because people are threatened by my work—”

  “Someone used me as their patsy before, Ms. Ames. It didn’t work out well for them.”

  Loretta drew herself up; she wasn’t tall, but she had a ferociously compressed energy—violence in its potential state. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying my assistant is going to kill me, but I’m not going to do this job. You’re not in any danger, Ms. Ames. And if you really don’t know what I’m talking about, then you need to take a close look at the people around you.”

  Loretta watched him for another moment, frozen in that mock-up of nonchalance. Then she whirled and opened one of the two enormous suitcases. She drew out a cardboard box, and she laid it on the desk and opened it. She drew out a twisted length of metal and set it on the desk. Then she drew out a flattened snub of metal that Hazard realized, a moment later, had once been a bullet. She pointed to the twisted metal. “A pipe bomb that someone sent me in the mail when I was in residence at Berkeley. It activated in the department office; the girl opening the mail lost part of her pinkie.” She pointed to the bullet. “I dug that out of a brick in Baltimore after a man tried to shoot me while I was speaking at Planned Parenthood. I’ve lived a long time with people trying to kill me, Mr. Hazard. They haven’t succeeded yet. I certainly don’t need your help or your insinuations.”

  “You just carry those around, is that it?”

  “They’re material witnesses to my struggle. I fight for the oppressed, Mr. Hazard. The oppressor fights back.”

  “And they must make nice props for your ego as well.”

  Loretta’s mouth thinned. She set the bullet back inside the box. It rolled, rattling against the cardboard. She replaced the fragment of the pipe bomb. It clunked when it fell to the bottom of the box. “Goodbye, Mr. Hazard.”

  Hazard let himself out into the hall.

  Ayelet caught up to him at the elevator. Her face was flushed, her eyes full of unshed tears, and she was shaking her head as she sprinted. She skidded to a stop, let out a wet breath, and steadied herself with his arm. “I thought you were—I thought maybe in the lobby—” Then she burst out crying.

  The elevator dinged. The car doors rattled open. She was still crying. A tiny old woman, chinless under a bouffant of yellow hair, stared at them. The doors rattled shut, and with a quiet whir, the elevator car continued on its way.

  “Ms. Ames,” Hazard said.

  She wiped her eyes and dried her hands on the linen smock. “She’s wrong. She’s in danger, in really bad danger, but she won’t admit it. Or she likes it. Or both. This is her thing. And she gets excited. She—she wants it. But this is different. This isn’t someone who’s mad because she came to their school. This isn’t someone who hates her because she’s a lesbian. This is someone who is coming after her, trying to get her, planning.”

  “The attempts—”

  “I know,” Ayelet said, wiping her eyes again. “I know. But someone can be crazy, I mean, mentally ill, and they might not be able to come up with a good plan, and they might not be subtle, but they don’t need any of those things. They have to get lucky. Once. That’s all. Please, Mr. Hazard, I tried to make her see how this was different, and she laughs and tells me I’m a worrier. You saw her. She treats me like a child, and she won’t listen to anyone else.”

  Hazard opened his mouth to say no again.

  “Please?” Ayelet asked. “She’s my mother.”

  And instead of no, what came out was, “She won’t be happy.”

  “Ignore her. She doesn’t have to be happy. It’s two days. Barely two days. More like one and a half. And then we’ll be gone.”

  “When you get back to New York—”

  “I already called someone. Ruff’s—Mother’s agent—”

  “Former agent, I thought.”

  “Yes, well, he’s still a friend. He’s going to set us up with security. It’s going to be fine. Please, Mr. Hazard?”

  “What’s her schedule of public appearances?”

  “Dinner tonight with some of the teachers. Then her talk, that’s at the school. Then a reception at, um, I think the principal’s house. I can send you the schedule. And tomorrow we have an early check-out and go to the airport.”

  “I’ll need the name of the restaurant and any teachers who are planning to attend the dinner. Any other details you can provide.”

  “Of course. I’ll email you whatever I have—will that be all right?”

  “And if it’s not an official event, you stay in your rooms.”

  “She won’t like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter what she likes. I can’t be twenty-four-hour protection. I’ll do my best with the required appearances, but aside from that, she needs to be in the room. I’ll bring by some security bars; it’ll make it impossible for someone to force the door. But that only helps if you can keep her in the room.”

  After a moment, Ayelet gave a nod. “Ok. Yes. She has a manuscript due. Overdue, actually. I’ll make her buckle down and write.”

  “And she has to personalize the book. To Nico.”

  Ayelet’s smile flashed. “I won’t tell her who he is. Sometimes she can hold a grudge.”

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so with the security bars.” Hazard knuckled the elevator call button. “And then I’ll be back again for dinner. Until then, what are you going to do?”

  “Stay in the room.”

  Hazard grunted. He was about to reinforce the point when his phone buzzed. He glanced at it and saw Colt’s name. He put the phone to his ear.

  “If John let you skip school again—”

  “Pops, you need to come to the school right now.” Colt’s voice was tied up with emotion. Fear, Hazard thought distantly. It was like breathing in quicksilver. “The police are here, and they’re arresting Dr. Stratford.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MAY 15

  FRIDAY

  11:27 AM

  WHEN SOMERS PULLED INTO the high school parking lot, he started to swear. An unmarked police car sat in front of the school’s main doors; it belonged to Carmichael and Moraes. Three cars were parked on the other side of the street, and men and women stood by the vehicles, holding up their phones, snapping pictures and doubtless already recording, ready for the shitshow that was about to break open. He recognized Joyce Sturgis in the line of parents, along with her husband Derrick, and several other nut jobs from the school board meeting. Derrick Sturgis turned his phone on the Mustang and started to film Somers, and Somers faced forward and let the mask fall into place.

  Professional, he told himself as he got out of the car. Calm. Collected. You’re the chief of police.

  “Every fucking one of them would look better with their head screwed into their asshole.”

  Somers sighed. He rubbed that spot at the center of his forehead. And then he turned around.

  His husband was a big man, powerfully built—shoulders, sure, and arms, hell yes, but really, God, that ass. At that particular moment, Hazard was crossing the parking lot, keys swinging from one hand, phone in the other, like a personified thundercloud. A thundercloud that never skipped leg days.

  “Ree, I’m going to handle this.”

  “I understand that.”

  “This is a police matter.” Hazard passed him, his long strides eating up the distance to the school. Somers scrambled after him. “Ree, did you hear me?”

  “Yes. I’m not going to make the same mistake, John. I understand that I fucked up last night; it won’t happen again.”

  “Ok, well, I appreciate that, and I’m not happy with—”

  Hazard flung open the door and plunged inside the school. Somers caught it on the rebound and went after him.

  “—I’m not happy with how I acted last night either,” Somers continued in a lower voice, gripping his husband’s wrist and towing him to a halt. “But what I’m saying right now is that this is my business, and I’m going to handle it. That means I need to take the lead.”

  Red slashed Hazard’s cheekbones. His mouth was a razored white line. But he nodded.

  “I am sorry about last night,” Somers said quietly. “Can we talk about it later?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I understand that I overstepped, and I meant it when I said it won’t happen again.” But then some of the cold fire melted, and his mouth quirked. “Although when I told you we could have fun with handcuffs, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  A hall monitor, a dried-up old man about as stiff as broomcorn, was approaching them. Somers squeezed Hazard’s wrist and offered a cockeyed smile. “Well, we’ll just have to try again, huh? Until we get it right, I mean?”

  Hazard rolled his eyes.

  “Any chance I could talk you into going home?” Somers whispered.

  “Colt’s upset.”

  “Yeah,” Somers said, swallowing the sigh. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Chief Somerset, you’ll need to sign in here—” the hall monitor offered a clipboard in one trembling hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Somers said. “I don’t think there’s time for that.”

  “Have you considered a digital sign-in station?” Hazard asked. “Not only would your records be timestamped—”

  There was more, but Somers tuned it out as he tugged Hazard into motion and set off toward Theo’s classroom.

  They got there as Miranda Carmichael was guiding Theo, handcuffed, into the hall. Carmichael was petite, built like a gymnast, and in a suit that was slightly too large for her, with her hair cut short, she might have passed for a kid playing at cops-and-robbers. But she wasn’t a kid, and gray at her temples gave her away. So did the self-satisfaction on her face. When she pushed a little too hard and moved a little too fast, Theo stumbled.