as she shot him an “Oh, hello there.” She had a glass of sangria in her hand. “Would you like a drink? Oh, look at me, offering you a drink in your own home!”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, you must be Dan.” She pronounced his name with two syllables more than it could carry. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Steffani. That’s two f’s and an i. Enchantée.” She held out her hand. He knew she meant for him to kiss, but he shook it instead.
“So where did you run off to?”
“Traveling,” he said, “For work.”
“Oh yes? What business are you in?” He held back the urge to laugh at how transparent her feigned interest was.
“Cars. Classic. Vintage. Especially American muscle cars from the fifties and sixties.”
She reached out her hand and put it on his shoulder. “I like American muscle...cars.” She emitted a high-pitched laugh, like she had said something hilarious.
“I can send you a catalog,” he said. “Excuse me. I need to go find Jenny.”
Leaving Steffani-with-two-f’s-and-an-i behind, he cut into Jenny’s conversation. “Pardon me, ladies. Could I borrow my wife for one second?”
Jenny looked from him to the ladies. “Excuse me, girls.”
As soon as he got her two steps away, he said, “I need your help with something. Upstairs.”
“Of course,” she said casually, following him up the stairs and into the bedroom. As soon as she had shut the door, he pounced and kissed her, pushing her against the wall. She ran her hands through his hair and his back, feeling his flexing muscles.
“I didn’t know you were having the Real Housewives over,” he whispered between kisses.
“Oh, hush, you,” she said and did it for him with her lips.
“So how was your mission?” she said huskily. “Get a lot of bad guys?”
“I don’t want to talk about them. I’m more interested in this one bad girl.” He ran his hands under her shirt.
“Dan,” she complained through an irrepressible grin. “My guests. They’ll—”
He kissed her neck, and she moaned softly, grabbing his shirt to pull it up over his head.
* * * *
That night found Morgan in Brookline, in a neighborhood that was pure old money, filled with colonial houses with broad yards. It was some of the most expensive suburban square footage in the country.
The afternoon with Jenny—especially her awkward return to the party, adjusting her clothes and pretending they hadn’t been doing what they were just doing—was now a glowing, but regretfully fading, memory.
He drove his Shelby Cobra down Heath Street, where Collins lived. Some two hundred feet from Collins’s gate was a car parked on the street. He made out two men sitting inside as he passed.
He knew a stakeout when he saw one. Morgan drove on.
“We have company,” he said. “Collins’s house is being watched.”
“To be expected,” Bloch said in his ear. “Find your own way in.”
“Gonna have to be the backyard. Shepard, a little help?”
“Take your next right,” the IT wiz instructed. “Park three hundred and fifty feet along—there’s a dark spot there with no security camera coverage. You’re going to have to run through the yard of another house, then jump the fence to Collins’s place.”
Morgan parked where Shepard suggested and approached the house. This wasn’t exactly a high-crime area. The area was surrounded by a low brick wall. Morgan braced against a sycamore tree and hoisted himself, straddled the top of the wall, then pushed off, and landed on the other side.
He ran along the yard and took cover behind the tool shed. “How am I doing?”
“So far, so good,” Shepard said. “But you’re not there yet.”
Morgan looked around the corner of the shed, estimating how far he had to go. The backyard had more open space and was in full view of the back windows of the house.
That’s when he heard it—the muted pounding of paws on the ground, approaching him fast from the direction of the house.
Dog. A Doberman pinscher, to be precise. Sleek black coat, ninety pounds of lean muscle, and a bite made to pulverize bone. His bones, to be precise.
Morgan took off running, moving as fast as he could. He was halfway there when he heard the thump of dog’s paws behind him, getting closer and closer.
Morgan held his breath. He was going to have to time this to the millisecond. He listened for the steps, and then the final one—when the dog launched into the air—before taking a running leap.
Morgan dodged faster than the dog was expecting, and the Doberman caught only air. He stumbled as he fell, causing him to tumble and hit a tree trunk with a whimper.
That gave Morgan the opening to cover the rest of the distance to the fence. As he pulled himself up, he felt a tug at his foot—the dog’s jaw was clamped on his heel. It was growling, pulling. Morgan kicked down, wrenching his foot free, and pulled himself over the fence.
He took a moment’s rest and then, panting, crossed Collins’s backyard to the door.
Collins was divorced, never had any kids. He’d inherited the house, an old redbrick colonial, from his family. Too large for one man to live in alone, Morgan thought. He examined the windows, but they were solid wood, and all were locked. So he went to the back door and picked the deadbolt. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
“I’m in,” he murmured.
He made his way through the house, stepping lightly, trying not to make a sound. It was a real old-fashioned, old-money New Englander—with old wallpaper dotted with paintings of ships and harbors in ornate frames. He moved up creaky stairs, making a vague guess about where Collins’s bedroom was. He hoped he wouldn’t startle the old guy too much, then fully realized where he was, who he was sneaking up on, and acknowledged what would happen if Collins had tried the same thing at Morgan’s house.
Sure enough, when he pushed open the one upstairs door that was closed, Morgan found himself facing down the barrel of a .357 Colt Python snub-nose revolver, held by General James Collins, in a ratty white T-shirt and boxer shorts.
“Crap on a cracker,” the old warhorse rumbled. “Is that Dan Morgan or the tooth fairy?”
“Hello, Jim.”
He didn’t lower the gun. “Are you here to try killing me?”
“Jesus, Jim, of course not. I’m here to talk. “
“Last thing I heard you weren’t in
