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“You get hurt in the bomb?”
“No.”
“You sound odd.”
I gave a short, choked laugh. “I feel odd.”
“I wish I was there—”
“I’m tired. I’ve got—”
“—just to help you.”
“—to go.”
The silence was awkward. Chester was a recluse, but he always managed to drag himself to come comfort me when a postcard arrived. I knew rejecting his offer would hurt him.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’ve had a rough day.” He was always so understanding.
“Thank you.” I hung up.
For a moment, I looked around blankly. Donald, my solar-powered goldfish that I kept in the bowl on the coffee table, swam round and round, trapped in water, bathed in the sun pouring in the big window. It was simpler not to own real pets. Real things died on you.
The only personal thing in the room was the big sheet of white cardboard where I’d stuck everything I knew about my stalker, connected the sticky notes with neatly drawn arrows then added notations. A serial-killer diagram. I’d always assumed my SK had done the crime more than once and that he killed his victims. It’d seemed a given. I’d made it after too many episodes of the detective series,Castle. I was sure there was a clue there; I just had to find it.
I rifled around in my handbag and found the card. I would thumbtack it to the board later. Everything had its place here. The world might be disorderly, but I wasn’t.
But right now, bed called.
I leaned my handbag against the bedside set of drawers and placed the Ruger revolver on top of them, then I sat on the edge of the mattress and shucked off my shoes.
I had my little routines. Bag and gun stayed here, keys were in the kitchen. If I ever bought a car, I’d keep those keys in the handbag too. I was wired for escape—so-so on the defense. I’d taken some self-defense classes, but I’d walked away learning I could still lose a mismatched fight. So, gun it was.
Or sword, or knife.
The unexpected thought took my breath away.
Where had that come from? I couldn’t use those, could I?
The weight of the hilt of a basket-hilted schiavona settled in my palm.
A memory. Amazed, I stared at my empty hand and flexed it. I’d known one intimately. Cared for it daily. Used it. Killed with it. An Italian sword with a hilt as elegant as a Fabergé egg.
And today I was mostly crazy.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Poor Prometheus.
And now I remembered obscure poetry.
The quilt subsided, soft and cool under my back, and I finally did what I’d been aching to do and picked up the knife.
The whole weapon was as long as my hand plus a few inches more. The curve was a pleasing sort of shape and the metal a soft, silver tone that made me cruise my fingertips quietly down the back of the blade.
A thrill ran all the way from my nipples to between my legs.
Okay, I’m still weird.
