Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(61)

Reluctantly, she picks up the phone. “Allison Taylor.”

“Sorry, we got cut off before,” Manzillo says briskly. “I was asking if you can think of anything else that might help us with the case.”

And I was putting my foot into my mouth, but you apparently didn’t hear any of that.

Relieved, Allison tells him, “No, there’s nothing else. But I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“Do that. And please be careful.”

“I will.”

She hangs up and spins her desk chair to the window, gazing absently at the skyline and thinking about Mack. He’s a stranger and a married man—a widowed man. Newly widowed. Why does he matter so much to her?

Maybe it’s because she recognizes in him a kindred spirit. Like her, he seems alone in the world, whether he really is or not. She sensed it even on Monday night, before his wife went missing—which is odd, when you think about it.

She’s sick of thinking about it.

So think about something else. Anything else.

Realizing she’s gazing out at the Chrysler building spire, she’s glad her office window faces north and not south. At least she won’t have a daily view of lower Manhattan’s scarred skyline.

It’s hard to imagine that just forty-eight hours ago, on a beautiful morning like this one, the clear September sky exploded in flames.

A faint sound reaches Allison’s ears.

Instantly on high alert, she spins abruptly in her chair, looking expectantly toward the doorway.

Beyond lies the bullpen—a large, open space filled with desks, work cubicles, file cabinets, and office machines.

“Hello?” she calls, and waits for a response from a coworker who probably didn’t realize someone else is here on the floor.

But there’s no reply.

Heart pounding, Allison stands.

She’s as certain she’s not alone as she is that terrible things can happen out of nowhere, out of the clear blue September sky.

She sees nothing, hears nothing, but there are countless nooks where an intruder might be hiding, waiting to pounce, waiting to do to her what he did to Kristina Haines.

“Did Mack leave?”

Ben nods, closing the bedroom door behind him and watching Randi pull a sweater over her head.

“Where did he go?” she asks when her head pops out the neck hole.

“Home, he said.”

“I was going to see if he wanted some breakfast.”

“I gave him coffee, and ginger ale,” Ben says, sitting on the bed, “and he barely got that down.”

“Poor guy.” His wife sits beside him. He can smell the lotion she always uses before bed at night and when she gets out of the shower in the morning. The scent comforts him; it always does, especially when he comes home after a hard day at work.

He thinks about Mack, going home to an empty house, and he wonders what he would do if something happened to Randi.

I would die, he thinks, and on the heels of that thought, No, I would go on.

What else is there to do?

Mack . . .

He’ll go on, just like thousands of other people in this city who lost their spouses.

“Ben?” Randi’s shoulder-length dark red hair is mussed from the sweater; he pats a couple of strands into place, then presses a kiss to her shoulder. “What’s that for?”

“I love you.” He rests his cheek against her shoulder, breathing her lotion scent.

“I love you, too, Benjy . . .”

She calls him that when she’s in a good mood or feeling playful and affectionate.

“But I hope you’re not getting any ideas,” she goes on, “because Lexi might walk in any second now.”

“I wasn’t getting ideas, but now that you mention it—she’s watching Blue’s Clues, and we can lock the door . . .”

Randi laughs, giving his head a gentle push off her shoulder.

“Sorry, but you have to go to work, and I have things to do.” She reaches over to the nightstand for her watch. Strapping it on her left wrist, she says, “Tell me about Mack.”

“Thanks for not giving me a hard time about meeting him.” Ben shakes his head. “He was shit-faced by the time I got to him.”

“What’s going on? Besides Carrie, I mean . . . as if that’s not enough. But you said his neighbor . . . ?”

“Was killed.” He nods. When he climbed into bed beside Randi in the wee hours, after wrestling Mack home from the pub and onto the couch, he briefly told her what was going on.

“But not at the World Trade Center on Tuesday,” Randi clarifies.

“No. It happened in her apartment—she lives in his building. I guess someone broke in and killed her.”

“Oh my God. Did he know her?”

“He said he did, but not very well.”

“I’m sure it’s upsetting—I mean, any other time, it would probably be devastating. But with his own wife missing—”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. He told me something about Carrie—you know, why she is the way she is.”

“How is she?”

Ben raises an eyebrow at Randi. “ ‘Standoffish’ is the nicest word I can think of. How about you?”

“Same.” She sighs. “The other one rhymes with ‘witch’ and starts with a B, and now I feel really horrible about ever having said that about her.”