Free Night Work by Steve Hamilton Page A

common sense, it would finally pay off. And how.
    God, I missed her so much. What was I thinking with the blind date already? That two years was enough time to get over what happened to her? That I could move on with my life like a normal human being?
    Without looking at the clock, without thinking about it, I picked up the phone and dialed Marlene’snumber again. I wanted to talk to someone, to hear a live voice. That’s all I needed. The phone rang four times, then the machine picked up.
    “It’s Joe again,” I said. “Sorry if it’s late. I was just worried about you, I guess. I wanted to make sure you’re all right. And, um …”
    And what?
    “And I just wanted to say good night before I went to bed. That’s all. Give me a call if you get in. If you feel like it. Take care. Good night.”
    I hung up the phone. Another dazzling display of human smoothness, I thought. She’ll be so impressed with you.
    “Leave yourself alone,” I said out loud. “For one night, leave yourself the hell alone.”
    I cracked the window open, felt the hot night air come in. As I looked out at the lights on the street I imagined Sandra sitting in a strange room somewhere, in the women’s shelter, the secret safe house where the Protective Services people hide the women from their men. What a foreign new world they find themselves in, this underground railroad, staying inside all day so nobody sees them, waiting for the slow wheels of justice to turn so they can start to have a normal life again. The man arrested, put through the wringer, restraining orders issued and read out loud to him. Or if he’s bad enough, if he’s unforgivable and unredeemable and for some technical reason they still can’t put him in jail … Then they send the woman as far away as possible,steal her away under cover of night and hope the man never, ever finds her.
    Laurel did this. It was her calling in life, and how many times did she bring the stress of the job home with her? Enough to make me realize that being a probation officer wasn’t nearly as tough. For every woman she saved, there was a man who felt wronged by it. Until one day, she took the wrong woman from the wrong man …
    He’s still walking around out there, whoever it was who killed her. Some ex-husband or ex-boyfriend or ex-whatever the hell else, driven mad by rage and humiliation, to the point that he’d actually track down my Laurel, the woman who ruined his life, and kill her in cold blood. That’s the angle the Westchester PD has been following for the past two years, anyway. They’ve been going over every case, every single man who had ever laid a finger on a woman who ended up turning to Laurel for help. Where else could they look? If it was just some random homicidal lunatic, somebody who happened to see her on the street one day … How do you find someone like that?
    I was starting to feel a little dizzy. Definitely way too much alcohol tonight, which I’d probably be paying for tomorrow, when Anderson got his hands on me again. I turned out the lights and lay down on the bed. The room wasn’t exactly spinning, but it wasn’t completely stationary, either. You are such a lightweight, Ithought. What would happen to you if you really crawled into that bottle?
    That’s when I heard the noise down on the street, the unmistakable sound of somebody racing a hot car right up Broadway. I found myself hoping that he’d get pulled over, but then the noise stopped, and I could have sworn the car was right below my window.
    I got out of bed and looked down at the street. The car was parked, one wheel on the sidewalk, facing the wrong way. The motor was still running. My window was still cracked open, so all I had to do was poke my head out, let the driver know just how big a jackass he was. Then I recognized the car. It was Howie’s civilian vehicle. Before I could process that fact, Howie himself stepped out. He moved quickly, looking like he was about to go around to the