she wanted to take it off for the day.
When she slid open the mirrored closet door, she was face-to-face with a
crouching man all in black and wearing sun glasses.
On yet one more tour of the downstairs, Hatch decided to turn off the
lamps and chandeliers as he went. With the landscape and exterior house
lights all ablaze but the interior dark, he would be able to see a
prowler without being seen himself.
He concluded the patrol in the unlighted den, which he had decided to
make his p guard station. Sitting at the big desk in the gloom, he
could look through the double doors into the front foyer and cover the
foot of the stairs to the second floor. If anyone tried to enter
through a den window or the French doors to the rose garden, he would
know at once.
If the intruder breached their security in another room, Hatch would
nail the guy when he tried to go upstairs, because the spill of
second-floor hall light illuminated the steps. He couldn’t be
everywhere at once, and the den seemed to be the most strategic
position.
He put both the shotgun and the handgun on top of the desk, within easy
reach. He couldn’t see them well without the lights on, but he could
grab either of them in an instant if anything happened. He practiced a
few times, sitting in his swivel chair and facing the foyer, then
abruptly reaching out to grab the Browning, this time the Mossberg
12-gauge, Browning, Browning, Mossberg, Browning, Mossberg, Mossberg.
Every time, maybe because his reactions were heightened by adrenalihe,
his right hand swooped through darkness and with precise motions came to
rest upon the handgrip of the Browning or the stock of the Mossberg,
whichever was wanted.
He took no satisfaction in his preparedness, because he knew he could
not remain vigilant twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He had
to sleep and eat. He had not gone to the shop today, and he could take
off a few days more, but he couldn’t leave everything to Glenda and Lew
indefinitely; sooner or later he would have to go to work.
Realistically, even with breaks to eat and sleep, he would cease to be
an effective watchman long before he needed to return to work.
Sustaining a high degree of mental and physical alertness was a draining
enterprise. In time he’d have to consider hiring a guard or two from a
private security firm and he didn’t know how much that would cost. More
important, he didn’t know how reliable a hired guard would be.
He doubted he would ever have to make that decision, because the bastard
was going to come soon, maybe tonight. On a primitive level, a vague
impression of the man’s intentions Bowed to Hatch along whatever
mystical bond they shared. It was like a child’s words spoken into a
tin can and conveyed along a string to another tin can, where they were
reproduced as dim sounds, most of the coherency lost due to the poor
quality of the conductive material but the essential tone still
perceptible.
The current message on the psychic string could not be heard in any
detail, but the primary meaning was clear: Coming… I’m coming… I’m
coming…
Probably after midnight. Hatch sensed that their encounter would take
place between that dead hour and dawn. It was now exactly 7:46 by his
watch.
He withdrew his ring of car and house keys from his pocket, found the
desk key that he had added earlier, opened the locked drawer, and took
out the heat-darkened, smoke-scented issue of Arts American, letting the
keys dangle in the lock. He held the magazine in both hands in the
dark, hoping the feel of it would, like a talisman, amplify his magical
vision and allow him to see precisely when, where, and how the killer
would arrive.
Mingled odors of fire and destruction one so bitterly pungent that they
were nauseating, others merely ashy-rose from the crisp pages.
Vassago clicked off the fluorescent desk lamp. He crossed the girls
room to the door, where he also switched off the ceiling light.