Edge

His eyes took in the dirty dishes, seemed to notice them for the first time. “What’re you suggesting?”
    “You, another officer and I’ll form the guard detail. We’ll get you and your family into a safe house that’ll give us a defensive advantage over Loving. My people and the Bureau’ll try to take him on the street or his hidey-hole, if they can find him. But if he gets through, and he could, I’ll need you. I have a safe house in mind that’ll be perfect.” I was speaking very softly now, making clear that what I was asking was off the record.
    “You sound like you’ve been up against this guy before.”
    I paused. “I have, yes.”
    As he debated, a female voice came from the hallway: “Ry, those men’re still out there. I’m getting—”
    She turned the corner and stopped quickly, glancing at me with narrowed brown eyes. I recognized her face immediately from the photos duBois had uploaded to me. Joanne Kessler. In runningshoes, jeans and a dark zippered sweater sprouting a few snags, Joanne had a handsome, though not pretty or exotic, face. She got outside a lot, sun wrinkles and tan, gardening, I guessed, from the short nails, two of which were broken. She didn’t seem athletic, although unlike her husband she was slim. The hair was dark blond, frizzy and long, pulled into a ponytail. She wore glasses, which were stylish, but the lenses were thick, a reminder of her prior career. If anybody looked like a statistician for the Department of Transportation, it was Joanne Kessler.
    Her face had registered a moment of shock seeing me—apparently she hadn’t heard me arrive—and then went completely blank. Not stony or cold in anger. She was numb—a bookish woman, I guessed, who’d been thrown by these events.
    “This is Agent Corte. He works with the Justice Department. He’s a bodyguard.”
    I didn’t correct Ryan about my title or employer. I shook her limp hand and offered a momentary smile. Her eyes remained uninvolved.
    “Mrs. Kessler—”
    “Joanne.”
    “You’re familiar with the situation?”
    “Ry told me there’s been some mixup. Somebody thought he was being threatened.”
    I glanced at Ryan, who tipped his head in response.
    I kept a calm visage and said to Joanne, “There may be a mixup, yes, but the fact is that there’s no doubt a man has been hired to get information from your husband.”
    Her face deflated. She whispered, “You think we really might be in danger?”
    “Yes.” I explained about lifters and Henry Loving. “A freelance interrogator,” I summarized.
    “But you don’t mean he tortures people or anything like that, do you?” Joanne asked softly, her eyes eerily emotionless as she stared at her husband.
    I said, “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Chapter 4
    “ SOME LIFTERS BRIBE , some threaten, some blackmail with embarrassing information,” I explained. “But the man who’s after Ryan, yes, specializes in physical extraction.”
    “‘Physical extraction,’” Joanne muttered. “‘Specializes.’ You make it sound like he’s a lawyer or doctor.”
    I said nothing. In this line you look for anything to help you do your job. It’s like the games I play—board games exclusively. I like to see my opponent. I learn a lot, noting body language, verbal language, eye contact, clothing. Even breathing patterns. I had to convince the Kesslers that they needed me. I made a decision based on what I’d learned just now. I spoke to them both, though directed most of my attention to the wife.
    I said evenly, “Loving’s low-tech. Usually he uses sandpaper and alcohol on sensitive parts of the body. Doesn’t sound too bad but it works real well.”
    I tried not to picture the crime scene photos of the body of my mentor, Abe Fallow. I wasn’t very successful.
    “Oh, God,” Joanne whispered and lifted her hand to her narrow lips.
    “A lifter’s basic technique is ‘getting an edge,’ asin getting the advantage over you. In one job where I was protecting someone from him, Loving was going to break in and torture a child right in front of the father he wanted information from.”
    “No,” Joanne gasped. “But . . . Amanda. We have a daughter. This is . . .” Her eyes swung from one part of the room to another, then settled on the sink and the dirty dishes. Almost urgently, she stepped forward, grabbed a pair of yellow kitchen gloves, pulled them on and twisted the hot water faucet open wide. This happened a lot,