Edge

into well-honed exasperation.
    “You’ll have fun. Now go pack. Bill’ll be here any minute.”
    “Fun,” she muttered sarcastically. As the daughter left, I asked the Kesslers, “Any other close relatives in the area?”
    Joanne blinked in surprise. “Oh, my God. My sister. I forgot about Maree.” It was an odd name, Marr -ee. “She’s been staying here for the past month. She’ll have to come with us.”
    “Is she out?” I asked. I’d seen no other signs of life in the house.
    “No, she’s still asleep.”
    “My sister-in-law’s a night owl,” Ryan explained.
    “Wake her up,” I said. “We have to leave. . . . Oh, and don’t let her use her mobile.”
    Joanne blinked at the urgent instructions. She nodded to a tray on the island. “That’s her phone there.” I shut it off, removed the battery and slipped it into my bag. Joanne stepped into the hall and I heard her footfalls on the stairs.
    Ryan went into the den and began filling a large briefcase and a shoulder bag with paperwork. TheMetropolitan Police logo was on many of the documents. I continued my inquiry about other relatives who could be used as an edge. Ryan’s parents had passed away. His brother was in Washington state. Joanne’s father and his second wife—he was a widower—lived in the area but they were on vacation in Europe. Maree was her only sibling. Joanne had never been married before.
    “Does Joanne have children?” I asked.
    He hesitated for a weighty second. “No.”
    The Kesslers would have friends, of course, but lifters usually had little success using people who weren’t blood kin for edges.
    Another glance outside, across the backyard. Two doors down a man coiled up a green garden hose, wrapping it leisurely under his elbow and between finger and thumb. Another neighbor was taking down screens. One house nearby was quiet, though a window shade moved slightly.
    “That house behind you, kitty-corner, to the left? Are the residents home today, as far as you know?”
    Ryan looked where I pointed. “Yeah, I saw Teddy this morning on his way to Starbucks.” Then he glanced at the doorway to see if his wife was out of earshot. “You know, Corte, this world . . . what you and I do? Joanne can’t handle it well. Things freak her out, things we don’t even think about. Sometimes she even leaves the room when the news comes on. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that in mind.”
    “Sorry. I’ll make sure of it.”
    “Thanks.” Ryan smiled and went upstairs to pack.
    In fact, I’d been much more blunt with sensitiveJoanne than I needed to be—so that Ryan would do what he just had: asked for that very favor, which I’d agreed to. Solely for the purpose of getting him more on my side.
    My phone buzzed and my audible caller ID said through my earbud, “Fredericks.”
    I hit ANSWER . “Freddy.”
    “I’m pulling in the driveway, Corte. Don’t shoot me.”

Chapter 5
    I NEVER UNDERSTOOD the FBI agent’s compulsive joking. Perhaps it was to protect himself, the way not joking is some kind of shield for me. I found it irritating but I didn’t have to live with him, the way his wife and five children did, so I tried not to let it bother me.
    I told him, “Come in the front,” and disconnected.
    At the door I greeted the tall, white-haired agent. Claire duBois, whose quirky mind had a habit of prodding her to make odd but accurate observations, once said of Freddy, “Did you ever notice that the best FBI agents look like TV Mafia dons and the best Mafia dons look like TV agents?” I hadn’t but it was true. Solid and columnar, ever in low gear, the fifty-five-year-old Paul Anthony Xavier Fredericks was a long-timer in the Bureau; he’d worked nowhere else after his graduation from college. He stepped into the house, accompanied by a younger agent. Both followed me into the kitchen.
    Special Agent Rudy Garcia was in his late twenties. Scrubbed and reserved, he’d clearly been military before the Bureau. Quick eyes, unsmiling and married, he wasn’t, I judged, the sort to have a goodtime going out for a beer with. But, then, I’ve heard the same about me.
    “The Kesslers’re packing. Any word from West Virginia?”
    A shrug said it all. I hadn’t expected much. An unidentified vehicle, an unknown route. Loving was invisible.
    “What do you think, Freddy, about his ETA?”
    “At least two hours plus till he gets to Fairfax, at the earliest,” the agent said, reading the framed news