Manhattan Is My Beat

suitcase and purse away from Rune.
    From the car that had just driven up, a woman’s voice said to Dixon, “Come on, Haarte, you’re standing right out here in broad daylight. There could be cops any minute. Let’s go!”
    Rune stared at the woman; it was Emily. And the car she was driving was the green Pontiac that had tried to run her and the other witness down at Mr. Kelly’s apartment.
    Wrong place, wrong time
…
    Phillip—or Haarte—opened the back door of the Pontiac. He shoved Rune inside, tossed her purse and suitcase into the trunk. Haarte got into the backseat with Rune.
    “Where to?” Emily asked.
    “Better make it my place,” he answered calmly. “It’s the one with the basement. Quieter, you know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
     
    Lost in a forest.
    Hansel and Gretel.
    Rune stared at the ceiling and wondered what time it was.
    Thinking how fast she’d lost track of the hours.
    Just like she’d lost track of her life over the past few days.
    It reminded her of the time she was a little girl, visiting some relatives with her parents in rural Ohio. She’d wandered away from a picnic in a small state forest. Strolling for hours through the park, thinking she knew where she was going, where her family’s picnic bench was. A little confused maybe but, with a child’s confidence and preoccupation, never even considering that she was lost. Never knowing that hours had passed and she was miles away from her frantic family.
    Now she
knew
how lost she was. And she knew, too, how impossible it was to get home again.
    Welcome to reality, Richard would’ve told her.
    The room was tiny. A storeroom in the cellar. It had only one window, a small one she couldn’t possibly reach, barred with twisty bars of wrought iron. Part of the concrete floor was missing. The dirt beneath was overturned. When Haarte had shoved her into the room she’d noticed
that
right away: the dug-up dirt. She told herself it was just because he was doing some work down there. Replacing pipes, putting in a new concrete floor.
    But she knew it was a grave.
    Rune lay on her back and looked at the cold streetlight coming through the unreachable window.
    Back-street light.
    Light to die by.
    There was a sudden metallic snap, and she jumped.
    A shuffle of feet outside the door.
    A second lock clicked and the door opened. Haarte stood in the doorway. He was cautious. He looked around the room, maybe to see if she’d rigged any traps or found any weapons. Then, satisfied, he nodded for her to follow. Tears of fear pricked in her eyes but she wouldn’t let them fall.
    He led her up some rickety stairs.
    Emily’s attention was on her. She was amused, studying Rune like a real estate agent appraising an apartment. When Rune hesitated outside the doorway Haarte pushed her in. Emily didn’t seem to like that but she didn’t say anything.
    No one spoke. Rune felt the tension in the air. Like the scene inside the bank in
Manhattan Is My Beat
where the cop is staring down the robber. His hand is out, not moving, saying over and over, “Give me the pistol, son. Give it to me.” The lighting shadowy and stark, the camera moving in close on the muzzle of the .38.
    Would the robber shoot or wouldn’t he? You wanted to scream from the tension.
    Haarte pushed Rune into a cheap dining-room chair, stared down at her. She whimpered, feeling not the least bit adult.
    But then, from somewhere in her mind, an image came. An illustration from one of her fantasy books. Diarmuid. Then another: King Arthur.
    She ripped his hand off her shoulder. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled.
    He blinked.
    Rune waited a moment, staring into his eyes, then walked slowly to the chair. She adjusted it so she was facing Emily and sat down, then said in a sly, tough, Joan Rivers voice, “Can we talk?”
    Emily blinked then laughed. “Just what we had in mind.”
    Haarte pulled up a chair and sat down too.
    Rune kept spinning the sole bracelet on her wrist, slipping it on and off. Trying to be tough, looking as hip and cynical as she could. The silver ring spun. She looked down and saw the hands clasped together. She tried not to think about Richard.
    Emily said, “We need to know who you told about Spinello and about me.”
    Rune snapped, “You killed Robert Kelly. Why?”
    Emily looked at Haarte. He said, “You could say that it was his fault.”
    “What?”
    “He moved into the wrong apartment,” Emily said. “We felt bad. I mean, it looks bad for us. To