Seven Minutes to Noon

ninth.”
    “So close,” she said, “but do you really think—”
    “Nuh uh, sweetheart. Today we squash the Evil Empire.”
    Mike was a lifelong Red Sox fan, having grown up just outside of Boston. Simon, however, was an ardent Yankees fan, having dubbed himself a born-again New Yorker as the father of an essentially American child who he felt needed a team affiliation.
    “Mike, listen—” Alice began, but before she could complete the thought, he interrupted in a whisper:
    “I called the travel agent. We can get flights out tonight—”
    “We can’t,” Alice stopped him. “I have to explain this to you. Come.”
    She took his hand and led him into the living room, where Dana had seated herself at the piano. Hands cupped over the keyboard, she began to play lightly and beautifully. A sonata, Alice thought, possibly Mozart.
    “Impressive,” Alice said after.
    “I wish I’d taken my lessons more seriously.” Dana lowered the keyboard cover and ran her hand gently over the gleaming wood. “My mother told me I’d regret it, and I do.”
    Mike and Alice sat together on the emerald-green velvet sofa. Dana got up from the piano and faced them in a sapphire-blue wingback chair with tassels dangling off the seat. She sat with her feet planted on the floor, Alice noticed; the ankle holster would show if she crossed her legs. Alice filled Mike in on her visit to Judy Gersten’s house, the articles in the newspaper, Julius’s attack on their front door, the restraining order, her meeting afterward with the detectives, the true identity of her stalker. Everything. Dana chimed in only when it came time to describe the plan.
    In the morning, they would return to the precinct to prepare for Alice’s visit to Cattaneo & Son to try to find out where Sal Cattaneo was positioned in the web that had swallowed three women and a baby girl.

Chapter 29
    Mike and Alice held hands as they walked with Dana through the increasingly sultry morning to the Seventy-sixth Precinct. Mike had insisted on coming along and Alice was grateful, her sense of heroism vanquished by yet another bad night’s sleep. “I can’t go to the workshop,” he told her, “when you’re going undercover.” When he said that word, undercover, it really sank in. What she was about to do could be provocative, even dangerous. She had agreed to wear a wire on her visit to Sal Cattaneo, the local butcher — and what else?
    Down in the precinct’s basement was a small room that was empty except for a table and a tall metal cabinet with double doors padlocked together in the middle. Giometti undid the lock and opened the metal doors. Inside were shelves neatly stacked with electronic devices Alice didn’t recognize. Frannie and Giometti selected equipment from the shelves and laid it out, piece by piece, on the table. Dana meanwhile foraged through another cabinet for an assortment of fresh batteries. Long thin wires were attached to a two-inch-long, rectangular transmitting device. At the end of one wire was a tiny black microphone, the size and shape of a button.
    Giometti squatted down and rummaged around the bottom shelf. “Found the tape.” He stood up holding a roll of black electrical tape, which he handed to Frannie.
    “The department’s got a requisition in for fully wireless, you know, modern equipment,” she said to Aliceand Mike. “But this being New York City—” she shrugged. “Maybe next year.”
    “Something to be said for the tried and true, though,” Giometti said. “We know this set works .”
    As the three detectives proceeded to assemble the listening device on the table, separating wires and testing batteries, Alice began to think about the last two weeks. She felt like she had passed through a lifetime in fast-forward, uphill all the way, carrying a ton of stone on her back. Though she was nervous about today, even scared, it was a relief to have been deemed not only sane but able. Tired and scared. But not insane.
    Sitting on two chairs the detectives had set up for them, Alice was surprised by the sudden warmth of Mike’s hand slipping into hers. She squeezed his hand, greedily drinking in the rich warmth of Mike’s skin, the solidity of his bones and muscles. He leaned closer, twinning himself to her until it would be time for her to go the next step alone. She wished he could go with her but knew it was impossible; a woman alone was vulnerable, and that was the whole idea.
    “Okay, ladies,” Giometti