Middle Of Nowhere

   "You know what I think, Krishevski? I think you enjoy all the attention, the cameras, the headlines. Seeing your name in print. But the sad truth is you're misusing the trust of your fellow officers—this entire city—for your own personal gain." Boldt picked up the brick off the carpet and placed it on a small end table. He retrieved his gun and returned it to its holster. "Sticks and stones, Mr. Krishevski." He intentionally left out the man's rank. "Be careful what you ask for."

   Krishevski's tension and anger surfaced in his now menacing voice. "Dangerous ground, Lieutenant."

   "A threat?" Boldt fired back, mimicking the man. "Control the troops, Krishevski. Bring in whoever was responsible. Or you and anyone else connected to this will be facing charges."

   "I'm trembling all over."

   Boldt pulled the front door shut with a bang that carried throughout the peaceful neighborhood. He hurried toward the car, anxious to return home and be with his family. Krishevski was a wild card. Boldt knew there was no telling if the threats would stop with blue bricks.

C H A P T E R

5

Cathy Kawamoto ignored the deep, low rumble that had become such a commonplace sound, it could be anything from a passing truck to the garage door opening or closing. She wasn't alarmed. Kawamoto's basement home office felt unusually warm, and she was uncomfortable. She'd heard the phone ring just a minute earlier, but as was her habit, she allowed the machine upstairs to pick up rather than interrupt her work. Her thin fingers danced across the computer keyboard, the translation coming effortlessly now. When the screen briefly went dark she saw herself reflected in its "nonreflective" glass: jet black hair, almond eyes with tight folds of skin that instantly labeled her Japanese. Then another page of text appeared and Cathy Kawamoto returned to her work. Sometimes the translations were of textbooks or technical documents, but her favorites were the American and Canadian romance novels that within a few months would populate the Tokyo subways, read intently by commuting women. At times the torrid love stories became so compelling that she found herself carried away.

   The low rumble stopped and then started again. Cathy paused in her work this time. The sound seemed suddenly close. Perhaps it wasn't simply that the basement was warm, perhaps it was nerves. But then again the rental house was always full of strange noises, especially when her sister was home.

   A flight attendant for Alaska Air, Kira came and went at all hours, for days at a time on an unpredictable schedule that Cathy could neither understand nor attempt to track.

   Footsteps overhead. . . .

   At first Cathy simply glanced up toward the floor joists wondering what Kira had forgotten this time—she had left the house only a few minutes earlier, rushing off somewhere, yelling down into the basement that she was borrowing the car if that was all right. She hadn't waited for an answer. Late again.

   Cathy translated another sentence—Her unbridled passion sought escape—before another squeak in the overhead floorboards once again attracted her attention.

   This time it didn't sound like her sister. Her sister didn't move that slowly. Not ever, especially not when she was late, and she was always late.

   A third careful step overheard. A mixture of curiosity and fear unsettled her. The telephone's in-use light indicated the phone was busy. Cathy felt relief wash over her. It was her sister, after all. Clearly, she had returned home to make a phone call. Cathy sat back down at the computer. But she couldn't concentrate. Something just didn't feel right.

   She felt restless with it, a fire smoldering inside her.

   Her fingers hesitated above the keys, her eyes drift

ing over to the telephone's in-use light. It continued to flash. When the footsteps started up again, left to right, directly overhead, the pit in her stomach became a stone. The kitchen phone was a wall phone, not a wireless walk-around. How could it be in use at the same time someone was walking around?

   The stairs signaled both the direction of movement and the fact that the person up there was heavier than either she or her sister. They normally didn't make noise.

   She thought about calling out, just shouting, "Who's up there?" but she was afraid of giving herself away, letting the intruder know she was at home. She was now allowing herself to think there could be an intruder. The previous night's late news report began to cloud her thoughts. A policewoman had been attacked in her own home. A policewoman!