The day after Aminata Diallo's murder resembled the one before.
Her brother and Carter settled into a routine of sorts: Abou spent the whole shift behind bars at the station again, squatting silently against the wall at the back of the eight-by-twelve cube, watching the motley array of cops and citizens parade through the squad room.
His long legs doubled inside the circle of his arms, Abou's face remained as blank as a washed chalk board. He seemed the perfect witness: impassive, non-judgmental, clear-eyed and clinical.
Carter brought him Szechuan-style beef and broccoli plus a double order of white rice for lunch and the same again for dinner. Fusco gave him two bagels and a chocolate-covered doughnut, but Abou only ate the gooey dessert.
Then she took him home with her as darkness fell.
When they first walked through the door, she thought John had broken into her apartment again, the re-shuffled pillows and overturned candles suggesting he had made a clumsier than usual tour of her space.
Or perhaps he had brought the dog as a go-between again.
But when she saw Taylor's upended mattress and the spider web fracture in his laptop screen she knew she was gravely mistaken. Books, clothing, jewelry, cleaning products and towels were strewn from the living room in a crooked line to her bed.
The collection of antique cologne bottles on her dresser was smashed and every bar of soap in her bathroom had been unwrapped and thrown into the toilet bowl.
She was furious rather than scared; they were messing with her home, her things, her life.
Her shriek of frustration brought Abou galloping to the bathroom, where he leaned against the door frame whimpering.
"What is this all for, Abou?"
She tried to keep the accusing tone out of her voice, but seeing him shrink under her glare she knew it was there.
"Who are these people? What do they want from you?"
He remained mute, staring at her with popping eyes, which only made her anger throb painfully in her chest.
To avoid saying anything hurtful, she swept from the room in search of a whisk and dustpan to deal with the shards of sweet-smelling glass on the dresser top.
xxxxxxxxx
She had fished three bars of soap from the toilet when her cell phone buzzed.
"Detective, are you all right?" Finch sounded distant, tinny, and brusque.
"Oh, sure, peachy. And you?"
He adjusted his voice to bring in warmer tones. "We just wanted to make sure everything was alright. Your shouts a moment ago sounded ominous."
"Eavesdropping again? You know, Harold, all your dramatics? They don't impress me anymore. I mean, why would I sound ominous?"
She exhaled a dry huff which didn't come off as casual as she had hoped.
"Someone broke in, ransacked my place, smashed up my stuff, destroyed Taylor's computer."
"Who did?" Now he sounded tense again.
"I have no idea, Harold. I figured you were calling to tell me all about it. You gotta have some fancy gadget which can determine the identity of punk break-in artists, don't you?"
"Did they take anything, Detective? Or leave a message?"
Before she could answer, she heard the muffled fragments of Finch's caution to John: "...at home…she's not…No need to…"
She echoed Finch's instruction. "Tell John he doesn't need to come over here to inspect in person."
"I'm afraid he has already left for your location. I expect you can reassure him yourself in about half an hour."
xxxxxxxxx
Since she was trying to downplay the incident, Joss made sure to clean up most of the mess by the time John arrived at her door.
She and Abou wrestled the mattress back into place on Taylor's bed and she refolded all of the towels and clothing into neat piles.
But then a visceral disgust took over.
She decided she wanted to throw out all the tainted things so she roved from room to room gathering every item touched by the intruders into big black trash bags.
She was bow-tying the fourth sack when John burst through the apartment door.
The dark set of his eyebrows and the pinched cast of his mouth told her that he was braced for a fight, either with the invaders or with her.
"I didn't do it, Boss. We're all friendly Indians here, don't shoot!" She wanted to deflate the tension with a joke so she held up her hands in mock surrender.
But John was not appeased or amused. Wordlessly, he inspected every corner, prowling from one end of the apartment to the other with Abou in close pursuit, before returning to the living room where she waited.
She assumed his scowl was directed at her and the faint clucking sounds were expressions of disgust at how thoroughly she had removed all evidence of the break-in.
When he finally spoke, his voice bristled with anxiety.
"You and Abou need to move out tonight. You can't stay here."
"That's not happening, John. So you need to get another plan or get on outta here."
He took a breath to argue, but she cut him off.
"Why should I leave my own home, just because some two-bit thugs looking for easy cash broke in?"
"Did they take anything, Carter?"
"No."
"Not the TV? Not even your grandmother's jewelry?"
"No."
"Then use your head. They weren't hopped up kids looking to feed a drug habit, were they?"
Conciliatory at last, she sat down hard on the sofa and gestured at the wing chair opposite.
But John took her hand, led her to the master bedroom, and closed the door.
"Abou doesn't need to hear this right now."
The concern in his gray eyes frightened her.
"What do you know, John? What are you keeping from me?"
She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed while he paced from the bathroom door to the closet.
"We don't have the complete picture yet. Just the outline. But we know that the people who killed Amie want to eliminate Abou as well. She must have known something, or suspected something, or overheard something that implicated these people.
"So they killed her to shut her up. Now they want to do the same to Abou. "
He paused, his gaze a bolt of such ferocity that she swallowed hard twice.
"And you're standing in the way, Joss. They will kill you too, if they have to. I can't let that happen."
She couldn't argue anymore; his mysterious information and rock-solid certainty trumped her objections.
She didn't want to die, she didn't want Abou to die, she trusted John to protect them.
But then her cop instincts kicked in, she refused to take this affront passively. The good police in her wanted an alternative plan to simply fleeing the apartment with her tail between her legs.
This break-in was in plain daylight, she contended, rushing on before John could object. Therefore it was only a warning, meant to announce an intimidating presence.
The apartment was being watched, she was sure of it. If the three of them stayed in place, they might be able to lure the attackers back for a second attempt.
Abou would be the bait, she and John the trap.
She wasn't budging. Her plan made sense, at least a little. So they agreed that he would spend the night, a sentinel at the door guarding against another intrusion.
The sleeping arrangements were quickly settled: John on the sofa in the front room, Abou in his place at the foot of Joss's bed.
While she prepared to retire, the boy talked happily with the man for an hour in the living room. Both of them sat on the floor, backs leaning against the sofa's apron, legs sprawled out before them.
She couldn't see their heads from the hallway, but she assumed their shoulders were touching as they chatted away at a furious pace.
After she brushed her teeth, she removed her revolver from its locked drawer and positioned it in the bedside table. Rather than her usual tank top and shorts, she chose a billowing flannel gown which would let her turn freely in a fight.
As she moved around her bed, she caught through the open door snatches of the musical mix of the four languages John and Abou knew in common, a bright stew of laughter seasoned by somber phrases and a scattering of sobs.
Turning off the lamp in her bedroom was apparently the signal that their conversation could end, because shortly before she drifted off to sleep, she heard Abou crawl to his place on the floor below her bed.
She slept fitfully, but each time she awakened, she was comforted again by the soft wet snuffling sounds of the witness she was determined to protect.
xxxxxxxxx
She wasn't really surprised when John slipped into bed behind her, somewhere deep in the night.
He had shed his jeans and t-shirt before sliding under the heavy quilt. The hand on her hip felt as hard and familiar as his body when he drew her toward him.
No kiss, no embrace, no request. He was impatient and aroused, as turned on as she was after ten days separation.
Settling between her thighs, he pulledthe bedcover over their heads, trapping the rough scent of sex in a heated cloud around them.
"John, I don't know…"
"I do."
He pressed into her with a sudden thrust, answering her qualm with this silent exclamation of his own.
Immediately they vaulted from disorganized gallop to full-out stampede, careening for the cliff together. No gamboling play or leisurely teasing reined in their head-long charge toward climax.
Her flannel nightgown bunched between their torsos, chafing them, exciting them. With the cloth covering her breasts he could grapple in a wild manner, twisting and plucking at the rigid nipples until a shocked groan escaped her mouth.
At that, he clapped a hand over her quivering lips. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, teeth sharp as spurs against the tender skin there.
With his tongue whipping her throat, she felt rather than heard his single word incantation: Joss, Joss, Joss.
One raw syllable for every thrust, on and on he drove, until she arched and convulsed under him. He bucked and then stilled inside her as they tumbled silently into the burning void together.