Edge by Jeffery Deaver Read Free Book Online

Knight in shining armor.”
    I don’t read much fiction but I enjoy history, medieval included. I could have told her that knight’s armor was the worst defensive system ever created; it looked spiffy but made the warrior far more vulnerable than a simple shield, helmet and chain mail or nothing at all.
    I also reflected that getting shot in the leg seemed like a rather unromantic way to get a spouse.
    As we moved through the cluttered family room, Ryan said, “Here it is, a nice Saturday. Wouldn’t you rather be hanging out with your wife and kids?”
    â€œActually, I’m single. And I don’t have children.”
    Ryan was silent for a moment, a familiar response. It usually came from suburbanites of a certain age, upon learning they’re talking to an unmarried, family-less forty-year-old. “Let’s go in here.” We entered the kitchen and new smells mingled with the others: a big weekend breakfast, not a meal I’m generally fond of. The place was cluttered, dirty dishes stacked neatly in the sink. Jackets and sweats were draped on the white colonial dining chairs around a blond table. Against the wall the number of empty paper Safeway bags outnumbered the Whole Foods four to one. Schoolbooks and running shoes and DVD and CD cases. Junk mail and magazines.
    â€œCoffee?” Ryan asked because he wanted some and preferred not to appear rude, only discouraging.
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    He poured a cup while I stepped to the window and looked out over a backyard like ten thousand backyards nearby. I observed windows and doors.
    Noting my reconnaissance, Ryan sipped, enjoying the coffee. “Really, Agent Corte, I don’t need anybody to stand guard duty.”
    â€œActually I want to get you and your family into a safe house until we find the people behind this.”
    He scoffed, “Move out?”
    â€œShould just be a matter of days, at the most.”
    I heard sounds from upstairs but saw no one else on the ground floor. Claire duBois had given me information on Ryan’s family too. Joanne Kessler, thirty-nine, had worked as a statistician for about eight or nine years, then, after meeting and marrying widower Ryan, she had quit to become a fulltime mother to her stepdaughter, who was ten at the time.
    The daughter, Amanda, was a junior at a public high school. “She makes good grades and is in three advanced placement programs. History, English and French. She’s on the yearbook. She volunteers a lot.” I’d wondered if some of the organizations were hospitals or devoted to health care because of her mother’s death. DuBois had continued, “And she plays basketball. That was my sport. You wouldn’t think it. But you don’t have to be that tall. Really. The thing is you have to be willing to bump. Hard.”
    Ryan now said, “Look, I’m just a cop handling some routine nonviolent cases. No terrorists, no Mafia, no conspiracies.” He sipped more of the coffee, snuck a look at the doorway and added twomore sugars, stirring quickly. “Agent Fredericks said this guy needed the information, whatever it is, by Monday night? There’s nothing I’m working on that has a deadline like that. In fact, I’m in a down period now. For the past week or so, I’m mostly on some departmental administrative assignment. Budget. That’s all. If I thought there was something to it, I’d let you know. But there just isn’t. A mistake,” he repeated.
    â€œI had a principal last year I was protecting.” He hadn’t invited me to sit but I did anyway, on one of the swivel stools. He remained standing. “I spent five days playing cat and mouse with a hitter—a professional killer—who’d been hired to take him out. It was all a complete mistake. The hitter had been given the wrong name. But he would have killed my principal just the same. In this case, it isn’t a hitter