Side by Side

35

Some neighborhoods lend themselves to surveillance. Click Smoot’s wasn’t one of them. On Click’s block, a sidewalk ran only on his side of the street, while the front lawns on the other side sloped up to the home sites from the naked curb.

Click lived at the tail end of a narrow street in a sleepy Charlotte neighborhood, so there was no through traffic to speak of. Here, except when someone had visitors, cars were parked in the garages or driveways. The houses had been built in the 1960s on land that was probably inexpensive. The homes took up no more than a quarter of their well-kept lots, and most of the homes contained young, upwardly mobile couples-with or without children-or older people who had lived there a long time. Winter had seen a thousand neighborhoods like it and knew that the residents might not be on first-name terms, but they would be aware of each other to the point where two strangers sitting in the only parked car on the street were going to be noticed. He also knew that when somebody here called the cops, they came.

If the cops showed up, Winter and Alexa were upright citizens, and there was no law against legitimate citizens sitting in a car talking, or contemplating real estate, or checking the amount of traffic the street saw, or waiting for the Rapture. There was no curfew for white-bread people in white-bread suburban neighborhoods. The problem was that Click would be as likely to notice them here as anyone else. And if the cops pulled up and asked questions, Alexa might end up showing her badge, and the cops might be friendly enough with Click’s family to warn him. They couldn’t take that chance.

The house two up and across the street from Click’s had a steep driveway and a lot of toys in the yard. A Plymouth minivan and a Volvo sedan were shoulder to shoulder at the top of the incline. That driveway seemed the most advantageous spot from which to watch the front of Click’s house.

Winter parked behind the Volvo, the vehicle nearest to the wall of shrubbery, and Alexa parked beside him. They walked to the door and he rang the bell. A tall man in his early thirties opened the door and, when he saw that the people standing on his porch were strangers, dialed down his smile. Somewhere behind him small children were making dinnertime-is-over racket.

“Yes?” he asked.

Alexa held up her badge and his smile vanished behind a cloud of confusion.

“I’m FBI Special Agent Alexa Keen.”

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“No trouble,” she said.

“It isn’t every day the FBI shows up at my door.” His smile was making an effort to come back.

“We’d like to park in your driveway, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Alexa answered. “But it doesn’t involve you, Mr. .?”

“Latham. Charles Latham.”

A blond-haired woman wearing gray sweats appeared at the throat of the hallway. A small child came from the same direction to stand beside her, one hand gripping her mother’s pant leg.

“Charles?” the blond woman said, raising an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“It’s the FBI, Patty,” he told her, then turned back to Alexa and Charles. “Please come in,” he said. “You’re getting wet.”

Alexa stepped inside, and Winter followed her.

The woman approached them, the child shadowing her. She crossed her arms. “What can we do for you?”

“Ma’am,” Alexa said. “We were just asking for permission to park two vehicles in your driveway for a little while.”

“Our driveway? What for?”

“What’s a while?” Charles said.

Alexa shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“And they can’t tell us why,” Charles told his wife.

“I’m sorry,” Alexa said. “I would if I could. Really.”

“I think we should tell them,” Winter said.

Alexa turned her eyes on Winter and cocked her head. After a few seconds, she nodded her approval.

“We’re part of a strike force,” Winter told the Lathams. “We’re staking out a house a few blocks away, and we have about a dozen vehicles that have to stay out of sight until it’s time to converge, when we get the order. We don’t know how long that will take, because we don’t control what the subjects do or when they do it. We’ll be long gone before you wake up in the morning.” Winter turned on his warmest smile.

Patty Latham said, “I don’t have a problem with it. Charles?”

“Fine by me,” he said. “We can sleep soundly knowing we have the FBI watching over us.”

“I’ll make you two a thermos of coffee,” Patty offered. “When you go, just leave the container on the side porch. There’s a half bath just inside the side door. I’ll leave it unlocked in case you need it. Just turn the lock before you leave.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” Alexa said.

“The least we can do,” Charles Latham said.

“And I expect a few ham sandwiches wouldn’t hurt,” Patty said, lifting the towheaded child up onto her hip.

“I can’t see where it would hurt a thing,” Winter agreed.

Raindrops ran down the windows of Alexa’s sedan, creating diffuse golden halos around the streetlights. Winter sat in the front seat with his back against the door, so he could watch the front of Click’s house through the side window. Alexa, in the back seat, exactly mirrored his posture. Winter checked his watch. It was nine o’clock.

“So, how’s having a new baby?” Alexa asked.

“Sort of like deja vu all over again. Only I’m older by fourteen years. I guess I’m paying closer attention this time. Or maybe it just seems like I am.”

“I like Sean,” Alexa said. “I should have known I would. She is totally different than Eleanor, except that she loves your rotten hide as much.”

“You’ll get to know her better, and you’ll like her even more.”

“I thought that, after Eleanor, I would hate whoever you ended up with. Truthfully, I was prepared to dislike Sean. I should have known that anybody you picked out would be a very special person. I can see in her eyes that she worships you. . just like Eleanor did. What is it about you, Massey? Nobody gets two perfect matches. You know what it is, don’t you?”

“No,” he said. “Tell me.”

“If you get two perfect mates, then somebody out there doesn’t get their one. I was furious at you for marrying my roommate. Do you know how hard it was to find another one who was neat, entertaining, and responsible?” Alexa sniffed. “I brought Eleanor home to see the Delta, and she falls in love with you, my other best friend. I never had another roommate who wasn’t a nightmare.”

“I did apologize, and you said you forgave me.”

“I miss Eleanor,” she said, softly. “A day never goes by that I don’t see or hear something that triggers a memory of her.”

“Me too,” he said truthfully.

“I guess you think you loved her more than I did.”

He didn’t answer for a few long seconds. “I loved her as much as it is possible for me to love anyone.”

“And you love Sean that way?”

“It’s not the same and it is exactly the same. Love isn’t like some pie chart with a certain number of slices, Lex. There are degrees, but not that you can measure. I don’t love Sean any more or any less than I loved Eleanor.”

“Loved?”

“Love. I’m still in love with Eleanor.”

“She’s dead, Winter. Can you love a dead person the same as you can a live one? Isn’t it just the memories you love now? Isn’t that a different love? Sean can hold you, kiss you, laugh and cry with you. Do you feel guilty because Sean has taken Eleanor’s place in your life?”

“Lex, can we talk about something else?” Winter felt uncomfortable talking about Eleanor and Sean. Alexa was prying into his heart, and if it had been anyone else he would have been angry at the intrusion. But he knew how much Alexa had loved Eleanor, and that gave her a backstage pass.

“We used to talk about everything and anything, Winter. Have you forgotten?”

“That was a very long time ago.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. The silence that followed was bottomless and he couldn’t make himself fill it by trying to take it back, or make it right.