Page 36 of If She Sensed

Kate checked her watch.11:51.Ruth Calder had closed that laptop nearly an hour and a half ago.

She looked around the apartment one more time—at the orderly kitchen, at the small bookshelf near the television held a modest collection: a few novels, some nonfiction, and on the lower shelf a short row of poetry collections with cracked spines, read and re-read by the look of them.

"Dave run that search for us you mentioned.We need an address for Diane Marsh.And the phone number, too.”

“Oh, I have that right here,” he said, and gave it to her.

As he recited it, Kate punched it into her phone right away and place the call.She wasn’t yet sure what she would say.Maybe she’d just tell her to lock the doors and stay put until she and Sloane arrived.But in the end, none of that mattered.The phone rang four times and went to voicemail.

“Got that address,” Dave said.

He started reading it even as Sloane and Kate were already moving to the front door.Kate felt a sudden, building sense of urgency.If Calder was their killer, she had an hour and a half head start and, if Kate was being honest with herself, could have probably already killed Marsh.There was literally no time to waste.

"We don't know she moved immediately," Sloane said, as if reading Kate’s mind."She may have spent time confirming the address.Watching the house first."

"Maybe," Kate said.But she knew she didn’t sound very convincing.

As they hurried out by the building manager, he straightened up and followed after them."Hey," he said."Should I be worried?About the building, I mean.My other tenants."

Kate looked at him, not sure how what he needed to hear—or what the right answer might be.“I think you and your tenants are safe.But if you could keep an eye on this apartment for the next few hours, call me directly."She handed him a card, which he took with both hands and looked at as though he wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up here.

She tried Diane Marsh one final time as she and Sloane made the stairs.She got the same thing as before: four rings, ten straight to Marsh’s voice mailbox.

She put the phone in her pocket and they reached the car at the same moment.Sloane was already on with dispatch, reading out the Ellwood Terrace address in a clear, measured voice and requesting a backup unit.Kate got in, pulled the door shut, and looked straight ahead through the windshield at the quiet parking lot and the darkened windows of Apartment 14C above.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Diane Marsh's house was a butter-yellow bungalow on a narrow street in Carytown.The quiet corner of Richmond was utterly still and silent as Sloane turned onto Marsh’s street at 12:07.Marsh’s front door was painted a deep teal that had faded just enough to look intentional.Mismatched wind chimes hung at one end of the porch railing.A welcome mat with a cat on it sat at the top of the steps, and on either side of the front walk, little garden gnomes looked up to them, smiling their concrete grins.Had they not been here with the intent of trying to keep Diane safe, Kate would have taken a moment to appreciate the whimsical nature of the little figures.

As they came up to the porch—Sloane in the lead with Kate just a few paces behind—Kate saw that the teal door was standing open.It was open four or five inches, angled into the dimly lit interior of the house.Warm, yellow light of the front room spilled out across the porch boards.

Kate tilted her head, focusing…but she could hear no movement from inside.Sloane had already drawn her Glock and approached the door carefully.She looked back to Kate, and Kate nodded for her to continue on.In a consultant role, Kate no longer carried her sidearm, which meant she needed to give Sloane a good amount of space.If things did indeed get dangerous, Kate was Sloane’s responsibility.It made Kate feel like a liability and she was suddenly questioning her choice to even get out of the car.

But it was too late to change her mind now.Their eyes were locked on the gap in the door.As Sloane entered as quietly as a ghost, fast and low and to the right, Kate moved to the opposite side of the frame and waited several seconds.

When she pivoted inside seconds later, she found that the living room was empty.A lamp burned on a side table beside a stack of library books.The television was off, and there was a throw blanket had been pushed to one side as if someone had stood up quickly from underneath it.The place was eerily quiet and had the feel of a moment that had been suddenly interrupted Sometimes it was details such as the throw blanket in the floor that, to Kate, made things feel off.Dangerous, even.

She looked ahead to Sloane, who was moving into the small kitchen area.Kate then registered two things at once.First, Sloane had stopped moving and suddenly went rigidly still.Second, there was a faint noise coming from the kitchen…a low and compressed noise that she recognized as human speech but was barely a voice at all.And then there was a second sound underneath it, steadier and colder.

Sloane moved down the short hallway with Kate moving in closer behind her.Then, in a single, brisk movement, they were in the kitchen doorway and the room resolved itself in a single sharp instant.

Diane Marsh was backed hard against the far counter.Her shoulders were pressed flat to the cabinet doors behind her, a steak knife raised in both hands with the blade pointed outward.Her hands were shaking so badly that the knife trembled visibly, and her face was white and masked in terror that she wasn’t even attempting to hide.She hadn't seen Kate and Sloane in the doorway yet because her eyes were fixed on the center of the room.

Ruth Calder stood in front of Diane with her own knife in her and, for now, was also oblivious to their presence.She was facing Diane with her weight forward and a knife held loosely in her left hand, and even from the doorway Kate could see the staining on the blade, dark and dried and almost certainly not rust.She noted it and filed it away in the same moment, the way she had trained herself to do when there was no time to stop and think.Ruth's face was composed in a way that was more unnerving than any expression of rage could have ever been.She looked as though she had already decided how this moment would end and was only taking these last few moments to savor it.

As Sloane took one single step closer, Diane finally saw them.And when her eyes locked on them and confusion and hope washed over her face, Ruth was also clued in.She turned, and her eyes cut to the doorway for just a second, taking in Kate and Sloane—as well as Sloane’s gun.

She then looked back at Diane as though the armed federal agent it didn't change anything.

“FBI!”Sloane yelled.“Drop the knife and get on the ground!”

When two seconds of silence and stillness had passed, Sloane yelled out again."Ruth.Right now.On the ground!"

Ruth still did not look at her.She kept her eyes on Diane, and in the fraction of a second that followed, something shifted in her posture, a gathering of intention that Kate recognized for what it was half a heartbeat before it became action.

Ruth lunged at Diane.

Sloane had apparently known it was coming because she was already moving.She crossed the kitchen in two strides and hit Ruth from the side with her full weight.The impact was loud and jarring; it carried both of them hard into the kitchen table.The table went sideways and one of the chairs went with it, clattering off the wall.Kate took that chaotic moment to reach out and pull Diane back by the arm.