The house was dark when he went in the kitchen. Janet would be in bed.

She was not a waiter-up. He switched on the light and looked at the kitchen clock: 2:50. He got a can of Miller beer out of the refrigerator and opened it and turned off the kitchen light and sat at the kitchen table and sipped the beer. The outside spotlights were on, and he looked at the roll of his lawn back up to the big white pines that marked the end of his lawn and the beginning of Chris Hood's. The house was still. He looked at the paneled walls of the kitchen and the copper stove-hood and the chop-block counters. Janet had planned it all. And what she made was beautiful always. The house was two hundred years old and she was careful to keep the sense of age even in a modern kitchen. He got up and got another beer. The tingle of panic that he'd felt since Croft had spoken of reprisal had faded. He felt strong and calm in this house, looking out of the darkened room at the lighted green lawn.

He'd do what he must. A man had to do that. He laughed a little to himself. Sound like someone doing a parody of my novels. There was no shame in the fear. But there was shame, he thought, if you let the fear control you. i'LL do what I must. And the police would protect them. He drank some of the beer. He was tired but he no longer felt jittery. The coffee seemed to have lost its sting. Janet won't be too thrilled with a bodyguard. Explain that one to the folks in the department, lovey. He smiled again to himself in the dark, finished the beer. One more can. He imagined his wife giving her course in sexual stereotyping while a swag-bellied cop in a Sam Browne belt and black holster leaned against the door frame. She'll be pissed.