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immediate gratification. I grabbed Fane by the butt cheeks and shoved his pelvis into mine. Fane inhaled sharply.
    A deafening crash shattered the space around us. At first I thought we’d knocked over a vase, but there wasn’t anything against the wall to break.
    Fane’s head snapped back—eyes wide and alert. I lowered my legs to the floor. They were still shaky. Fane, meanwhile, sprang to action. The muscles in his arms tightened, his nose lifted as though catching a scent right before he stormed down the hallway toward the front door.

5
Red October

    Once my legs were stable, I hurried after Fane. He stopped in the entryway and stared down. There was a baseball-sized rock on the linoleum floor surrounded by shards of glass. Cold air streamed in through the splintered gash in the front windowpane.
    Fane ripped the front door open by the handle. I had to peer around him to see into the street. All appeared quiet in the front yard.
    Fane stepped outside and tramped across the lawn to his car. He stopped in front of the hood and just stared. With my heart lodged inside my throat, I made my way to the Pontiac. It took me a second before I noticed the front windshield had been cracked all across the front.
    Web-like fractures splintered the entire window. The worst damage appeared over the driver’s side with hairline cracks so dense they’d turned the glass white and all but obscured the steering wheel from sight.
    It would have taken a solid object to cause that kind of damage. I looked on the ground, but didn’t see anything. Maybe it had been a baseball bat or the same rock pitched through my windowpane.
    My stomach dropped. A tingly sensation came over me like a sixth sense.
    Valerie. It had to be her.
    She’d threatened Fane Saturday morning. How would she feel if she saw him parked outside my house two days later?
    Two days later.
    I shook my head. She’d been stabbed. Surely she wasn’t already out roaming the streets of Anchorage. Giselle had left her in critical condition Saturday morning. Then again, she’d been rushed to base, where Melcher’s white coats had a lightning-speed knack for bringing agents back from the almost-dead.
    Fane’s jaw clenched as he appraised the damage.
    My stomach double-knotted.
    Valerie—if it was her—couldn’t have known we were kissing. But she would know Fane was inside.
    As Fane moved away from the car, so did I.
    Once we reached the porch, he waited for me to go inside first then looked up at the security cam as he followed me inside. “I need to borrow your laptop,” he said.
    I nodded. “It’s upstairs.”
    As I skirted the broken glass, Fane said, “Be careful.”
    Good thing neither of us had removed our shoes. I hopscotched my way over and around the jagged shards then hurried up the stairs to my room. My laptop was on top of my desk in sleep mode. I unplugged the power cord, closed the lid and clutched the machine against my side.
    When I came back down the stairs, Fane had already begun picking up fragments of glass, which he tossed inside the trash bin we kept beneath our kitchen sink.
    Cold air prickled my skin. Shutting the front door did little good blocking the chilly stream flowing through the gaping hole in the window. A shiver ran down my spine.
    It’s all in your head , I chanted. The cold is all in your head.
    â€œWatch your step,” Fane said. “There’s still glass everywhere.” He straightened up as I moved carefully around the glass to the other side of the hall. “I was just about to phone the window repairman.”
    â€œI’ll call the agency,” I said. “They’ll cover the cost.”
    Fane shook his head. “The less they’re involved, the better.”
    â€œWhat about your window?”
    â€œI’ll take it in for a replacement.”
    I made my way through the land mine of shattered glass a second time to