He squeezed her hand again, imagining that he could feel every unique whorl of her fingerprints; he felt like he would know her touch anywhere.
Then he said, “I know I don’t know much about classical music, but isn’t this...”
Aria’s lips pursed out, like she was fighting to hold back a laugh.
“Yep,” she said. “This is a funeral dirge.”
Then she relaxed into a full, easy smile and reached over to take his hand once more.
“You know something?” she added. “I didn’t even hear it.”
/> *
They didn’t use Safe House Thirteen very often. For reasons Colby could understand just fine, most federal witnesses who had put their lives on the line were leery of attracting bad luck.
Gretchen had argued before that they should just do what hotels did with their thirteenth floors—skip it. Go directly from Safe House Twelve to Safe House Fourteen.
But Martin had never caved, always saying that if Thirteen meant bad luck to witnesses, it was good luck to him, because it was a place he’d almost always have open in an emergency.
Colby thought it was good luck for him and Aria, too.
Besides, it was, despite its ominous name, mostly a perfectly nice house: a small, red-brick ranch with friendly green shutters.
Its big problem—which had let the Marshals Office pick it up fairly cheaply—was an asset in their case: whoever had built it had seriously skimped on the windows. It was as dark as a cave inside.
But as far as he was concerned, the more cover, the better.
“There’s a lawn flamingo,” Aria said.
“Gretchen’s idea,” Colby said.
He made a valiant attempt to hoist his bag up over his shoulder before Aria came around the car and took it from him with a look that he could only describe as a loving glare.
Apparently the most helpful thing he could do was explain the flamingo.
“She thinks these places never look lived-in enough to really blend with their neighborhoods, so she goes around and does garden upkeep on all the unoccupied ones and gives them lawn ornaments. Theo and I do Christmas and Halloween decorations for them every year.”
That was actually one of his favorite parts of the job—definitely his favorite part that didn’t directly involve hunting down trouble to help keep people safe.
He had always been a sucker for holiday decorations, but he’d lived in an apartment for the last few years, since his dad’s death, and so he hadn’t had the space to do much.
It was just nice, every year, to take a couple of days and go around with Theo, hanging icicle lights from eaves and carving spooky-faced pumpkins.
“Mattie loves decorating the house for Halloween,” Aria said. “Last year she made about a dozen Styrofoam tombstones for the front yard.”
“Sounds like my kind of kid.”
Just as it had been strange to him that they were now close enough for him to easily, naturally touch her, it was still strange—and wonderful—to him that he could actually imagine helping Mattie with this year’s tombstones and jack o’ lanterns.
He had a family.
They climbed the stairs to the porch and Aria tried the front door. When it didn’t open, she looked around.
“Is there a hide-a-key, or... no, that would be pretty dumb for this kind of thing, wouldn’t it? Do you just carry around a giant janitor-style ring of keys for all these places?”
“Close, but not quite.”
He produced his keys and picked through them until he found the one with the base snug and slip-proof in its little blue hood.