Keeper of the Bride. Tess Gerritsen

too long. There’d been the occasional woman, of course, but none of them had ever lasted. Too often, he had to admit, the fault lay with him. Or with his work. They couldn’t understand why any man in his right mind would actually choose to stay with this insane job of bombs and bombers. They took it as a personal affront that he wouldn’t quit the job and chose them instead.

      Maybe he’d just never found a woman who made him want to quit.

      And this is the result, he thought, gazing wearily at the basket of unfolded clothes. The swinging bachelor life.

      He left the washing machine to finish its cycle and headed off to bed.

      As usual, alone.

      THE LIGHTS WERE ON at 318 Ocean View Drive. Someone was home. The Cormier woman? Robert Bledsoe? Or both of them?

      Driving slowly past the house in his green Jeep Cherokee, he took a good long look at the house. He noted the dense shrubbery near the windows, the shadow of pine and birch trees ringing both edges of the property. Plenty of cover. Plenty of concealment.

      Then he noticed the unmarked car parked a block away. It was backlit by a streetlamp, and he could see the silhouettes of two men sitting inside. Police, he thought. They were watching the house.

      Tonight was not the time to do it.

      He rounded the corner and drove on.

      This matter could wait. It was only a bit of cleanup, a loose end that he could attend to in his spare time.

      He had other, more important work to complete, and only a week in which to do it.

      He drove on, toward the city.

      AT 9:00 a.m., the guards came to escort Billy “The Snowman” Binford from his jail cell.