There wasn’t any need for it. Milton was still waiting patiently in his cruiser—a glance at his watch told Joe she’d been inside for maybe an hour and a half—and Joe saw him quite clearly as he opened his door and stepped out onto the street for a moment to say something to Nicky. Then he saw the light come on in her car as she opened the driver’s door, saw her glance prudently into the backseat, and saw her close the door, turn the lights on, and drive away, with Milton in patient pursuit. She was safe. Only then did Joe go back inside his house, feeling more on edge than he had in a long time. Introspection wasn’t his thing—he wasn’t much into exploring his inner landscape, as one of the shrinks they’d sent him to had put it—but he had experienced this particular sensation a time or two before, so he knew it for what it was: the deep, soul-wrenching loneliness that came from realizing that in this world of couples and families and webs of connected hearts, there was nobody, not one single solitary soul, he could truly call his own.
