“Wipe that grin off your face,” the old man snapped. “You’ve been eyeballing the young lady since the last stop. You should get off here…” It didn’t sound like a request.

  The watcher just shrugged. He reached out, patting the old man on his shoulder. The accuser stiffened as the watcher slipped by. He kept staring at the girl, even as he disembarked. He watched the way she let out a faint huff of relief and turned to thank the old man once he’d left the train onto the platform.

  What neither of them saw, of course, was the way he hurried two doors down and boarded again—the very same train. One hand stowed his small journal. The other touched at the items in his pocket. Another phone—similar to the first. And his favorite knife.

  He couldn’t help himself. He smiled again, two compartments down from where his target still read her stupid pink book. Her superhero with his stupid flat cap got off at the next exit.

  No more protectors now.

  He watched through the passengers, eyes never leaving her, waiting as the train continued. He would have waited for hours, for years…

  Luckily, he didn’t have to.

  The young woman jerked up at the voice announcing over the intercom. She quickly closed her book, unfolded those long, smooth legs of hers, and hastened toward the exit.

  He watched through the window as she disembarked.

  And then he followed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Adele noted the way her footsteps almost created an echo in the nearly empty underground platform. The high ceiling flickered with long tube bulbs. A row of lockers was visible around the edge of a three-walled segment near one of the tunnels. Police stood by the lockers, while a forensics team picked through the crime scene.

  Further away, behind a support column, as if intending to hide the view of the lockers, a woman was sitting in a plastic folding chair, sipping on something warm. A female police officer sat next to her, occasionally murmuring some soothing comment or jotting something down on a notepad.

  “Our witness,” John grunted at her side, nodding toward the woman behind the pillar.

  Adele hesitated briefly, taking a couple of steps to the right to scan the crime scene itself. She spotted the same locker that had been in the high-definition, glossy crime scene photos provided by Foucault. She also noted streaks of red down the front of the unit. Behind the three-sided partition, more officers were moving through a small, cramped hall.

  “Body was found back there,” Adele said, pointing.

  “Finger there.” John nodded at the lockers. “Body there.” He glanced down the hall. “Why separate them if he’s going to keep them so close together?”

  “A message?” Adele said. She bit her lip. “Think you could speak to forensics?”

  John glanced at her. “You want to talk to the witness alone?”

  “She’s scared,” Adele said. “And you have something of an intimidating presence.”

  John grunted, already turning to stalk away toward the crime scene. “Intimidating presence,” he muttered as he left.

  Adele watched the tall man leave, noticing he was already attracting attention from the other law enforcement officers, and then she turned, moving hastily toward the victim in the folding chair. As she drew nearer, she heard the female officer saying, “DGSI is almost here. I’m sorry, Ms. Lorenz—it shouldn’t be much…” The policewoman paused, regarding Adele as she drew nearer.

  A flash of Adele’s identification received a quick nod. The officer made to rise from her seat, as if to offer it, but Adele just held out a hand and gave a quick shake of her head.

  The woman in the folding chair glanced between the two of them nervously. “C-can I go now?” she asked. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Adele studied the woman with a quick once-over. Amber Lorenz, according to the initial report, had been traveling late the previous night; more accurately, early this morning. She’d been the one to find the body. And she looked like it. Every bit as flustered and frazzled as Adele might have expected.

  “Apologies, Ms. Lorenz,” Adele said softly. “My name is Adele Sharp, and I’m with the DGSI. Do you mind if I ask you a couple more questions? The moment we finish, I’ll ask this nice officer to drive you home.”

  The policewoman flashed an encouraging smile, nodding at the witness. Behind them, Adele could hear the mutter of voices as police navigated the crime scene.

  She focused her attention on their witness. “I’m told you got off the train at half past midnight.”

  Ms. Lorenz let out a shaking sigh as if resigning herself to the inevitable. She gave a brief shake of her head, her short hair moving less than it might normally have when not sweaty and unkempt. Ms. Lorenz had pleasant features, round cheeks and eyes with far more wrinkles than someone her age should have carried.

  “It was closer to one,” Lorenz said softly. “The train was running late.”

  “And is that when you found the body?”

  “Umm… not at first. No. I went to get an overnight bag for my daughter.”

  Adele made to turn, glancing past the large column toward the three-sided partition by the tunnel wall. “And that’s when you found the finger?”

  “Y-yes,” Ms. Lorenz said, biting her lip, her voice as shaky as her trembling hands. She clasped her palms together, folding them in her lap if only to hold them still. She swallowed and added, in a small voice, “It was so… shocking. I didn’t even know what it was at first.” She sobbed, but inhaled a shaky, steadying breath and pressed on. “But it was the camera that I noticed first.”

  “The phone?”

  “Yes. It was facing toward me. And then… then it began to ring.”

  “The voice,” Adele continued, her tone low, soothing, “what did it sound like?”

  “At first… at first I thought it was a child… But the police say—” She glanced at the officer in the second chair. The woman nodded sympathetically and looked up at Adele, some of her neat brown hair tucked back in a bun falling out of place, over an eye. She huffed a breath, lifting the fallen bangs and hastily stowing them back in her scrunchy as she said, “We believe he’s using a voice scrambler. Probably something he downloaded online.”

  “Tech working on it?”

  She nodded.

  Adele nodded. The woman’s report matched what she’d read in the file. Which was to say, there wasn’t much to go on. Now, she glanced back at the officer.

  “Do you still have the phone?”

  She nodded, waving past the column toward forensics. “Yes, ma’am. But we couldn’t track it.”

  “I know,” Adele said. “Saw that. But I was wondering more about—”

  “No serial number either. He burnt it with acid.”

  Adele huffed, nodding again, glancing back at the witness. Her stomach twisted and turned, and she winced as she shifted her weight, her hand darting instinctively to her ribs. Down here, alone, late at night, she couldn’t help but imagine the woman’s fear when finding the finger. Then the creepy voice over the phone leading her to the rest of the body in the closet.

  The killer was clearly trying to make an impression. A run-of-the-mill sadist? Or something else?

  She shook her head… Why sever the finger? Just to add to the ghastly spectacle, or an intentional attempt to befog the crime scene?

  She glanced back at their witness. “Anything else you can think of? Did you see anyone down here?”

  The woman hesitated, glancing off in the opposite direction for a moment as if envisioning something. But then she seemed to think better of it. “No one was here… I mean, the janitor but he was leaving.”

  Adele gave an encouraging smile. “No one by the lockers? No one in the hall? Did you see anyone watching you?”

  Each question was rewarded with a nibbled lip and a quick shake of the head.

  Adele found her frustration mounting, but she kept it in check. There was no reason to make this woman feel worse. She glanced around the station now. The killer had burned the serial number of the burner phone. He hadn’t stuck around to be seen. He was cautious, careful. There simply wasn’t much to go off from the witness testimony.

  It made sense, in a way. The killer had wanted his murder discovered by this woman. Which meant he would have taken great pains to avoid her finding anything he didn’t want her to know.

  She needed a better witness. A less tired, less scared witness.

  Her eyes flitted up, scanning the ceiling. Two spots where she glimpsed round, domed lenses blinking down at her.

  Cameras.

  It was worth a shot.

  Adele flashed another quick smile at the witness, hoping it was received as reassuring rather than queasy. “Thank you,” she said quickly. “I appreciate your time.” She glanced at the golden name tag of the accompanying officer. “Officer Francois will take you home.” She said it lightly with a quirk of an eyebrow, simultaneously offering and requesting to the two listeners. The policewoman nodded once, and Ms. Lorenz melted in her chair, emitting a long sigh of relief.

  Adele gave a quick nod of gratitude, but as she turned, she paused, frowning. “Excuse me—quickly, is the station manager down here?”

  Officer Francois hesitated as she rose from her seat. But then she nodded quickly, pointing toward a man standing by the edge of the platform and speaking animatedly with, of all people, Agent Renee.

  “Thanks,” Adele said. Then she turned curtly and marched back in the direction of her partner. Before she drew close, she hesitated, pausing long enough to gather her breath, to allow the tightness in her ribs to recede again. Once she was sure her stitches weren’t ready to split, she picked up the pace again, glancing every so often to the ceiling, searching out the cameras.

  Two—no, three. Three eyes in the sky.

  If anyone would be a reliable witness, it was these glassy black domes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As she approached Agent Renee and the station manager, she caught a bit of their conversation. Given John’s personality and the manager’s posture, she wasn’t stunned to detect a note of acid.

  “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, young man!” the manager exclaimed, his voice like a whip. “What exactly are you implying?”

  John paused. Most people would have considered words to defuse the situation. John, though, blunt as ever, answered the question directly. “Incompetence,” he said simply. “How is it possible that two of your cameras aren’t working?”

  Adele winced at these words, approaching now.

  “Not two! Not two!” the manager exclaimed, waving a finger beneath Renee’s nose like a conductor’s wand. “Just one. That one.” The finger now jammed skyward to a camera facing the stairs. “Last week someone threw a rock at it.”

  Adele leaned in, clearing her throat as she neared. Both men turned to look at her, wearing matching glowers. She held up her hands as if surrendering. “Don’t shoot,” she said. “I come in peace.”

  She took a moment to acknowledge the manager. He rocked on his heels, his back to the train tracks with an ease and indifference born of familiarity. Adele, on the other hand, was always uncomfortable near train tracks. As a child, she’d once been told that stepping on the metal would electrocute her. To this day, she wasn’t sure if her mother had just been lying to try and keep her safe.

  She wasn’t about to test the theory.

  Instead, she returned her attention to the manager himself. He wore a bright crimson tie tucked inside a green V-neck sweater. His arms were crossed, the baggy sleeves half rolled up his forearms. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the two of them, his gaze whipping back and forth in anger.

  “Is this your ape?” he asked Adele, pointing to John.

  Renee flashed his teeth as if about to bite the waving finger.

  Adele interjected quickly, “You know what they say. Don’t touch the animals.” Cautiously, she stepped between the two men. “As luck would have it, sir, I also want to know about the cameras. You are the manager, yes?”

  “Gerard Barras!” he snapped as if it were an obvious answer she ought to have inferred from the ether. “I run this station and six like it. And until today, I haven’t had any murders. Not until you showed up.”

  Adele sighed. “We show up after the murders, Mr. Barras.”

  “And who exactly are you?”

  “DGSI,” she replied.

  “Never heard of it.”

  She frowned. “You are… French?”

  He shrugged.

  She sighed. DGSI had only been in operation for the last fifteen or so years. The federal bigwigs were still doing their best to establish their bona fides. Even the building they worked from was a newer acquisition.

  She said, “Be that as it may, what do you mean your cameras aren’t working?”

  “Not cameras,” he snapped. “Camera! Like I told the ape—”

  “Careful,” John growled.

  The manager continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “Only the one. And only because a vandal hit it last week.”

  “A vandal?” Adele said quickly. “What type of vandal?”

  John shot her a look, his eyebrows inching up as he seemed to realize what she was getting at. It seemed, in Adele’s estimate, mighty coincidental that a camera had been broken a week before the attack.

  “We don’t know,” Barras continued with a sniff, adjusting the sleeves of his V-neck sweater. “He stayed on the stairs, out of the line of sight. Then the image cracked.”

  “What about those other two?” she said.

  He glanced up, following her pointed finger. “Yes—they’re working. That one faces the rails, though.”

  “And that one? The one near the lockers?”

  He followed her gaze and sighed. “I—I… do you have a warrant?”

  “Sir,” Adele pressed, “is there a reason you don’t want us to see the footage?”

  “No!” he exclaimed. “No, of course not. Happy to help the GDI.”

  “DGSI.”

  “Whatever. Do you have a warrant? A judge’s order?”

  “No sir. We’re in an active crime scene, investigating. We may have to extend that investigation to these other six stations you manage if we can’t expedite this,” Adele spoke smoothly. Normally she wouldn’t have leaned so heavily in her first salvo. But he had called her boyfriend an ape, twice, in her presence. And while she knew John’s feelings were too underdeveloped to possibly get hurt, she took pride in being the only one allowed to tease him.

  The manager’s face fell. He muttered a couple of times but then sighed. “When do you need it by?”

  “Five minutes ago,” John growled.

  Mr. Barras’s cheeks were as red as his tie. He glanced past Renee toward the other police in the crime scene, and up the hall by the closet as if looking for a manager of his own to speak to. But when no one caught his eye, or even so much as glanced in his direction, he gave a deflated little sigh and held up the same waving finger. “One moment,” he muttered. He gave a sniff, adjusted his tie, and marched off along the edge of the tracks toward a small office space.

  Adele watched him retreat, then looked to John. “Making friends?”

  He glared. “I blame my intimidating presence.”

  Adele snorted. “Anything over there?”

  He shook his head, glancing toward the hall. “Body was moved already. Forensics is dusting everything. Just cleaning products. Blood was cleared too.”

  Adele sighed. “Lockers?”

  “Nada. What about the witness?”

  “She’s scared. That’s about it. Killer used a voice scrambler. Seemed to get off on frightening her.”

  “Yeah—sounds about right. Sicko.”

  Adele didn’t dispute this assessment. She and Renee both turned at the sound of quick footsteps. The short man in the crimson tie was huffing and puffing as he marched back in their direction, carrying a large tablet screen with an orange case. His combover lifted with each hurried motion. The short walk from the office seemed to have winded the man, and a faint stain of sweat was already forming under his neck along the edge of his undershirt collar.

  Adele watched as Mr. Barras stopped, jamming the tablet toward her as if it were a tray of prison food. “There,” he snapped. “First video was of the broken camera. Nothing to see—like I said. Second video from last night. Hours of footage. There’s nothing. We already have been over it internally. Three times.”

  Adele nodded, impressed. “You guys move fast.”

  He glared at her. “Can we open the station again any time soon? We’re going to miss morning traffic. We need both lines going to—”

  John cut him off by snatching the tablet from his hands and turning it so Adele could see. The two of them leaned in, peering at the device. The first image was of a crowded underground station. Scores if not hundreds of people moved up and down the stairs, hastening through the terminal.

  A few seconds passed, and then Adele spotted a quick motion and then the image went fuzzy. She looked at John. “Go back.”

  “What’s the magic word?” he muttered.

  “Hurry.”

  John smirked but hid it as he swiped his finger back a few seconds. He slowed the speed and the two of them watched closely. Foot traffic moved in and out of the station. Nothing happened at first. Then something large obscured the camera.

  “What is that?” John asked.

  Adele frowned. “Rock,” she said.

  The manager huffed. “Yes, yes—the vandal threw a rock. We found it after. But there’s nothing to see—like I said!”

  John shrugged, but Adele reached out, swiping back again. This time, she slowed the footage even further. Again, the rock appeared. She quickly tapped the pause button. “There!” she said, pointing.

  John, and even the manager now, leaned in, staring.

  It was barely a blur of black. But a figure was standing on the bottom of the steps. The footage was grainy and obscured. But Adele pointed. “His hand—see it?”

  “I see pixels,” John said.

  “It’s the little dot of white against the black outfit.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21