John Lutz - Fear the Night

“I don’t regard you as a strong suspect,” Meg admitted.

“But you do have a point about copycat murders. The sniper used a different rifle for each murder-that was in the papers, Meg. Have you guys figured out that one yet?”

“We thought he might be a dealer or a collector, only we’ve gone down the list and checked all of them out, and they look clean.”

“Lots of people collect guns and don’t let anyone know. Especially long guns. They’re easier to buy outside the law because they’re mostly used as collectibles or for hunting, not for holding up convenience stores.”

“It could be somebody like that,” Meg said. “There are all sorts of gun nuts.”

He shook his head. “Not a nut, necessarily. Just a collector, a lover of precise mechanisms.”

She looked around at all of his precision tools that he used so precisely. “By nut I didn’t mean wacky, I meant he could be a gun enthusiast.”

“Yeah, enthusiast is better.”

He seemed mollified. Was he a gun nut? It wouldn’t be a surprise-he’d been a SWAT sniper.

Meg knew she shouldn’t be talking about the case this way with Alex. It was because he’d been a cop. That was why, once he got her talking, she couldn’t seem to shut up. She told herself that was the reason.

She stood up from the sofa.

“Not going so soon, I hope,” Alex said. He seemed genuinely disappointed.

“I got answers to my questions,” she said.

“About the theater and typewriter?”

“More or less.”

He moved closer to her, not much, but enough that his presence affected her just the way he planned. Clever bastard. Seducer. Paint thinner never smelled so good. “I’d like to see you again,” he said, “on an unofficial basis.”

“Not wise. Especially not while the Sniper case is hot.”

Now he put on a sad expression. “You don’t even want to see my rocking chair after it gets its final coat of finish?”

She did. Very much. But something told her it was time to leave. It was an instinct she’d learned to trust.

“Sorry, but I don’t have time.” She moved toward the door.

“You’re the first person other than me who’s been in here in months. Usually I don’t show people my work before it’s finished. I don’t want their reaction to influence me.” He reached out and touched her shoulder ever so lightly. “But for you I made an exception.”

“Don’t think of me as an exception,” Meg said. “It doesn’t make sense for either of us.”

“Yet you came here.”

“Yet I did.” She went to the door and opened it. “Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Reyals.”

He was grinning.

“If you ever want to take in a play. .” she heard him say as she went out.

Her heart was banging away like the percussion section of a symphony orchestra as she made her way back downstairs and outside. Seeing Alex had been a mistake, made her infection worse.

I screwed up, coming here, she told herself over and over, crossing the street toward her parked car.

What would Repetto think if he knew about this visit? He wouldn’t buy that additional questions crap any more than Alex had.

I really screwed up!

Candy Trupiano cleared work in progress from her desk and switched off her office lights. It was past seven o’clock in the evening, and workaday New York had wound down. Towering buildings had dropped thousands of people to stream from lobbies and join the rush and roar of the homeward bound. The sun wouldn’t set for more than an hour, but except for the pale fluorescent glow leaking in from the hall, the office was dark.

Everyone else at Hamilton Publications had gone home. Candy’s was one of the few offices that didn’t have a window. She didn’t mind. Until a few months ago she’d been Army National Guard Corporal Candice Trupiano, Second Maintenance and Combat, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Her unit hadn’t left the country, but she’d served nonetheless and was proud of it. And apparently Hamilton Publications was proud of her. Not only had they saved her job while she was away, when she’d returned they awarded her with a sizable raise. This for a twenty-five-year-old associate editor. Old man Hamilton, who owned and ran the company, believed in her, and Candy was happy working hard in her windowless office in order to repay his faith and generosity.

She’d been a more than competent soldier, and the army had tried to convert her to a regular, but she was convinced she’d be a better editor. Besides, it was really what she wanted to do. She loved books and knew the marketplace, had a feel for what people wanted to read. She knew line editing, and she knew how to deal with writers, who could be a persnickety bunch.

Candy was a tall, lanky brunette, with bright blue eyes and a lean jaw. She was reasonably attractive in repose, and when she smiled she became incandescent. In the army she’d learned how to keep herself in top physical condition, and these were habits she didn’t want to lose in civilian life. She worked out three times a week in a gym, and she jogged at least five evenings a week.

After leaving the office and subwaying uptown, she set out walking the three blocks from the stop to her apartment on West Seventy-second Street. Candy wouldn’t have been able to afford the apartment except for her roommate, Annette, an American Airlines flight attendant who was away most of the time. It was an arrangement Candy could live with easily. Annette was working the international flights now and was somewhere in Europe, where she’d remain until later this month. Living with Annette was almost like living alone, only with a DVD collection Candy couldn’t afford.

Candy was moving fast, taking long strides in her jogging shoes that didn’t go well with her businesslike gray skirt and blazer. Her gray high heels were in her baggy black denim attache case, along with the bulky manuscript for The General’s Lover , which was on a fast-track production schedule. She was supposed to finish editing and get the novel back to the author by the end of the week. Not an easy task. It helped that she liked the novel a great deal, the World War Two story of a German general in Paris who fell in love with a French woman he knew was spying for the resistance.

Candy took the five concrete steps to her building entrance with an ease and grace that caused three teenage boys across the street to gawk at her. One of them shouted something she didn’t understand. Just as well.

As she keyed the door to her second-floor apartment and pushed inside, she raised the arm carrying the attache case and glanced at her watch. She should still have time to get in her run in the park before it became dark.

Whenever she got the opportunity, instead of running in the neighborhood, Candy walked the few blocks to Central Park and jogged along the path that followed the park’s perimeter. The distance was 6.1 miles, exactly right for a runner of Candy’s ability to stay in tune, if she ran it often enough. She was proud of her body, of her athletic ability. She’d entered the New York Marathon twice, finishing well back both times, but finishing.

She removed The General’s Lover from the attache case and placed the manuscript on her desk, where she’d work on it later that evening. Then she carried the case, along with her business shoes, into the bedroom.

As she changed into her sweats and training shoes, she glanced at the window. It seemed that the light was already failing, but that was because it was an overcast day.

Still …

For a few seconds she paused. The park could be dangerous after dark; there were people who saw female joggers as prey. Just last month a woman who lived in the next block, over on Seventy-third, was shoved to the ground and robbed at knifepoint near the jogging trail. She might have been killed or raped, if someone hadn’t come along and scared away her assailant.