Jeffery Deaver: The Vanished Man

"The information was not the most illuminating."

"For one thing everybody was freaked out."

"The location's not helping." A nod toward a wad of cobwebs hanging from the dark, water-stained ceiling.

"Nobody knew the victim very well. When she got here this morning she walked to the recital room with a friend. She -"

"The friend."

"- didn't see anybody inside. They stood in the lobby for five, ten minutes, talking. The friend left around eight."

"So," said Rhyme, who'd overheard on the radio, "he was inside the lobby waiting for her."

"The victim," the shorter of the two sandy-haired detectives said, "had come over here from Georgia -"

"That's the Russia Georgia, not the peachtree Georgia."

"- about two months ago. She was kind of a loner."

"The consulate's contacting her family."

"All the other students were in different practice rooms today and none of them heard anything or saw anybody they didn't know."

"Why wasn't Svetlana in a practice room?" Sachs asked.

"Her friend said Svetlana liked the acoustics better in the hall."

"Husband, boyfriend, girlfriend?" Sachs asked, thinking of rule number one in homicide investigations: the doer usually knows the doee.

"None that the other students knew."

"How'd he get into the building?" Rhyme asked and Sachs relayed the question.

The guard said, "Only door's open is the front one. We got fire doors, course. But you can't open them from the outside."

"And he'd have to walk past you, right?"

"And sign in. And get his picture took by the camera."

Sachs glanced up. "There's a security camera, Rhyme, but it looks like the lens hasn't been cleaned in months."

They gathered behind the desk. The guard punched buttons and played the tape.

Bedding and Saul had vetted seven of the people. But they agreed that one person – a brown-haired, bearded older man in jeans and bulky jacket – hadn't been among those they'd talked to.

"That's him," Franciscovich said. "That's the killer." Nancy Ausonio nodded.

On the fuzzy tape he was signing the register book then walking inside. The guard glanced at the book, but not at the man's face, as he signed it.

"Did you get a look at him?" Sachs asked.

"Didn't pay no attention," he said defensively. "If they sign I let them in. That's all I gotta do. That's my job. I'm here mostly to keep folk from walking out with our stuff."

"We've got his signature at least, Rhyme. And a name. They'll be fake but at least it's a handwriting sample. Which line did he sign on?" Sachs asked, picking up the sign-in book with latex-clad fingers.

They ran the tape, fast-forward, from the beginning. The killer was the fourth person to sign the book. But in the fourth slot was a woman's name.

Rhyme called, "Count all the people who signed."

Sachs told the guard to do so and they watched nine people fill in their names – eight students, including the victim, and her killer.

"Nine people sign, Rhyme. But there are only eight names on the list."

"How'd that happen?" Sellitto asked.

Rhyme: "Ask the guard if he's sure the perp signed. Maybe he faked it."

She put the question to the placid man.

"Yeah, he did. I saw it. I don't always look at their faces but I make sure they sign."

That's all I gotta do. That's my job.

Sachs shook her head and dug into the cuticle of her thumb with another nail.

"Well, bring me the sign-in book with everything else and we'll have a look at it here," Rhyme said.

In the corner of the room a young Asian woman stood hugging herself and looking out the uneven leaded glass. She turned and looked at Sachs. "I heard you talking. You said, I mean, it sounded like you didn't know if he got out of the building after he… afterward. You think he's still here?"

"No, I don't," Sachs said. "I just meant we're not sure how he escaped."

"But if you don't know that, then it means he could still be hiding here, somewhere. Waiting for somebody else. And you don't have any idea where he is."

Sachs gave her a reassuring smile. "We'll have plenty of officers around until we get to the bottom of what happened. You don't have to worry."

Though she was thinking: The girl was absolutely right. Yes, he could be here, waiting for somebody else.

And, no, we don't have a clue who or where he is.

And now, Revered Audience, we'll take a short intermission.

Enjoy the memory of the Lazy Hangman… and relish the anticipation of what's coming up soon.

Relax.

Our next act will begin shortly…

The man walked along Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. When he reached one street corner he stopped, as if he'd forgotten something, and stepped into the shadow of a building. He pulled his cell phone off his belt and lifted it to his ear. As he spoke, smiling from time to time, the way people do on mobiles, he gazed around him casually, also a common practice for cell-phone users.

He was not, however, actually making a call. He was looking for any sign that he'd been followed from the music school.

Malerick's present appearance was very different from his incarnation when he'd escaped from the school earlier that morning. He was now blond and beardless and wearing a jogging outfit with a high-necked athletic shirt. Had passersby been looking they might have noticed a few oddities in his physique: leathery scar tissue peeked over the top of his collar and along his neck, and two fingers – little and ring – of his left hand were fused together.

But no one was looking. Because his gestures and expressions were natural, and – as all illusionists know – acting naturally makes you invisible.

Finally content that he hadn't been followed, he resumed his casual gait, turning the corner down a cross street, and continued along the tree-lined sidewalk to his apartment. Around him were only a few joggers and two or three locals returning home with the Times and Zabar's bags, looking forward to coffee, a leisurely hour with the newspaper and perhaps some unhurried weekend-morning sex.

Malerick walked up the stairs to the apartment he'd rented here a few months ago, a dark, quiet building very different from his house and workshop in the desert outside Las Vegas. He made his way to the apartment in the back.

As I was saying, our next act will begin shortly.

For now, Revered Audience, gossip about the illusion you've just seen, enjoy some conversation with those around you, try to guess what's next on the bill.

Our second routine will involve very different skills to test our performer but will be, I assure you, every bit as compelling as the Lazy Hangman.

These words and dozens more looped automatically through Malerick's mind. Revered Audience. … He spoke to this imaginary assembly constantly. (He sometimes heard their applause and shouts of laughter and, occasionally, gasps of horror.) A white noise of words, in that broad theatrical intonation a grease-painted ringmaster or a Victorian illusionist would use. Patter, it was called – a monologue directed to the audience to give them information they need to know to make a trick work, to build rapport with the audience. And to disarm and distract them too.

After the fire, Malerick cut off most contact with fellow human beings, and his imagined Revered Audience slowly replaced them, becoming his constant companions. The patter soon began to fill his waking thoughts and dreams and threatened, he sometimes felt, to drive him completely insane. At the same time, though, it gave him intense comfort, knowing that he hadn't been left completely alone in life after the tragedy three years ago. His revered audience was always with him.