Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

But why the bathroom?

The freaky moon face looked at her with its curious gaze, almost malevolent. It reminded her of the faces of the children along the roadside, their mouths curved into an expression that wasn't quite a smile; you had no idea what was going on in their heads. When they looked at you, were they seeing their saviors? Their enemy? Or creatures from another planet?

Lucy decided she'd call Bob or her mother and ask about the clock. She went into the kitchen. She made the tea and carried the mug into the bathroom, the phone too, and ran water into the tub.

Wondering if her first bubble bath in months would do anything to wash away the bitter fog.

On the street in front of Lucy's apartment Vincent Reynolds watched two schoolgirls walk past.

He glanced at them but felt no deepening of the hunger already ravaging his body. They were high school kids and too young for him. (Sally Anne had been a teenager, true, but so had he, which made it okay.)

Through his cell phone, Vincent heard Duncan's whispered voice. "I'm in her bedroom. She's in the bathroom, running a bath… That's helpful."

Water boarding…

Because the building had a lot of tenants, and he could easily be spotted picking the lock, Duncan had climbed to the top of a building several doors down and made his way over the roofs to Lucy's, then down the fire escape and into her bedroom. He was real athletic (another difference between the friends).

"Okay, I'm going to do it now."

Thank you…

But then he heard, "Hold on."

"What?" Vincent asked. "Is something wrong?"

"She's on the phone. We'll have to wait."

Hungry Vincent was sitting forward. Waiting was not something he did well.

A minute passed, two, five.

"What's going on?" Vincent whispered.

"She's still on the phone."

Vincent was furious.

Goddamn her…He wished he could be there with Duncan to help kill her. What the hell was she doing making phone calls now? He wolfed down some food.

Finally the Watchmaker said, "I'm going to try to get her off the phone. I'll go back up to the roof and come down the stairs into the hallway. I'll get her to open the door." Vincent heard some rare emotion in the man's next comment. "I can't wait any longer."

You don't know the half of it, thought Clever Vincent, who surfaced momentarily before being sent away by his starving other half.

Stripping for her bath, Lucy Richter heard another sound. Not the ticking of the moon clock. From somewhere nearby. Inside? The hallway? The alley?

A click. Metallic.

What was it?

The life of the soldier is the sound of metal on metal. Slipping the long rounds of rifle ammo, fragrant with oil, into the clips, loading and locking the Colts, vehicle door latches, fueler's belt buckles and vests clinking. The ring of a slug from an AK-47, dancing off a Bradley or Humvee.

The noise again, click, click.

Then silence.

She felt chill air, as if a window was open. Where? The bedroom, she decided. Half naked, she walked to the bedroom doorway and glanced in. Yes, the window was open. But when she'd glanced in earlier, hearing the ticking, hadn't it been closed? She wasn't sure.

The Lucy commanded: Don't be so damn paranoid, soldier. Getting pretty tired of this. There're no IED's, no suicide bombers here, no bitter fog.

Get a grip.

One arm covering her breasts-there were apartments across the alley-she closed and locked the window. Looked down into the alley. Saw nothing.

It was then that somebody began pounding on the front door. Lucy spun around, gasping. She pulled on a bathrobe and hurried to the dark foyer. "Who's there?"

There was a pause, then a man's voice called, "I'm a police officer. Are you all right?"

She called, "What's wrong?"

"It's an emergency. Please open the door. Are you okay?"

Alarmed, she pulled the robe belt tight and undid the deadbolts, thinking of the bedroom window and wondering if somebody'd been trying to break it. She unhooked the chain.

Lucy twisted the lock, reflecting only after the door began to push open toward her that she probably should've asked to see an ID or a badge before she unhooked the chain. She'd been caught up in a very different world for so long that she'd forgotten there were still plenty of bad people stateside.

Amelia Sachs and Lon Sellitto arrived at the old apartment building in Greenwich Village, nestled on quaint Barrow Street.

"That's it?"

"Uh-huh," Sellitto said. His fingers were blue. His ears, red.

They looked into the alley beside the building. Sachs surveyed it carefully.

"What's her name?" she asked.

"Richter. Lucy I think's her first name."

"Which window's hers?"

"Third floor."

She glanced up at the fire escape.

They continued on to the front stairs of the apartment building. A crowd of people were watching. Sachs scanned their faces, still convinced that the Watchmaker had swept up at the first scene because he intended to return. Which meant he might have remained here too. But she saw no one that resembled him or his partner.

"We're sure it was the Watchmaker?" Sachs asked Frank Rettig and Nancy Simpson, cold and huddling next to the Crime Scene rapid response van, parked cockeyed in the middle of Barrow.

"Yep, he left one of those clocks," Rettig explained. "With the moon faces."

Sachs and Sellitto started up the stairs.

"One thing," Nancy Simpson said.

The detectives stopped and turned.

The officer nodded at the building, grimacing. "It won't be pretty."

Sachs and Sellitto ascended the stairs slowly. The air in the dim stairwell smelled of pine cleanser and oil furnace heat.

"How'd he get in?" Sachs mused.

"This guy's a ghost. He gets in however he fucking wants to."

She looked up the stairwell. They paused outside the door. A nameplate said, Richter / Dobbs.

It won't be pretty…

"Let's do it."

Sachs opened the door and walked into Lucy Richter's apartment.

Where they were met by a muscular young woman in sweats, hair pinned up. She turned away from the uniformed officer she'd been talking to. Her face darkened as she glanced at Sachs and Sellitto and noticed the gold badges around their necks.

"You're in charge?" asked Lucy Richter angrily, stepping forward, right in Lon Sellitto's face.

"I'm one of the detectives on the case." He identified himself. Sachs did too.

Lucy Richter put her hands on her hips. "What the hell do you people think you're doing?" the soldier barked. "You know there's some psycho leaving these goddamn clocks when he kills people. And you don't tell anybody? I didn't survive all these months of combat in the goddamn desert just to come home and get killed by some motherfucker because you don't bother to share that information with the public."

It took some time to calm her down.

"Ma'am," Sachs explained, "his M.O. isn't that he's delivering these clocks ahead of time to let people know he's on his way. He was here . In your apartment. You were lucky."

Lucy Richter was indeed fortunate.

About a half hour ago a passerby happened to see a man climb onto her fire escape and head for the roof. He'd called 911 to report it. The Watchmaker had apparently glanced down, realized he'd been spotted and fled.

A search of the neighborhood could find no trace of him and no witnesses had seen anyone matching the Watchmaker's image on the computer composite.

Sachs glanced toward Sellitto, who said, "We're very sorry for the incident, Ms. Richter."