Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

Receipt from drugstore on Upper West Side.

Book of matches from restaurant on Upper East Side.

Shoes with bright green paint.

Empty gallon jug of alcohol.

Pet hair roller.

Beige gloves.

No fingerprints.

Fire extinguisher residue.

Empty box that contained fire extinguisher.

Extinguisher to be alcohol incendiary device?

Other:

Murdered a student near the church, was a witness.

Local precinct is checking.

Vehicle is a stolen, dark blue Buick.

Murdered driver.

Searching-carjackings, homicides, missing persons.

Emergency Vehicle Locator ordered; no hits yet.

Sarah Stanton walked quickly over the frozen sidewalk back to the Midtown office building where she worked, clutching her Starbucks latte and a chocolate chip cookie-a guilty pleasure, but a reward for what would be a long day at the office.

Not that she needed a tasty incentive to get back to her workstation; she loved her job. Sarah was an estimator for a large flooring and interior design company. The mother of an eight-year-old, she'd gone back to work a few years earlier than planned, thanks to a tough divorce. She'd started as a receptionist and moved her way up quickly to become the head estimator for the company.

The work was demanding, a lot of numbers-but the company was good and she liked the people she worked with (well, most of them). And she had flexibility with her hours, since she was in the field a lot, meeting with clients. This was important because she had to get her son dressed and ready for school, then escort him all the way to Ninety-fifth Street by 9 A.M. and then head back to Midtown for her job, the timetable subject always to the whims of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Today she would work more than ten hours; tomorrow, she was taking off entirely to go Christmas shopping with her boy.

Sarah swiped her entry card and pushed through the back door of the building, then performed her afternoon workout routine-walking up the stairs to her office rather than use the elevator. The company took up all of the third floor but her workstation was in a smaller office, which occupied only a portion of the second floor. This office was quiet, housing only four employees, but Sarah preferred that. The bosses rarely came down here and she could get her work done without interruption.

She climbed to the landing and paused. She reached for the door handle, thinking as she nearly always did: Why did these doors open without any kind of lock from the stairwell side? It'd be pretty easy for somebody-

She jumped, hearing a faint tap of metal. Spinning around, Sarah saw no one.

And…was that the sound of breathing?

Was somebody hurt?

Should she go see? Or call security?

"Is anyone there? Hello?"

Only silence.

Probably nothing, she thought. And stepped into the corridor that led to the back door of her office. Sarah unlocked the door and walked down the long corridor of the company.

Shedding her coat and setting the coffee and cookie on her desk, she sat down at her workstation, glancing at her computer.

Odd, she thought. On the screen was the window that read, "Date and Time Properties."

This was the utility in the Windows XP operating system that you used to set the date and time and time zone of your computer. It showed a calendar with the day's date indicated and, to the right, both an analog clock with sweep hands and below it a digital clock, both ticking off the seconds.

The screen hadn't been there before she'd made the run to Starbucks.

Had it popped up by itself? she wondered. Why? Maybe somebody'd used her computer while she was away, though she had no idea who it might be or why.

No matter. She closed the window on the screen and scooted forward.

She glanced down. What was that?

Sarah saw a fire extinguisher under her desk. It hadn't been there earlier either. The company was always doing weird things like this. Putting in new lighting, coming up with evacuation plans, rearranging furniture, for no apparent reason.

Now, fire extinguishers.

Probably something else we have the terrorists to thank for.

Taking a fast look at her son's picture, feeling comfort in seeing his smile, she set her purse under her desk and unwrapped her cookie.

Lieutenant Dennis Baker walked slowly down the deserted street. He was south of Hell's Kitchen in a largely industrial area on the west side.

As he'd suggested, the officers had divided up the clues found at the church in their hunt for the Watchmaker. He'd told Sachs and Haumann that he'd remembered a warehouse that was being painted with that same shade of sickly green paint found on the shoes in the Watchmaker's room. While the rest of the team were tracking down other leads, he'd come here.

The massive building stretched along the street, dark, abandoned, bleak even in the sharp sunlight. The lower six or seven feet of the grimy brick walls were covered with graffiti and half the windows were broken-some even shot out, it seemed. On the roof was a faded sign, Preston Moving and Storage, in an old-style typeface.

The front doors, painted that green color, were locked and chained shut but Baker found a side entrance, half hidden behind a Dumpster. It was open. He looked up and down the street then pulled the door open and stepped inside. Baker started through the dim place, lit only by slanting shafts of light. The smell was of rotting cardboard and mildew and heating oil. He drew his pistol. It felt awkward in his hand. He'd never fired a single shot in the line of duty.

Walking silently along the corridor, Baker approached the facility's main storage area, a massive open space whose floor was dotted with pools of greasy standing water and trash. Plenty of condoms too, he noticed in disgust. This was probably the least romantic site for a liaison you could imagine.

A flash of light from the offices lining the wall caught his attention. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness and as he walked closer he noticed a burning desk lamp inside a small room. There was one other thing he could see, as well.

One of the black, moon-faced clocks-the Watchmaker's calling cards.

Baker started forward.

Which is when he stepped on a large patch of grease he hadn't been able to see in the darkness and went down hard on his side, gasping. He dropped his pistol, which slid away across the filthy concrete floor. He winced in pain.

It was at this moment that a man jogged up fast behind him from one of the side corridors.

Baker glanced up into the eyes of Gerald Duncan, the Watchmaker.

The killer bent down.

And he offered his hand, helping Baker up. "You all right?"

"Just got the wind knocked out of me. Careless. Thanks, Gerry."

Duncan stepped away, retrieved Baker's pistol and handed it to him. "You didn't really need that." He laughed.

Baker put the gun back in his holster. "Wasn't sure who else I might run into, other than you. Spooky place."

The Watchmaker gestured toward the office. "Come on inside. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen to her."

What was going to happen meant how the men were going to commit murder.

And the "her" he was referring to was an NYPD detective named Amelia Sachs.

Sitting on one of the chairs in the warehouse office,

Dennis Baker brushed at his slacks, now stained from the fall.

Italian, expensive. Shit.

He said to Duncan, "We've got Vincent Reynolds in custody and we took the church."

Duncan would know this, of course, since he himself had made the call alerting the police that the Watchmaker's partner was wheeling a grocery cart around the West Village (Baker had been surprised, and impressed, that Kathryn Dance had tipped to Vincent even before Duncan dimed out his supposed partner).