Mike Omer - In the Darkness

“He sounds like a ninja. And then he presumably used some sort of getaway vehicle to escape, managing to avoid the citywide manhunt after him.”

“That’s the general idea.”

“While bleeding heavily.” She finished her glass.

“They think Marvin may have been confused about how hard he was hit.”

“What do you think?”

Tatum’s gaze met hers. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Let’s go see,” she said.

They walked to her bedroom. Tatum had never been in her bedroom before, obviously. She kicked herself for letting him in without tidying a bit first. Clothes were scattered everywhere, including some underwear; there were three half-empty mugs of coffee on the desk and papers on the bed and the floor.

“Ignore the”—she waved her hand vaguely at the room—“everything.”

“Right.” He smirked.

“According to blood spatter and Andrea’s testimony, Glover was here when Marvin shot him.” She stood by the bed.

“So Marvin is by the door.” Tatum surveyed it. “He has a concussion and a broken nose. He’s probably leaning against the doorway or the wall.”

“One shot hits Glover in the side.”

“Glover isn’t used to extreme pain,” Tatum said. “As far as we know, he wasn’t abused as a kid. He didn’t get into fights, not ones he couldn’t win easily. He preyed on the weak.”

“I cut him with a knife in Chicago,” Zoe said, recalling that day. “It was a shallow cut, but it scared the shit out of him.”

“So he’s in pain.”

“A second shot blasts the window. Marvin misses, but maybe Glover thinks otherwise.”

“He sees an immediate threat, Marvin, aiming a gun at him. And he knows the shooting probably alerted the cops.” Zoe bites her lip. “He wants to run.”

“The window is broken, sharp shards of glass everywhere, and he doesn’t want to turn his back to Marvin.” Tatum’s eyes seemed distant, as if he were seeing it happening. Zoe knew that expression. Andrea sometimes told her t hat was how she looked.

“So he bolts for the door.”

“Right.” Tatum turned to the door, preparing to leave.

“Tatum.” Zoe blurted. She didn’t know why she’d stopped him.

“What?” He looked at her, confused.

“Nothing. Let’s go to the front door.”

She followed him out of the bedroom. They opened the front door, regarding the hallway. There was a door to the staircase, an elevator, and some doors to other apartments.

“Which way did he go?”

“He was scared,” Tatum said. “And hur t.”

“And he knew the cops were outside,” Zoe added. “We know that because he was dressed as a cop.”

“How did he get into the building dressed as a cop?” Tatum asked.

“How did he get into the building at all? It was late—the cops would have been alert to anyone leaving or entering.”

Zoe was used to thinking alone. Even when she’d worked with Tatum before, she’d used him as someone she could test her own theories with. But now it was as if something had clicked, and they were in sync. Their minds worked together, like gears in a clockwork mechanism. She saw the man who’d sat in front of Clyde Prescott and methodically cracked the killer like a walnut.

“We know he was in Dale City weeks ago,” Tatum said.

“Coming out of the woodwork once I was away.”

“Andrea told the cops that he appeared to know the layout of the apartment,” Tatum said. “They thought he may have broken inside before to take a look.”

“Maybe he didn’t need to.” Zoe was nauseated. “The apartments here have the same layout.”

“He’d been waiting.” Tatum glanced around him. “That was his MO, right? He waited for his prey. He’d choose a good spot and just wait.”

Zoe nodded. “He’d choose the perfect spot. Wait for a girl to walk by, alone.”

It took Zoe and Tatum seven minutes to convince the superintendent of Zoe’s apartment building. He was an old gruff man whose initial stance was that unless they had a warrant, he had nothing to say to them. But they talked in that same sync Zoe found so exhilarating and confusing. She played the victim, the resident whose apartment had been broken into, while Tatum took the role of the imposing federal agent.

After seven minutes, the super would have given them his firstborn child, if they’d been so inclined. But they weren’t. All they wanted were names and descriptions of the new residents.

The super wasn’t very good at describing people, but it didn’t matter, because only one of the new residents was a middle-aged man who lived alone, going by the name of Daniel Moore.

He wouldn’t give them the key but insisted he come with them for some reason Zoe couldn’t fathom. Perhaps it was some sort of ancient superintendent code of honor she didn’t know or care about. But he unlocked the door for them.

The flies and smell in the apartment easily clarified no one had been there for a few days, at least.

A bunch of half-eaten takeout boxes were tossed in the kitchen’s sink, all from the same Thai food place around the corner. They stank up the entire apartment, and the superintendent muttered about insects and cleaning bills and lawsuits.

Zoe ignored him. She strode to the bedroom, Tatum in her wake.

Dry blood was spattered on the floor and the bedsheets. It was where Glover had fled to. Like any hurt animal, he’d bolted to his lair to lick his wounds.

He’d left in a hurry. Papers were scattered in the room, some clothes. Zoe frowned, trying to figure this out. He was already safe here, and then he’d bolted out . . . why?

“Something spooked him,” Tatum said behind her.

“There was a door-to-door investigation a day after he assaulted Andrea,” Zoe said. “Cops talking to the residents, asking if they’d heard anything.”

“They knocked on the door to the apartment.”

“Probably calle d out police.” She imagined him here, curling in the corner, trying not to make a sound. It gave her a small jolt of satisfaction, knowing he was hurt and scared.

“He waited for them to go, then took what he needed and ran.” Tatum inspected a paper on the night table. “Phone bill for Daniel Moore. He faked the entire identity.”

“Identity theft, probably,” Zoe said. “The police have been searching for him for years. He managed to keep out of their reach.”

“Look at this.” Tatum handed her something else. “A hospital bill.”

For a moment, Zoe thought Glover had been brazen enough to go to the hospital with his gunshot wound. But no. This was dated three weeks before. It was a bill for an MRI.

She found the results on the floor, crumpled into a ball. She read them repeatedly several times, her eyes widening.

“What is it?” Tatum asked.

“Suspicion for a malignant brain tumor,” she said. “I think he might be dying.” The final puzzle piece clicked. That was why he hadn’t waited for them to lower their guard. He didn’t have time.

“Couldn’t happen to a better person,” Tatum said with grim satisfaction.

Zoe didn’t answer. An inkling of dread settled in her gut.

A wounded animal went to its lair to lick its wounds.

A dying animal had nothing left to lose. And that made it unpredictable—and dangerous.

They sat in a bar in Woodbridge because Zoe didn’t want to go back to her apartment. Tatum had been drinking the same pint of Blue Moon since they’d sat down. Zoe was already on her second pint of Guinness, and the glass was half-finished. She was, for the first time in a long while, drunk. Usually, the slightest loss of control made her edgy. But right now, she enjoyed the way alcohol blurred away the sharp edges of reality.