C. Barry - Redemption

“Are you all right?” he asked, his face etched with concern.

She fought the wave of nausea and dizziness that always accompanied a quick retreat, but it was worth it to get out of the bastard’s head. “Just ducky.”

Orson nodded slowly. “You must be at the precise location at the precise time noted.”

Reya eyed him in warning. She’d heard this speech a hundred times. “I know.”

“All the logistics will be taken care of,” he added.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she muttered, feeling her stomach turn. This “prospect” was the reason capital punishment was invented. He oozed evil to his soul.

Orson continued speaking as if he were totally oblivious to her distress. “You cannot interfere with the prospect’s free will in any way.”

She tuned out and concentrated on not puking on her rug. She had memorized the rules long ago. The rug was new.

“You cannot judge. You cannot kill them or save them. You cannot divulge any information about yourself, your mission, or the future. Do you agree to these parameters?” Orson asked.

The nausea made her answer with more than a little attitude. “I do. I always do. Why do we have to go through this every single time? Do you think I don’t remember?”

“I know you remember,” Orson said with a smile. “But as always, there is free will.”

Right. “Not for me, Orson.”

He kept his gaze on her for a few long seconds, and she knew what he was thinking. She didn’t need his pity or concern. She’d asked for this.

This was her redemption.

Thane studied the surveillance video just sent over from Merck Enterprises’ security team with Martin hovering behind him. The only person who’d visited Mr. Merck before his untimely, accidental death yesterday was one woman. Thane hit the Play button, looping the video tape through to the beginning.

It was 5 p.m., and the precinct office was loud and boisterous. He had to concentrate over the shouts and projectiles being tossed from cube to cube. He zeroed in on the woman walking down the empty corridor. She turned to look over her shoulder as she passed by the camera. Her gaze settled directly on the camera, eyes black as the night. Thane felt a shiver in his soul. Or what he had left of a soul. This job had sucked most of it out.

“No wonder he let her into his office. Does she get hotter with every tape or what?” Martin said, clearly impressed.

Thane was trying not to notice. He had a rule about not finding criminals hot. In this case, though, he might have to make an exception.

“Are they planning an autopsy on Merck?” Thane asked, unable to take his eyes off the footage.

Martin replied, “Yup. It’ll take a few days. Doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush. Everyone hated his guts. Besides, it appears to be a freak accident.”

Like all the others. This was the seventh “freak accident” this month, but there were probably more. They just happened to stumble upon the pattern recently. Bad people dying in freakish ways.

Not that he minded that much, especially an untouchable like Merck. He was as dirty as they got, surrounded by an army of lawyers and well-paid, tight-lipped assistants. He deserved a far worse fate than bleeding to death facedown in his office.

The only connection between the spree of accidents was that they all involved the deaths of lowlifes. And one woman who may have seen them before they died. This was the third time they’d caught her near the scenes of the strange deaths. He’d bet there were more.

“No ID on her?” he asked Martin.

“Not yet. We ran her face through all our systems. She’s nowhere to be found. Seriously, I want to know how she does it.”

Thane stopped the video and switched to the next one. This showed her in the elevator that she rode down thirty-seven floors. A chill ran through him as the elevator music played out, and he rewound the tape for another look.

“You see something?” Martin asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice.

He replayed it at regular speed. Her mouth wasn’t moving, but he could hear people whispering. Hushed voices. Was it coming from the elevator? “Do you hear anything?”

Martin glanced at Thane and shook his head slowly. “No, nothing. Why?”

The whispers were definitely there, but Martin didn’t hear them. Thane couldn’t tell where they were coming from but, when he stopped the tape, the whispers stopped. Maybe he’d get better results through headphones.

The woman didn’t look at the camera until right before she got off. Then she gave it a stellar smile and vanished. Literally vanished. According to Security, and there was a lot of Security, no one saw her get off the elevator. The other surveillance cameras didn’t pick her up. She’d simply disappeared into the city.

And he never even had the chance to thank her.

“I don’t know,” Thane said, speaking carefully. It wouldn’t do to tell his partner about the voices only he could hear. “If we can tie her to one or more of the other deaths, we can put an APB out on her.”

“I’ll review the other tapes again,” Martin said.

“I’ll do it,” Thane said. Then he turned to Martin. “Don’t you have a kindergarten graduation to go to tonight?”

Martin ran a hand through his quickly thinning hair. “Yes. Christ, it’s kindergarten, you know? Do we really need a graduation ceremony?”

Thane smiled and rewound the tape to the beginning. “You got two more kids coming up. Get used to it.”

Martin laughed, but Thane knew how important his family was to him. He’d do anything for his kids. He was a stand-up guy. Too bad he’d gotten saddled with the likes of Thane.

“What do we tell Captain O’Brien?” Martin asked. “He’s due back from vacation tomorrow. We really don’t have a case here. The death was deemed accidental. Plus we got other cases.”

But none as big as this one. Despite that, they couldn’t go to their boss just yet. Not unless they found the woman was connected to the other deaths. Then they’d have something. Part of him hated going after her because she was doing a service by getting rid of the lowlifes. Part of him knew she was a murderer and had to be stopped. And part of him was more than a little intrigued by the whispers. It had been a long time since he’d heard them, and he needed time to process what it meant.

“Don’t tell him anything,” Thane said and restarted the tape. “I’ll work off the clock.”

Martin exhaled. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Somebody’s got to save the good people,” Thane said, half-joking.

Martin slapped him on the shoulder. “Just remember you aren’t the only gun in town, okay?” Then he left.

Thane studied her face frozen on camera. It was locked and loaded in his memory for all time—her smile, her face, her walk. He had it all filed away for future reference. Because he knew he’d see her again.

At 9 p.m., Thane was still holed up in his cubicle reviewing all the video tapes from the past month. Headphones fit snuggly over his ears, blocking out the din of activity in the suite.

She’d caught his attention last week in two of the cases. But now he’d found footage of his mystery woman at the scene of two more deaths. Granted, there were a lot of people in the security videos, but her being there was too much of a coincidence.

His father used to say there were no such things as coincidences, only the facts. And his father had been a good cop.

He could now place her at the scene of at least five of the untimely deaths.

So who was she, and why was she doing this?

He rewound one of the tapes and started it from the beginning again. It showed people entering and leaving an Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side where the victim had been found dead in the men’s bathroom. A massive overhead light assembly had fallen on him while he was taking a piss.