I Can See You

Chapter Eight

Monday, February 22, 10:45 p.m.

Micki and Jack were in Abbott’s office when Noah got back. Jack and Micki were reviewing case notes and Abbott was absorbed in his computer screen. “What’s with Abbott?”

“He’s playing the game,” Jack said. “Shadowland sucked him in.”

“I am not sucked in,” Abbott retorted. “I am investigating Ninth Circle.”

On Abbott’s screen a male avatar mingled. “That’s you?” Noah asked

“It is. I’ll never attract a looker like Eve’s Greer, although that’s probably for the best. My wife wouldn’t like that too much.”

“Where did you get the avatar?” Noah asked.

“Bought it from Pandora’s website in the game.”

Noah blinked. “You? I thought you were clueless.”

“I wanted Eve to think so. But everything she told us was spot on. Our killer doesn’t have to have a lot of technical know-how. It is an amazing place, though.”

Shaking his head, Noah went back to the table. “That’s too weird,” he murmured.

“I know,” Micki whispered. “I think he’s been playing dumb all these years, making me explain things. I’ve got his number now.”

“I can hear well, too,” Abbott called and Micki rolled her eyes.

“What do we know?” Noah asked.

“We found the snake,” Jack said with a grimace. “What was left of it.”

“Timber rattler,” Micki said. “Outside in the snow. The head had been shot off.”

“I thought the timber rattler was endangered,” Noah said.

“It’s threatened,” Micki said. “Rarely found this time of year. They hibernate in the wild. I’m thinking this was likely a specimen. We’re making calls to the zoos and universities. So far nobody’s missing one, but hopefully we’ll be able to track it down.”

“But why?” Noah pressed. “Everything else was the same, except the snake bite.”

“Because he’s fucking nuts?” Jack asked.

“Fucking nuts and knows forensics,” Micki said. “So far no prints, hairs, nothing.”

The phone rang and the three of them went silent when Abbott picked up.

“Olivia,” he said, then sighed as he listened. “They got the Siren Song employee list,” he said when he hung up. “Cassandra Lee was cooperative when she heard the news.”

Noah sighed. “Christy and Samantha weren’t on the list, were they?”

“No. Web, get the list of participants in Eve’s study and figure out how Samantha Altman links. Micki, do we have anything from Martha’s hard drive?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “Whoever wiped it, did good. It’s like she never used it.”

Noah went still. “Mick, do you have those photos of Martha’s messy apartment?”

“In my folder.” Micki spread the photos on the table.

“Dammit. She had two monitors on her desk before,” Noah said, tapping one of the photos. “We only found one. And her computer in the picture is high end. We took a cheap one. I wondered why a consultant would have such a cheap PC.”

Micki scowled. “I’ve wasted time searching the hard drive of a decoy computer.”

“This guy is very good,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Very smart.”

“He took Martha’s computer because he knew we’d find evidence of Shadowland on her hard drive and in her Internet cache,” Micki said. “We’d be able to follow her movements and maybe even who she talked to in the World.”

Abbott looked grim. “Then it’s important. We need access to Martha’s and Christy’s game files. Someone altered their avatars. We find out who, we find our man.”

“You want to hack or ask to be admitted through the front door?” she asked.

“Front door,” Abbott said. “Jack, kick up the search for the panty pervert, Taylor Kobrecki. Right now he’s the closest thing we have to a suspect. Noah, get a list of Eve’s test subjects and everyone meet back here at 8:00 a.m.”

Monday, February 22, 11:15 p.m.

“You can go home, you know,” Eve said to Callie, who’d arrived with Eve’s keys shortly after Noah Webster had departed. “David’s back from the corner store.”

“Yes, he is.” Callie watched David whipping a cream sauce with a wire whisk. “I’m hoping when he finishes dinner he does something that makes him hot and sweaty.”

Eve sighed. Women everywhere had the same reaction to David. She might have, too, had they met under different circumstances. Instead David had been a man she’d learned to trust when her world had been a very dark and scary place.

“Leave him alone. I want my dinner.”

“Fine. So why did he just bring you two disposable cell phones?”

“He was going out for heavy cream for his sauce anyway. Mine had curdled.”

“Don’t be a smartass. I got you a lawyer. The least you can do is give me a hint.”

“I appreciate you sending Matt, and he did a great job, but I don’t want to put you in a bad position. The less you know, the better for you. Just go home. Please?”

“You’re not making me feel better and I’m not going home. At least let me help.”

“You didn’t cause this, Cal. You shouldn’t have to be involved.”

“You didn’t cause this either. You didn’t force these women to play your game.”

Eve thought of Christy Lewis, who’d never heard of role play games before she’d seen their ad for test subjects in the local paper. “Yeah, Cal, I kind of did.”

“Good God. Who taught you to shoulder the burden of every person you meet?”

“I know who,” David said dryly from the kitchen. “You can’t fight it, Callie. It was hardwired into her by one of the best.”

“Thank you,” Eve said, touched, and he smiled back, but his eyes were troubled.

“Callie’s right, Evie. None of this is your fault. Let the police do their jobs.”

“I am. Mostly.” She toggled her laptop screen to Ninth Circle. “He could be there, hunting his next victim. I can’t just stand by. I have to do something.”

David shook his head helplessly. “God, it’s like a Dana echo in here.”

“Thank you,” she said again and he scowled.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” he said. “So what are you doing that you shouldn’t be?”

“Reading blogs of ShadowCo people. You can learn a lot from employee blog rants.”

“What do you want to learn from ShadowCo’s angry employees?” Callie asked.

“I want a contact in the company. So I can hack in.”

Callie nodded. “That’s what I expected you to do. Can I watch?”

Eve laughed. “Sure. If I’m lucky this marketing guy who ranted about his boss, who works him like a slave, will still be in the office.”

“At this time of night?” David asked.

“If it’s anything like law firms,” Callie said, “people will work until midnight.”

“Besides, they’re in Seattle,” Eve added. “This blog is from a marketing genius who included his title and phone number at the end of his rant about the multi-million-dollar bonus given to ShadowCo’s CEO.”

“I don’t know why people are so stupid as to blog about their bosses,” Callie said. “Anyone in the world can see it once it posts. Idiots.”

“Well, this idiot’s name is Clayton Johnson.” Using the disposable cell, Eve dialed.

The phone rang six times. “Johnson,” he said, clipped and annoyed. Perfect.

“Mr. Johnson,” Eve said, “my name is Gillian Townsend. I’m with Attenborough IT Services. We’re contracted to support your company network systems.”

“So?” Johnson asked impatiently. “I don’t have time-”

Eve broke in before he could hang up. “We’re doing server maintenance and I can see you’re still logged in. In a few minutes, we’ll be shutting down your server.”

“No,” he said angrily. “I have a report to finish and I need-”

“It’s all right, sir. We’re shutting down your server and immediately starting up the backup. I can validate your account on my end so that you won’t have any down time.”

“Oh.” He sounded mollified. “Well, all right.”

“What’s your user name and password, please?” She looked up to find Callie staring at her like she’d grown two heads. David just looked resigned.

“JohnsonCL and sonicsrule, all one word,” Johnson said.

Eve smiled. “Thank you. You won’t see even a blip in your service. Be sure to change your password first thing in the morning, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. Have a good evening.” Eve hung up. “That’s how it’s done.”

Callie looked stunned. “You lied to that man.”

“Yes I did. And he gave a complete stranger his password and user name.”

“You lied to that man,” Callie repeated. “With the cell phone David bought you.”

“Why do you think she wanted an untraceable phone?” David asked. “But, Evie, that Johnson guy was just an innocent bystander. You could get him fired.”

“That’s why I told him to change his password. If he does, he’ll appear like he was security-conscious. Don’t worry. Once this is over, I’ll tell Ethan and he can pay a sales call to ShadowCo and show them the huge holes in their network security.”

David blinked. “This is what Ethan does for a living?”

“Sometimes. I used to hack for him part-time when I lived in Chicago. It’s a good way to get his consulting foot in the door. A company’s biggest vulnerability is often its people. Ethan shows them the security hole and offers to patch it up.”

“That’s…” David shook his head. “That’s dishonest.”

“It would be if he used their servers for personal gain. He doesn’t. He’s a white hat.”

Callie’s lips twitched. “A white hat?”

Eve nodded. “That’s what they’re called, I swear. As opposed to black hats who hack in with malicious intent. If a business tells Ethan they don’t want his services, he tells them where the hole was anyway. Most likely a high school kid’s already found it.”

“Don’t these companies get mad that you hacked?” Callie asked.

“Usually they want the hole patched before the big cheese finds out. In the end, everybody wins. How would you like it if your bank’s server had a security hole?”

“They wouldn’t,” David declared, then his features shifted uneasily. “Do they?”

“Remember when Ethan and Dana put the downpayment on the house for all their fosters? That downpayment was a retainer from your bank, buddy. Some hacker had already breached their system. They said they wished Ethan had breached it first.”

“It’s still dishonest,” he grumbled, but without heat. He brought her a plate of pasta and cream sauce, then perched on the arm of her chair. “So you’re in?”

“Not yet. Johnson was a little fish. As a marketing guy, his access rights are diddly. I need to elevate my privileges so that I can get into the client files. That’ll take time.”

“Why didn’t you start with somebody with better access?” David asked.

“Like an IT person? Because they probably would have called the cops on me.”

“Will you call anybody else?” Callie asked, fascinated.

“Not tonight. I’m going to run exploits until I find another, better hole.”

“English,” David murmured.

“Exploits are codes, scripts hackers use to find security holes. Hackers see network security as one big Rubik’s Cube. It’s there to be breached, a puzzle to be solved.”

“Like mountain climbers scale Everest because it’s there,” Callie said.

“Absolutely. They create code that basically knocks on the walls of network security until it finds a loose brick. Knock the loose brick through and you’re in.”

“It’s part of the game,” David said. “Hackers make holes, businesses patch them.”

Eve smiled at him. “Kind of like roofs. Some hackers look for loose bricks for nefarious reasons, like they want credit card info. But some do it just because it’s there. They share their code because it gives them status. Hopefully one of these scripts will find a ShadowCo hole. Then I can get into Martha and Christy’s files and check their movements, who they talked to, and importantly, how their avatars were altered.”

“And then you’ll hand it over to Detective Webster,” David said.

“I promise. It’ll take the cops days to get a warrant for ShadowCo files. I can access them in a day. Then they stop the killer and I don’t have any more deaths on my conscience.” She set the scripts to run, toggled back to Ninth Circle, and dug into her pasta. “And don’t tell me they’re not on my head. Because they are.”

Neither of them corrected her, either because they knew she wouldn’t listen or because they knew she was right. Eve patted Callie’s arm. “Go home. David’s here and I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t leave her?” Callie asked. “Because even if she’s not worried about that psycho coming after her, I am.”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa. If I can sleep on that ratty couch in the firehouse, I can sleep anywhere. Come on, Callie. It’s late. I’ll fix you a plate and walk you down to your car.”

They were gone and it was quiet. Except for the dripping. She turned up the volume of the Ninth Circle band. It was the lesser of two evils, but just barely.

She searched the bar once again for the handsome avatar, then turned to her list of red-zones. There were still five, three of which were women. Rachel Ward, Natalie Clooney, and Kathy Kirk. She knew them only by their avatars-Rachel’s cabaret dancer, Natalie’s poker queen, and Kathy’s real estate mogul.

Who they were in real life Eve didn’t yet know. That was about to change. But first she wanted to be sure they were still present. She spotted Kathy’s avatar on her bar stool, negotiating a land deal. Natalie’s hung at the casino, as did Rachel’s on the nights she was dancing. But on Mondays, Rachel hung at Ninth Circle with everyone else.

Eve was looking for Rachel, when a sharp knock startled her. She set her laptop aside and got up to let David back in. “Remind me to make you a key.”

The words were out before the man on her welcome mat registered in her mind.

Noah Webster’s face was shadowed by his hat brim, but she could see the wry humor in his eyes. “I’m flattered,” he said. “But it’s a little soon for that, don’t you think?”

A disturbing little thrill raced down her spine. “I… I thought you were my friend.”

“Now I’m hurt,” he said mildly. “I haven’t even told you why I’m here.”

“I didn’t mean…” Flustered, she looked down at her feet, got her composure, then looked back up to find him staring in that unsettling way of his. “Come in.”

Webster slipped his hat from his head in a gesture she found endearing. “I saw your friend downstairs. He was looking under the hood of Callie’s car. It wouldn’t start.”

“Callie drives a bigger hunk of junk than I do. David will find the problem.”

Webster’s dark brows knitted slightly. “So your friend fixes cars and roofs?”

“David does a little bit of everything,” she said. “He’s a fireman, too. And he cooks.”

“All that,” Webster said sourly and she had to chuckle.

“I’ve never met a woman who could resist him,” she said lightly.

“Except you?” he said, too seriously, and something twisted in her stomach.

“Except me.” David had earned her trust. But to fall for a man on the basis of his pleasing face? Never again. She required actions before she trusted a man now. But she’d trusted Webster, almost at first sight. To deny it would be an outright lie.

And Noah Webster had a very pleasing face. It was a bothersome admission.

“What brings you back, Detective?”

His eyes left hers and too late she remembered she’d left the disposable phone out in plain sight. He walked to her chair, picked it up. “Untraceable cell phone?”

“It’s not a crime to own a prepaid phone,” she said blandly, but she tensed. A bit.

“No, it’s not. But, hypothetically speaking, if you learned anything, you’d tell me?”

“You’d be the first call I made. Hypothetically speaking.”

“Of course.” He looked at her laptop. “Did you see the guy who talked to Christy?”

“Not yet. I’ve been checking off and on since I got home.” She didn’t want him looking too closely at her screen. “Have a seat, Detective. I’ll put coffee on.”

But again, it was too late. “Who is this, Eve?” He pointed at the panel in the top left of her screen, the one that showed her active avatar. “Did Greer take the night off?”

She’d indeed given Greer the night off, resurrecting an avatar she hadn’t used in a very long time. “I needed to get her appropriate clothing. Didn’t want her to catch cold.”

He sat in her chair, pulled her computer to his lap. “And here I thought you’d created a new avatar so that you could approach this dancer without breaking your word to me.”

Eve sat on the sofa. “I’m not that clever.”

He didn’t smile. “Uh-huh. So who is this new face of Eve?”

Eve took her computer, set it aside. “What happened? Why did you come back?”

He glared at her laptop, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I need your participant list.”

“I expected you’d ask once Matt Nillson was gone. He’d have a cow, you know.”

“I won’t say where I got it. I promise.”

“I’d planned to bring it to you tomorrow anyway. Wait here. I’ll be back.”

Noah watched her head to her bedroom, laptop under her arm, then checked the phone. Her only call was to a 206 area code, same as ShadowCo. He knew this because he’d looked it up for his warrant request.

Eve was planning to hack into Shadowland, if she hadn’t done so already. In her place I’d do the same. He put the phone back and considered her computer.

He’d caught a look at her new avatar. Dark, sleek, and dangerous-of a different style than her other designs, although the face had been disturbingly familiar. He knew he’d looked at a much younger Eve, before she’d met the man who’d left her for dead.

The new avatar’s name was Nemesis. Noah knew Eve well enough by now to know that meant something. On his own cell, he did a quick Internet search. Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Eve was planning to kick some virtual ass. That shouldn’t arouse him, but he’d be lying if he denied it did.

Eve reappeared, a stack of papers in one hand. “It took a few minutes to print.”

He took the stack. “How many people are in this study, anyway?”

“Five hundred, but you don’t have to check them all.” She leaned close to point at a page, but didn’t touch him. He thought of how she’d thrown her arms around Hunter and felt a tug of jealousy. It was irrational, and embarrassing, but it was there.

“We have three groups,” she was saying. “Group C is the one you want to focus on.”

“They’re in Shadowland.”

“Where they do self-esteem exercises. They’re broken into three subgroups-those who never played until this study, who played a few hours a month, and who played a few hours a week. They fill out diaries with their usage, but I can check their online time. The heavy users almost always lie, understating their usage.”

“Like Martha.”

“Actually she was honest about her habits.” She pointed. “These are the top users.”

“Martha and Christy are still on the list,” he noted.

“I’m not supposed to know I should take them off,” she said quietly. “And that sucks.”

There was guilt in her tone and Noah wanted to alleviate it if he could. “When would they have been missed from the study? If you hadn’t been keeping track?”

“In a few weeks, when they had to come back for their personality evals.”

“Then you did good.” He met her eyes. “You couldn’t have stopped these murders. But you might have saved his next victim by doing everything you’ve done. Don’t let your guilt overshadow your contribution.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”

“Thank you. That helps a lot more than being told it’s not my fault.”

He held her eyes a moment longer before she looked away, but in that moment he saw an unguarded loneliness that squeezed at his heart. Trina’s words came back to hit him like a ton of bricks. You don’t deserve to be alone forever. And he finally admitted he didn’t want to be. That he’d give anything to have somebody again.

“One more question. You want people to have meaningful lives in the real world.”

Her glance up was nervous, fleeting. “Yes, so?”

“So, what good is living in the real world if you have to live alone, unavailable?”

She flinched and he knew he’d overstepped, but didn’t care. She walked to her front door and opened it wide, not looking at him. “Call me if you need anything else.”

He stood looking at her for a few seconds before walking through the door. It closed sharply behind him and he heard the click of her deadbolt. With a sigh he walked down a flight of stairs, only to find David Hunter sitting on one of the steps, looking very cold.

“Is everything all right?”

Hunter stood. “I figured you two needed to talk about whatever happened tonight.”

Noah narrowed his eyes. “She didn’t tell you?”

“She witnessed a crime and gave her statement. Why? Is Evie in trouble?”

“No, she’s not.” Noah walked down another flight before he turned and looked back up. Hunter was watching him, his expression purposefully bland.

“Is everything all right, Detective?” Hunter asked cordially.

“No.” Noah studied Hunter’s near-perfect face. “You knew her, in Chicago.”

“Yes.” The single word was clipped and laced with warning.

“I read about what happened to her four years ago, with that kidnapping and the boy she saved. And what happened two years before that.”

Hunter’s jaw had tightened. “Is there a question in there, Detective?”

Yes, but he’d be damned if he knew what it was. “She has a disposable cell phone in her apartment,” he said and Hunter’s expression smoothed.

“I know. I bought it tonight. I left the charger for my cell back in Chicago and my phone is dead. The prepaid will keep me going until I get home.”

The man’s gray eyes didn’t flicker an iota as he lied. “Look, I know Eve’s going to hack into Shadowland’s system. When she does, can you make sure she calls me?”

Hunter’s lips thinned. “Why, so you can cuff her again?”

“I didn’t do that, and I uncuffed her as soon as I got there. I want her to call me because she doesn’t think she’s in danger. I won’t take the chance that she’s wrong.”

Now Hunter’s eyes flickered, but with worry. “I’ll make sure she calls you.”

“Thanks.” Noah hesitated. “Why did you really come, Hunter?”

“To fix her roof. Evie’s like my kid sister. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for her.”

A sense of relief loosened the knots in his gut. “Thanks. See you around.”

“Detective,” Hunter called after him, “weren’t you wearing a hat when you got here?”

Noah nodded. “I thought I’d come back for it tomorrow.”

Hunter hesitated. “Don’t hurt her,” he said quietly. “She’s been through enough.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Eve let David back in, still feeling unsettled. Angry. She’d tried to be honest but kind to Noah, but he did not respect boundaries. She locked her deadbolt, her frown deepening. “I know I locked my door this afternoon. I can picture it in my mind.”

“You were rattled,” David said. “You still are.”

“Of course I am,” she said irritably. “Two women I recruited to my study are dead.”

He studied her face shrewdly. “And Noah Webster cares for you.”

Eve sighed. “I know. I wish he didn’t. I tried to tell him to go away.”

“Now why would you do a foolish thing like that, Evie?” David asked gently.

“Not gonna happen.” She sat in her chair and grabbed her pasta, now cold.

“Which? You and Webster or you and me talking about you and Webster?”

So what good is it to live in the real world all alone? “Yes. Either. Both.”

He shrugged. “All right. Any of your scripts finding loose bricks in ShadowCo?”

She opened her laptop. “Not yet.”

“Then I’ll make coffee. I guess it’s going to be a long night.” He puttered in the kitchen, then returned holding two cups, and it was then she noticed what looked like a walkie-talkie hanging from his belt. A baby pink walkie-talkie.

“What the hell is that?” she demanded when he put a steaming mug in her hand.

He lifted a dark brow. “Coffee.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, that. What the hell is that?” She pointed to the device.

“Oh, this.” He unclipped it from his belt and turned it toward her, showing her a small screen that was murky and dark. “Baby monitor. This is the receiver.”

He put the receiver on her lamp table, then sat on her old sofa and pulled his laptop from a backpack as if nothing was strange about a grown man having a pink baby monitor when there were no babies in the house. And never would be.

“Why? And where did you get it?”

“It was going to be Dana’s baby shower gift. I’ve had it in my truck for a week.”

Eve studied the receiver, fascinated. “Where’s the camera?”

“It comes with two. One is above your front door and one is outside the building door, downstairs. Wireless, range is almost four hundred feet. Infrared night-vision.”

“Freaking cool. When did you install it?”

“One after I walked Callie to her car and the other just now, after Webster left. I activated the receiver while the coffee brewed. It’s not rocket science.”

“What did Webster say to you?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

“What I already knew. That you don’t think you’re in danger, but he thinks you are.” He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes not leaving hers. “And that he’s interested in you.”

Briefly Eve closed her eyes. “David, please.” He made no apology and she sighed, turning her focus back to the camera. “If I were in danger and some killer did come after me, a baby pink camera would tip him off, don’t you think?” she said and he frowned.

“Give me some credit, Evie. I put the one downstairs where it couldn’t be seen. And if he comes close enough to take the camera out, we’d get his face.” He connected a video cord from his laptop to the receiver. “We’ve got streaming video and an alarm that screeches if either camera is disconnected. Gotta love it.”

“On a baby monitor? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“All for under three hundred bucks. Technology meets parental paranoia,” he said, then shrugged. “And my paranoia, too. I thought it would give Dana a little peace of mind to have the cameras versus the old audio monitor. She has all those foster kids, coming and going. Most are good kids, but all it would take would be one bad one.”

Eve’s throat tightened. He still loves her. What a waste of a life. Of a good heart. “Amazingly thoughtful,” she said roughly. “A little used by the time she gets it, but…”

He didn’t smile. “I’ll get her another. Tomorrow I’ll install something less noticeable for you than a baby pink camera, but it’ll work for tonight. A woman living alone should be careful. A woman living alone who’s tied to two dead women should be terrified.”

Alone pierced like an arrow so that she almost didn’t hear the rest. “I have a gun.”

“Then give it to me. If anyone comes through your door tonight, I want to be ready.”

A chill chased over her skin. “You’re serious.”

“About your safety? Deadly serious. Now drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

Tuesday, February 23, 12:35 a.m.

Noah quietly let himself into his house, considering the way he’d left Eve, and the fine line between pursuit and harassment. He didn’t want to cause her pain, stress, grief, any of those bad things. Just yesterday he’d been all set to protect her from himself. But she’d said she didn’t want to be protected. He wanted to believe her.

She’d said she was broken. That he didn’t want to believe, but understood. He sat down on the edge of his bed. Out of habit he picked up the photo he’d held so many times and remembered how broken he’d felt when he lost Susan and the baby.

He thought about how he’d handled his grief, compared it to how Eve had coped. They really weren’t that different. They’d both hidden, escaping reality, Noah into the bottle, Eve into the virtual world. They’d both set themselves free.

And for what? To work. To protect the innocent. He thought of Eve’s Nemesis avatar. He put the picture back, and got ready for bed, wondering how Eve punished the guilty in her world. She’d told him that some of her red-zone cases had relationships in Shadowland that spanned from the casual one-night stand to marriages.

His knee-jerk reaction was to wonder what possible satisfaction a man could have in a pretend relationship. Then he considered the relationships he’d had over the years. They’d been cordial, but empty, and when they were over, he’d walked away as had the woman, whichever woman it had been at the time. He’d missed the sex and the occasional benefit of sharing a meal, but other than that, there’d been nothing.

Pretend relationships were a relative thing.

And now, sitting in his silent house, on the edge of his empty bed, he understood the lure of a virtual relationship. If one was lonely, sometimes a conversation could mean more than a quick roll across the sheets. He smiled grimly. Well, at least as much.

He stretched out in his empty bed, but again, sleep would not come. He tossed and turned. And when he finally did fall asleep, he dreamed again, this time of Eve in an ambulance, while paramedics brought her back from death with the paddles.

His eyes opened and he stared at his ceiling. That wasn’t a dream. He’d read it online in a newspaper archive. She’d died twice on the way to the hospital after having been discovered by her guardian, Dana Dupinsky, who saved her life.

Greer the Guardian. The name took on new meaning. Eve’s real-life guardian had protected battered women and in working with her, so had Eve. Now she protected the subjects in her study who were being stalked by a man they thought was fantasy.

Noah’s sigh echoed off the walls of his empty room. He’d been given the role of guardian and protector once, so long ago now. He’d failed his family, abysmally.

And now you’re alone. He did, however, have purpose. He had a badge. He’d catch this killer, then he’d do the paperwork and move on to the next homicide.

A depressing future. He’d been sober for ten years, but at this moment wanted a drink so badly he could taste it. He rolled over, grabbed his phone, hesitated.

I hurt Brock last night. He couldn’t do that again. Wouldn’t.

The phone in his hand rang, startling him. It was Brock. “What’s wrong?” Noah asked.

“Nothing. I, uh, didn’t see you at Sal’s tonight and I got worried.”

“I’m working a case. Besides, I said I wasn’t going back,” Noah added, annoyed.

“Well, forgive me if I doubted you really meant it this time,” Brock flung back. “Eve wasn’t behind the bar tonight. Sal said she had an emergency.”

Subtlety had never been Brock’s strong suit. “I know. She was with me.”

“That’s good then,” Brock said cautiously. “Isn’t it?”

Noah’s temper flared. “No. She’s got a goddamn target on her head. And she wasn’t with me. In fact she told me she wasn’t with anyone, including me.”

“Ouch. You need another bout in the ring?”

Noah thought of the harm he’d wreaked the night before. “No, but can you meet me for coffee? I need to get out of my house.” Out of this empty shell of a house.

“Of course,” Brock said. “Usual place?”

“Yeah. In a half hour?”

Tuesday, February 23, 2:00 a.m.

That Hunter guy was still there. Sipping coffee in the frozen seat of his SUV, he glared at the red pickup truck with Illinois plates from a block away. They’d turned out the lights in the living room. It appeared David Hunter was staying the night. No matter. It would be easier to shoot him in bed anyway.

Webster had come, then gone again. What did Eve tell him? What did she know?

It doesn’t matter, he told himself. Even if she knows about Shadowland, she can’t know about me. Still, the clock inside his mind was ticking. He needed to move.

But carefully. Hunter had hidden something behind the bush next to the door to Eve’s building. Let’s see what it was, shall we?

He approached from the side of the building, grimacing when snow went in his shoes, wet and freezing. Another pair of shoes, ruined. He came up on the bush, his head down, the lapels of his coat pulled around his face.

Whatever it was, it was pink. He picked it up then furiously turned it lens down, grateful he hadn’t approached from the front. Stay calm. The camera had not captured his face, only his thumb as he’d grasped it. And he was wearing gloves. It’s all right.

He placed the camera in the snow and ground it under the sole of his shoe. What the hell kind of surveillance camera comes in pink?

He’d put his hand on the downstairs building door when he heard something inside. Footsteps, muted murmurs. Someone was coming. Hunter and Eve. So? Kill them.

Finger on the trigger, he retreated to the shadows, waiting for them to emerge. But they did not. He crept as close as he dared. Through the door’s leaded-glass side panels he could hear arguing in loud whispers, but he could see no one.

“Call 911.” It was Hunter. “Just do it. For God’s sake.”

“Okay, okay, I’m dialing, but don’t go out there. David. No.”

“I thought you said it was just a dog,” Hunter hissed. “Stand back and let go.”

“Maybe it is. If it’s not, I don’t want you hurt. Hello? We may have an intruder outside.” She gave the address. “Yes, I’ll stay on the line… No, we won’t go outside.”

“Give me your phone and take mine,” Hunter demanded. “Call Webster and tell him to get his ass over here. I’ll hold with 911.”

He couldn’t see them unless he stood straight in front of the leaded glass, where he could be seen as well. If they took even a few steps toward the stairs, they’d be in range. Just shoot the glass, break the window, then you can see.

And wake the neighborhood? That would be the best way to get caught. The police were on their way. Dammit. He was running away for the second time tonight. Hating Hunter, he crept back the way he’d come, destroying his footprints as he did so.

Unfortunately, now Eve would be watched all the time. Protected. He had to lure her away. Climbing into his SUV, he was two blocks away when he saw the cruiser in his rearview. He gripped his steering wheel and twisted viciously. It should have been Eve’s throat in his hands.

He jammed one hand into his coat pocket and felt the syringe that had been meant for Eve. His mind was racing. He’d been all primed. Ready. I’ll never sleep tonight. Just one. One to take off the edge.

He turned the SUV toward the city. He knew where to find what he wanted.