Step On A Crack

Chapter 70

I HAD CLEARED the entrance of the bus and was running flat out across the street when the immense cathedral door began inching open again. I knew another victim was about to be ejected from the cathedral. Part of me wanted to believe I could save a life if I acted fast enough, but I knew better.

I was crossing the wide sidewalk when a human form suddenly flew out the black space of the open door. I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.

The body skidded across the flagstone paving and landed facedown on top of a wilted flower arrangement. Male, I registered. Dark suit. Which hostage had been killed?

Breath scorching in my chest, I fell to my knees in front of the victim. I didn’t even bother looking for a pulse when I saw the torso. The lower back had been ripped apart and was horribly torn and bloody.

I was too late.

The victim was a middle-aged man. His shirt had been removed, and dozens of large, ragged stab wounds covered his back. What looked like cigarette burns went up and down his forearms. I’d seen my share of bodies, and I recognized that someone with a sharp knife, maybe even a box cutter, had taken out a lot of anger on this one.

The first thing I saw when ESU lieutenant Steve Reno helped me flip the victim was that the poor man’s throat had been slit.

My heart seized hard in my chest as I looked at the victim’s beaten and bloody face.

I turned to Reno beside me. “This is so wrong,” the big man said, staring at the corpse. Reno ’s voice was small and wounded, as if he was speaking to himself. “As wrong as it gets.”

I nodded my head as I continued to stare down, unable to take my eyes away.

Andrew Thurman, the mayor of New York City, peered up lifelessly into the leaden sky. A pulse of cold shuddered through me as I glanced up into the dark, towering arches where he seemed to be looking for some answer as to why this could have happened.

Steve Reno pulled off his Windbreaker and wrapped it around Mayor Thurman like a blanket. He crossed himself silently before he closed the mayor’s eyes with his thumbs.

“Grab his legs, Mike,” Reno said. “Let’s get him out of here. Don’t let the press get any shots.”