Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(3)
Before Vic left Chicago, as he was conducting a jailhouse interview with Calvin Granger, Edie took over Calvin’s body.
The transition occurred without warning, right before Vic’s incredulous eyes. Everything about the man changed—not just his demeanor, but his physical appearance and his voice. A doctor was called in, and attested that even biological characteristics like heart rate and vision had been altered. Calvin could see twenty-twenty. Edie was terribly nearsighted. Stunning.
It wasn’t that Calvin believed he was an entirely different person, a woman named Edie—he was Edie. Calvin had disappeared into some netherworld, and when he returned, he had no inkling of what had just happened, or even that time had gone by.
The experience would have convinced even a die-hard skeptic, and it chilled Vic to the bone.
Case closed, yes—but this one is going to give him nightmares for a long time to come.
Vic tidies his desk and finds himself thinking fondly of the old days at the bureau—and a colleague who was Annabelle Wyatt’s polar opposite.
John O’Neill became an agent around the same time Vic did. Their career paths, however, took them in different directions: Vic settled in with the BSU, while O’Neill went from Quantico to Chicago and back, then on to New York, where he eventually became chief of the counterterrorism unit. Unfortunately, his career with the bureau ended abruptly a few weeks ago amid a cloud of controversy following the theft—on his watch—of a briefcase containing sensitive documents.
When it happened, Vic was away. Feeling the sudden urge to reconnect, he searches through his desk for his friend’s new phone number, finds it, dials it. A secretary and then an assistant field the call, and finally, John comes on the line.
“Hey, O’Neill,” Vic says, “I just got back from Chicago and I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Shattuck! How the hell are you? Happy birthday. Sorry I couldn’t make it Saturday night.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m sure you have a good excuse.”
“Valerie dragged me to another wedding. You know how that goes.”
“Yeah, yeah . . . how’s the new job?”
“Cushy,” quips O’Neill, now chief of security at the World Trade Center in New York City. “How’s the big 5–0?”
“Not cushy. You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”
“February. Don’t remind me.”
Vic shakes his head, well aware that turning fifty, after everything O’Neill has dealt with in recent months, will be a mere blip.
They chat for a few minutes, catching up, before O’Neill says, “Listen, I’ve got to get going. Someone’s waiting for me.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“My business is always a pleasure, Vic. Don’t you know that by now?”
“Where are you off to tonight?”
“I’m having drinks with Bob Tucker at Windows on the World to talk about security for this place, and it’s a Monday night, so . . .”
“Elaine’s.” Vic is well aware of his friend’s long-standing tradition.
“Right. How about you?”
“It’s a Monday night, so—”
“Football.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a date with the couch and remote. Giants are opening their season—and the Yankees are playing the Red Sox, too. Clemens is pitching. Looks like I’ll be channel surfing.”
“I wouldn’t get too excited about that baseball game if I were you, Vic. It’s like a monsoon here.”
A rained out Yankees-Red Sox game on one of Vic’s rare nights at home in front of the TV would be a damned shame. Especially since he made a friendly little wager with Rocky Manzillo, his lifelong friend, who had made the trip down from New York this weekend for Vic’s birthday dinner.
Always a guy who liked to rock the boat, Rocky is also a lifelong Red Sox fan, despite having grown up in Yankees territory. He still lives there, too—he’s a detective with the NYPD.
In the grand scheme of Vic Shattuck’s life, old pals and baseball rivalries and homemade macaroni casseroles probably matter more than they should. He’s rarely around to enjoy simple pleasures. When he is, they help him forget that somewhere out there, a looming stressor is going to catapult yet another predator from the shadows to wreak violent havoc on innocent lives.
September 10, 2001
New York City
6:40 P.M.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
Unfazed by the disgruntled young punk, Jamie continues shoving through the sea of pedestrians, baby carriages, and umbrellas, trying to make it to the corner before the light changes.
Around the slow-moving elderly couple, the dog on a leash, a couple of puddle-splashing kids in bright yellow slickers and rubber boots . . .
Failing to make the light, Jamie silently curses them all. Or maybe not silently, because a prim-looking woman flashes a disapproving look. Hand coiled into a fist, Jamie stands waiting in the rain, watching endless traffic zip past.
The subway would have been the best way to go, but there were track delays. And God knows you can’t get a stinking cab in Manhattan in weather like this.
Why does everything have to be such a struggle here?
Everything, every day.
A few feet away, a passing SUV blasts its deafening horn.