Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(92)

“Sorry,” he says, “but if he’s the one who killed Kristina—and if he was planning to do the same thing to you—then I hope you got him good.”

“But would they charge me with murder, do you think? If he’s dead, I mean.”

“It was self-defense.”

“I know, but . . .” The thought of being responsible for the death of a human being, under any circumstances, is sickening.

“Don’t worry, Allison. It’ll be okay.”

She nods and looks away, feeling as though she’s lived a lifetime’s worth of trauma with this man in the space of a few days.

How, she wondered, can he have endured so much and still manage to hold it together, when she herself feels like she’s going to break down and cry?

Even knowing that his marriage was troubled, that he had his share of doubts . . .

Even now that she’s met his sister and gained more insight into who Mack is—and was, where he comes from . . .

Strength, quite clearly, is his strength.

Again, she turns to look up at the building. She should feel safe, sitting here in the police car with an armed driver at the wheel. She doesn’t.

She won’t until they come out with him in handcuffs—or on a stretcher.

Whoever he is.

When she closes her eyes and pictures the figure she saw in her bedroom, she’s frustrated by how little detail there is. She barely caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye before she reacted, and she never looked back after he went down.

It could have been Jerry, she told the police who questioned her quickly before going inside. But it could just easily have been someone else.

At the squawk of a radio in the front seat, her eyes snap open. The officer at the wheel is listening and responding to whatever is being said, but it’s a conversation made up largely of numeric code, and Allison hasn’t a clue what’s going on. She looks at Mack, who shrugs.

Finally concluding the conversation with a brisk “10–4,” the officer turns to Allison and Mack.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“They’re up there in your apartment, ma’am. But it’s empty—whoever was there is gone.”

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Jamie vigorously rubs in cold cream to remove the makeup, trying to ignore the excruciating pain brought by the slightest movement.

Stupid, stupid. You’re so damned stupid.

You should have known it was too easy, strolling right into Allison Taylor’s apartment with her spare key.

Jamie arrived on Hudson Street just in time to see her out on the sidewalk with a strange woman, walking toward the opposite corner. That was initially disappointing. But then, she’d have to come back sooner or later, right? And her absence provided the perfect opportunity to properly set the stage.

The first stop was the manager’s office to disable the surveillance cameras and remove the tapes that had just been recorded—including the one that showed Jamie unlocking the front door and walking down the hall to the building manager’s office. Then it was on to a couple of other apartments on the way upstairs, where Jamie rummaged through the vacant tenants’ belongings for just the right touches.

It’s always been thrilling to peek into strangers’ drawers and closets. But tonight, there was even greater pleasure in touching, and taking, and imagining the role those stolen items would play in what was to come.

Some silky lingerie for Allison, just in case she didn’t have any of her own . . . and some candles to set the mood . . .

Just like with the others. That was how it should be. Yes, that was the only way Jamie could recapture that feeling, the exquisite rush of power.

True, this was different in some ways. Allison hadn’t given Jerry the brush-off as Kristina and Marianne had . . . but she’d done something a lot worse. She’d seen him the night Kristina was killed. She was a witness. She had to apologize to Jerry, and then she had to die. Just like the others.

Too late, Jamie realized that there would be no music. That was a stupid mistake. It wouldn’t be the same without the music.

“Jamie? Please, Jamie. Please talk to me,” Jerry begs.

That’s the stupidest thing you ever did. Trusting Jerry.

“Shut up!” Jamie barks at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking off makeup and trying to think.”

Jamie tosses another makeup-smudged cotton ball into the trash can, then runs the water until it’s steaming.

“Jamie,” Jerry says, “please . . . Talk to me.”

Jamie grabs a washcloth and starts scrubbing. The water is hot, painfully hot, but Jamie welcomes the pain. This pain.

Jamie did not welcome the pain inflicted by Allison when she threw that boulder of a bookend with all her might.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. She wasn’t supposed to be armed. She wasn’t supposed to hurt Jamie; Jamie was supposed to hurt her.

But it was Jamie who went down, hard, in an explosion of blinding agony, utterly immobilized.

By the time I realized what had hit me, she was gone.

Jamie’s first instinct was to chase her down. But she had too great a head start.

I never would have caught her in time. The only thing for me to do was get away from there as fast as I could.

Wincing in pain, Jamie went out the window, clambering down the fire escape and limping away through the back alleys to the adjacent block.