Page 6 of The Writer

Declan asks, “What’s her name?”

“Denise Morrow.”

Hernandez says it like it should mean something to him.

Declan reaches for the Glock on his hip and unfastens the leather safety strap. He doesn’t take out the weapon, though. With a hooked finger, he gives the door a gentle knock and speaks in the calmest voice he can muster: “Mrs. Morrow? This is Detective Declan Shaw of the NYPD. I believe you requested me?” When she doesn’t respond, he twists the knob. “I’m coming in. Hold your fire.”

CHAPTER FIVE

AS HE OPENS the door, Declan steals a quick look at the lock and jamb. It’s clearly been jimmied; there are scrape marks all around the otherwise pristine brass. The jamb is scuffed and dented, like someone shoved a wide screwdriver in the small space and tried to pry the door open. There’s blood too. Not much. Like whoever did this scraped a knuckle or something.

Hernandez is right.

It’s all wrong.

If a perp on a B and E knows how to pick a lock, he doesn’t try to pry the door open. If a perp pries a door open, there’s no need to pick the lock. You don’t do both. You don’t pry a door open with a screwdriver either. You need something more formidable, like a pry bar. And when you use that, you make amess—the jamb cracks, sometimes the door. You gotta bust up enough to get the dead bolt past the strike plate. That didn’t happen here. None of it. The scrapes in the brass around the lock are too wide, probably from the same screwdriver. Definitely not a lockpick. Picks are narrow, pointy. Even the blood makes no sense. What self-respecting perp wouldn’t wipe it away? Maybe some meth-head looking to score wouldn’t think of that, but someone doing a B and E in a building like this? It all looks superficial. Staged. Someone took a screwdriver and roughed up the doorjamb, then made some scratches around the lock.

Declan glances at Hernandez, and the man’s nodding his head, silently mouthing,See what I mean?

Yeah,Declan thinks.I see.

He clears his throat. “Mrs. Morrow? It’s me, Detective Declan Shaw. I’m coming in. I’m alone. Don’t shoot.”

Drawing a deep, calming breath, Declan steps into the apartment. He gently closes the door behind him, sealing out the other officers. His mic is live; he knows they can still hear him.

He’s in a large foyer surrounded by marble—floors, walls, all of it marble. A table sits by the door; on it is a brass plate filled with keys next to a large empty vase. There’s a coatrack off to the side. Silk flowers are scattered on the floor. On the wall, an alarm panel is flashing red. Tripped earlier, but silent now. Probably timed out.

He finds Denise Morrow at the end of a short hall off the entryway. She’s sitting on the floor, her back pressed against the wall. Her knees are pulled tight against her chest, held there by her arms in an almost childlike hug. A .38 danglesloosely from the fingers of her left hand. What he can see of her white blouse is stained crimson; her black pants are wet with it too. She’s gently rocking, the softest of whimpers slipping from her lips.

A man is on the floor, his dead face frozen in a mix of panic and fear, his chest a bloody mess from multiple stab wounds.

The knife is on the floor between the two of them, marring the otherwise pristine white marble with blood.

Declan speaks softly, disarmingly. “Is this your husband?”

It takes a moment for her to respond, like the words reach her on a delay. She bobs her head, the movement barely perceptible.

Declan lowers himself to a crouch and checks the man for a pulse he knows he won’t find, then reaches over the man’s body for the gun. “How about you give me that?”

She seems to shrink back farther, like she’d become part of the wall if she could, her grip tightening on the weapon. In a soft, urgent voice, she says, “I think they’re still here. I heard something from the main bedroom.”

Declan follows her gaze past the kitchen to a dark hall. He seriously doubts anyone is still in the apartment. Aside from her and her husband, he’s fairly certain nobody has been in the apartment period, but he’s not about to chance it. He whispers, “Do you mind if I bring in some officers to conduct a search? I’ll stay here with you.” Nodding at the gun. “You’ll need to give me that, though. They won’t come in if you have it. Think you can do that? You don’t have to move. You can stay right there if you want. Just give me the gun. You’re safe now. I promise.”

He holds his hand out again.

For a second, he thinks she’s going to protest, but she reaches out and sets the weapon in his hand.

Declan pops the cylinder and empties the bullets into his palm. He slips them into his pocket and tucks the .38 under his belt behind his back. Then he reaches for the radio clipped to his shoulder and pretends to push the transmit button, knowing full well Hernandez and the others are already listening. “This is Shaw,” he says. “Send in two officers to conduct a room-by-room. Potential perp still on-site. I’m with Mrs. Morrow. She is no longer armed.”

He half expects to hearCopy,then realizes they can’t respond as long as he’s locked in transmit mode. When he lowers his hand, he hears the apartment door open behind him, followed by the shuffle of shoes on the marble. He doesn’t take his eyes off Denise Morrow as they dart by his right side and disappear deeper into the large apartment. “This will just take a moment.”

Declan tries to get a read on her, but she appears to be in shock. She doesn’t seem to want to look at her husband, which is understandable. Right now, Declan doesn’t want her to. Looking at him might snap her out of it, bring on emotion. Emotion is unpredictable. Nobody wants unpredictable. Then he notices something else—her makeup is perfect. Not a single mascara streak from tears. No snotty nose from crying. No odd coloration in her cheeks; they’re not pale, flushed, or otherwise. What kind of woman (in shock or not) finds her husband stabbed to death and doesn’t shed a tear?

He stands and gets a better look around. There’s a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf on his left, and he spots something odd there too—there are ten copies of the same book. A dozen more of another title. The entire shelf is like that, maybe a hundredbooks in all, but most of them are the same four or five titles. He pulls a hardcover at random and flips it over, finds Denise Morrow’s photo on the back. “This is you?” More of a statement than a question. “You’re a writer?”

Another soft nod.

The bio under her photograph readsDenise Morrow is theNew York Timesand international bestselling author of numerous true-crime thrillers, includingThe Bronx RipperandThe Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.Her titles have been translated into over thirty languages and can be found in more than 150 countries worldwide. She resides in New York City with her husband, David, and their cat, Quimby.

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