Page 20 of The Angel Maker

Almost as though Chris had left this place in a hurry.

Like he was looking over his shoulder, she remembered.

Like he was scared of something.

She moved around to the table. There was a drawer built in below. When she opened it, she was greeted by the smell of wood and dust drifting up.

There were a few sheets of paper inside. She picked one out and saw it was an old, faded letter printed on university-headed notepaper. It hadn’t been delivered to the apartment, and both the address and the name of the person—James Alderson—meant nothing to her. But directly underneath, she spotted a glossy sheet of photographs, and she put the letter aside and picked those out instead.

There had been four originally, taken in a booth, but one had been clipped away. The remaining three showed the same image of the same two people. She recognized Chris, leaning into the picture on the right-hand side, and yet at the same time she didn’t. For one thing, he lookedhealthy. He was tanned and freckled, he’d grown his hair out into a style that really suitedhim, and his smile was as genuine as she could remember seeing since he was a little boy. And most important of all, he didn’t seem remotely self-conscious about the scar that ran down the side of his face.

He was pressing his cheek against that of a man Katie didn’t recognize. She guessed he was about thirty years old—although, like her brother, there was something about his face that made him seem boyish and younger. He had long brown hair, round glasses, and a smile that matched her brother’s in terms of happiness.

She turned the photos over and recognized her brother’s handwriting there.

Mr. Christopher Shaw, Esq., and Mr. James Alderson Jr., Esq.

So he had a boyfriend—another sign that he had been building a life. She put the photos back in the drawer, and as she did, she noticed the sheet of paper directly underneath. It looked like it had been printed off the internet and showed a black-and-white photograph of a stern-looking man with a broad mustache. He was dressed in a smart black suit with a flower in the lapel. Beside the picture, above a dense wall of small text, the headline read:THE DESPICABLE HISTORY OF JACK LOCK.

The front door opened downstairs.

Katie froze and then listened carefully. For a moment, she could hear nothing beyond a slight rush of outside air from below. Whoever was down there was hesitating. There was something about the silence that made her think it wasn’t her brother.

That it was someone like her who shouldn’t be here.

“Chris?”

A man’s voice calling up.

“James?”

She heard the front door close, followed by a tentative series of creaks as the man made his way slowly and cautiously up the stairs. Katie glanced desperately around the room—but there was nowhere to hide. She closedthe drawer quietly, and then pulled out the key and clenched it between her knuckles.

As she heard the creaks reaching the top of the stairs, she stepped out onto the landing with her fist raised.

“Shit!”

The man flung his arm up to protect his face and then stumbled and lost his footing, falling backward onto the floor against the wall.

“Don’t!” he cried out. “Please! No need!”

Her heart was hammering. She recognized him—it was the shirtless man she’d seen talking to himself across the road. Except now that she was seeing him up close, cowering on the floor in front of her, she realized he wasn’t actually a man at all. He was barely older than the senior boys at school. He was bone-thin, his skin almost blue, and there was a mottled, cup-shaped scar curling beneath the bristles on his closely shaved skull. When he looked up, he seemed more scared of her than she was of him.

“No need,” he repeated.

Katie hesitated. Then she put the key away and took out her phone, keeping her distance. He didn’t seem much of a physical threat, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She tried to summon a little of the authority that she didn’t feel.

“You’ve got about two seconds before I call the police,” she said. “What are you doing in here?”

“I saw the lights.”

He started to get up.

“Don’t,” she warned him. “Just stay where you are.”

He settled back.

“I thought Chris and James were home,” he said.

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