Page 49 of The Girl He Crowned

Someone had toldthe staff there to go home, wanting the place to himself in order to commit amurder. Paige could only think of one person with the authority to do that, whichmeant that, in that moment, she knew for sure who the killer was:

Edward Hales.

It only took Paigea moment to confirm it, when she ran the number plates on the cars parked infront of the store. One, a Lexus, was Yolanda Vert’s. The other was EdwardHales. He was in there with her, possibly already getting ready to kill her.

Paige had satopposite him in his office, had asked him questions about his company’s clocks,and gotten a lead from him that had led to Saul Bennett. While she’d been doingthat, he’d been a witness, but it turned out that he should have been her primesuspect all along.

How had she missedit? Now that the facts supported it, the answer seemed obvious. Halesdefinitely had the kind of precise, meticulous mindset that this killerpossessed. He had the connection to the clocks whose pendulums were involved inthe case. He had access to the files that he’d used to select his victims. Theonly questions now were why he was doing all of this and why he had suddenlydecided to kill someone in a spot that could so obviously be connected to him.

Maybe he thoughtthat he was about to be caught anyway and it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe hejust believed that his plans were so perfect that he could do what he wantedand get away with it. Maybe he planned to pass the whole thing off as anemployee taking advantage of the closing of the store.

Paige didn’t knowwhich it was, and right then there wasn’t any time to work it out. She had tofind a way to get in there. If Yolanda Vert was in there, then she needed Paige’shelp.

Paige moved aroundthe building, searching for any entry points that weren’t locked. The wholeplace seemed to be closed up tightly, though, leaving her to come back aroundto the front, staring at the plate glass window with its display of clocks.

Sauer was going tobe furious with Paige for what she was about to do, but if she didn’t, thenthere was a good chance that a woman was going to die. Paige just hoped thatshe wasn’t wrong. If she broke in there and just found Yolanda Vert having a clockconsultation, what she was about to do was going to beveryhard toexplain to her boss.

Paige took out hergun and fired at the window in one smooth movement, the sound of it loudagainst the silence of the store. The impact of the bullet shattered the glassthere, the ripples of that impact reducing it to fragments that tumbled to thesidewalk, forcing Paige to hop back to avoid them.

An alarm soundedin response to the shattering of the window, blaring out loud enough that itwas sure to attract attention from around the neighborhood. As far as Paige wasconcerned, that was a good thing. If someone called 911 and more help came, itjust meant more backup to try to take down a killer.

Her shoes crunchedthe shards as she made her way inside, pushing past the clocks. Paige movedquickly now, knowing that the sound of the gunshot and the breaking glass wouldhave alerted Edward Hales to her presence. If he wasn’t already in the processof trying to kill Yolanda Vert, then this would be enough to spark him intoaction.

Paige stillcouldn’t rush through the showroom, though; her training kicked in, forcing herto check every corner of the room just in case the killer was lurking there.Rushing in was just a way to get attacked from behind, and if Edward Hales tookher down first, he would be free to kill, with no one to stop him.

It meant thatPaige had to move through the clocks, scanning the showroom for any sign ofhim, keeping her Glock up ready to fire. She was still doing it when she hearda woman cry out from deeper in the building, in the workshop space.

Now, there was noattempt to take things carefully. Paige rushed through the showroom, into thegallery space beyond it, and then on into the workshop beyond. Here, the lightsabove were on, shining brightly down on a forest of longcase clocks within thatspace, the company’s standard line arrayed in ranks like an army of timepieceswaiting for battle.

Paige had a momentto scan for Edward Hales at that lower level, but she quickly spotted him above,on the upper level that was obviously there for clients to look over theworkshop while they chose their options for custom clocks.

Paige saw EdwardHales up there, wearing a dark hooded top and facemask, struggling with a womanon the edge of the balcony overlooking the workshop. She was a Black woman inher late thirties, slender and good looking, dressed in a long summer dress,her dark hair hanging down like a waterfall over the edge of the balcony.

She was bent backover it because Edward Hales was pressing her back there, a pendulum across herthroat as he tried to strangle her with surprising force for a man so slenderand average looking.

As Paige lookedup, she saw another pendulum hanging far above Yolanda Vert’s head, high enoughthat she probably hadn’t seen it when she walked in. This pendulum featuredintertwined roses, and hung menacingly, declaring the spot where Ms. Vert wasdue to die.

Paige couldn’t letthat happen.

“Edward Hales,stop right there!” she called out, hoping that the sudden arrival of the FBImight be enough to distract him from his attempt at murder, at least longenough for her to get close.

He showed no signof responding, though. Either he knew that Paige couldn’t interfere until shewas closer to him, or he was simply too caught up in the sudden outpouring ofaggression that had him attacking Yolanda, trying to strangle her with a brasspendulum, ignoring her attempts to fight back.

Paige raised hergun, trying to get a clear shot. Edward Hales might not be using the mostconventional of weapons, but he was still trying to kill someone, and had shownbefore that he was more than capable of doing it unless he was stopped.

There was no clearshot, though. Yolanda Vert was between Paige and Edward, so that any attempt toshoot him would go straight through her. Paige could hear her fighting forbreath as Edward strangled her now, trying to stay alive even as he choked thelife out of her.

Paige couldn’tmake it up those stairs in time to save her, couldn’t get an angle that wouldlet her shoot Edward and stop him, either. She needed to find another way todistract him and she needed to find itnow. If she didn’t, then YolandaVert was going to die.

Her eyes fell onthe clocks around her. Edward Hales wasn’t just a clockmaker; he was a man soobsessed with clocks that they formed an intimate part of the murders hecommitted. He was a meticulous man too; one who valued order and precision overalmost anything else. He was also clearly a man who put a lot of work into makingsure that the clocks he made were the best they could be. Paige had heard forherself just how much he seemed to care about them.

So she moved tothe nearest one and pushed at it with her full weight. If Paige had been Christopher’ssize, it would have been easy, but as it was, Paige had to throw herself at theclock, flinging herself against it with everything she had. Even with that, itteetered there for a moment or two, looking as if it might right itself and robPaige of precious seconds.

Then, like a treethat had been cut through just enough, it toppled. That fall seemed almost tohappen in slow motion, the clock seeming to take forever to move through thespace to the ground.

When it hit, thecrash was impossible to ignore. Wood splintered with the impact, and delicatepieces of clockwork made an awful mechanical sound as they broke. The bells forthe clock’s chimes rang out in a tuneless cacophony, marking some unknown hourfar too early.

It was temptingfor Paige to stand there and admire her handiwork, but she knew that there wasno time in which to do that. She had to keep moving, had to create adistraction so large that Edward Hales had no choice other than to react to it.Paige was already moving to the next clock as the first one hit the ground,kicking it hard so that it fell as the first one had.

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