Page 52 of Absent Remorse

Simon smiled then. “It will be fine, Amber. Go back to it as normal tomorrow. From what I’ve seen of you on this case, you’re doing well. Put the work in, pass the course, and who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself working alongside me soon.”

Amber would like that, but honestly, she would be happy anywhere that she could do some good as an agent.

She also knew that she would have to obsess less than she had on this case in future. Amber knew just how wrapped up in the puzzle she’d gotten, how much she’d made it about her and her capacity to solve it. Not everything she did as an agent would work like that. She would need to be able to put aside her own obsession with solving the puzzles at the heart of a case and just concentrate on doing solid investigative work.

Simon shook her hand then. “Well done, Amber. I look forward to working with you again.”

***

Amber met Joseph at a coffee shop, happy to be back to something like normal. In the morning, she would be returning to Quantico, but for now, she had this time with the man she’d been seeing, and to whom she was so attracted.

“I’m glad you’re ok,” he said. “Hunting down a killer like that, it must have been dangerous.”

“I can handle it,” Amber assured him.

She saw Joseph nod. “I believe you. What’s that? Two killers you’ve taken down without even being fully trained yet?”

Amber did her best to be modest. “I was part of a team for both of them.”

“But you’re the one who solved the puzzles in each case,” Joseph insisted. “Come on, Amber, take the credit. You know you deserve it. You’re amazing.”

Something about his tone suggested that he didn’t just mean as a potential FBI agent.

Amber still played it down, though. “I’m lucky both cases involved things I know about.”

“I’m not sure luck had much to do with solving this,” Joseph said. He took out his phone, obviously ready to record. “Of course, now that this is done, you owe me an interview.”

“Joseph …”

“Come on, Amber. I want the world to see just how impressive you are. Besides, you promised me that you’d tell me about the case once you were done with it, remember?”

Amber did remember. She’d made the promise in order to get her hands on the puzzle and to have the chance to solve it. She’d half-hoped that Joseph wouldn’t remember her side of the deal, though. She should have guessed that, when it came to her, he wasn’t about to forget anything.

“Are you sure you want to interview me?” Amber said. “After all, I’m just a former puzzle editor. I’m not even an agent yet.”

“And that’s the story,” Joseph pointed out. He set the recording going, ready to pick up everything the two of them said. “An FBI agent solving all of this would be impressive enough, but someone who until recently was just an editor? That’s definitely going to catch the interest of our readers.”

“Joseph,” Amber began, still with a hint of reluctance.

Joseph put a hand over hers, the contact feeling almost electric. “Please, Amber? At the very least,Iwant to hear all about what happened to you.”

“You’ll be bored.”

Joseph shook his head. “When it comes to you? Never. Besides, you owe me a story. And I’ve already come up with the perfect headline for it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

FBI trainee solves world’s hardest puzzle to catch serial killer

That headline caught Colm O’Rafferty’s eyes as he sat in his cell, reading through the newspapers that he’d bartered with his fellow inmates to get copies of. He always read as many as possible, starting with the puzzle sections and working outwards.

Of course, he had to work on the puzzle sections in his head. They wouldn’t allow him anything that he could turn into a weapon as easily as a pen or pencil.

He was alone in his cell, because he’d managed to arrange for a solitary cell, even when the other inmates were crowded two or even three to a cell in the rest of the facility. He’d long ago established that he could do whatever favors people wanted, and in return, they were generous.

Colm was in his late twenties, a little taller than average height, with sandy blond hair, the sculpted physique of someone who worked out to maintain his body as an efficient weapon, and a combination of boyish features and high cheekbones that some people called handsome. Usually right up until they looked into the cold blue of his eyes and saw the deadly, murderous calculation there.

Colm was always calculating, fitting the world together in patterns, trying to understand the best places to apply small pressures so that it would turn out as he wanted. His fast, agile mind took in everything from the small nuances of gang dynamics on the prison block to the patterns of each guard’s patrols and the small snippets of rumor that spread among the prison population out of sheer boredom. Colm pieced things together, so that he probably knew more about the prison than the governor did.

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