Page 7 of Absent Remorse

Amber put it back in the hot water, trying to find the locations. They varied slightly on each face, as if the person doing this had been trying to add an extra edge of difficulty by not allowing someone to simply deduce where the symbol was. They had to know, or they had to be able to put up with the pain of holding something hot to the touch.

Amber tried to memorize the positions on all six faces. She retrieved the cube, let it cool, and then tried to touch one of the points. Nothing happened, but she had already guessed that nothing would happen. The puzzle designer wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than all six points at once, or why build it like this?

It was a physical challenge, stretching around the cube like that. So much so that Amber found her fingers straining as she tried to get them all into position. Was the last one a little to the right, or …

Amber felt the spots she touched give under her fingers as she made contact with all of them, in a way they hadn’t given when touched individually. There was a loud click, and the sides of the cube fell away, revealing another cube underneath. This one was adorned with small clockfaces and even more symbols, although these seemed to be different than the hieroglyphs, another language again.

Amber called Joseph. He picked up almost instantly.

“Hey, Amber,” he said. “I had a great time last night.”

“Me too,” Amber said. Shehadenjoyed herself, until the cube had taken all of her attention. “I’m calling about the cube puzzle.”

“Have you solved it already?” Joseph asked.

“Only one layer. I think this thing peels apart one piece at a time. It’s difficult. Maybe it actuallyishard enough that there’s a story in it for you.”

“Well, maybe I’ll get to interview you about it over another dinner,” Joseph suggested. “Our former puzzle editor versus the most difficult puzzle she’s faced.”

Amber suspected that Harry would hate that. It was just one more reason to say yes.

“Sounds good,” Amber said. “I’m going to keep working on it.”

“Don’t worktoohard,” Joseph said. “You still have all your FBI training.”

“I’ll be fine,” Amber assured him.

The two of them hung up. A part of Amber wanted to go straight back to looking at the cube, but she knew that kind of obsession could be a problem. It was better to pace herself with a puzzle like this.

She turned the TV on instead, keeping it on in the background while she made herself some coffee. She took her laptop with her, going back to the pieces that people wanted her to do as freelance gigs, trying to at least get the general shape of things in place so that it would be easier to do the bulk of the work later.

Amber was still doing that when the news came on, with a story that seemed to be reporting on a murder.

“Rose Ferne was found earlier today, stabbed through the heart outside the Hambledon Hotel. The FBI is on the scene and investigating.”

Amber looked up and saw the camera on a familiar figure there. Agent Simon Phelps was square jawed, broad shouldered, and sandy haired, with strong features and piercing blue eyes that seemed to promise action at any moment. He was dressed in a dark suit and obviously looking to keep moving in the face of the TV cameras.

“Agent Phelps! Can you comment on the rumor that a note was found with the body? One that says, ‘you must solve the hardest puzzle to find the truth’?”

“Where did you hear that?”

As soon as Simon snapped it back, Amber knew that the reporter’s comment had hit the mark. Amber was more concerned with the words “the hardest puzzle”. Those words felt like a punch to the gut. The hardest puzzle? Could it be a coincidence that those words were found on a killer’s note so soon after a puzzle claiming to be the hardest in the world had been delivered to a reporter in the same city?

Not just any reporter. Thoughts of Joseph made her want to call him and tell him all about this, just because she wanted to see him again.

Itmightbe a coincidence. There was no reason to suspect that the two things were necessarily linked but coming so close together and with those words used, every instinct Amber possessed said that the two had something to do with one another.

She knew what she had to do next. There was one person who needed this information at once. She had to call Simon.

CHAPTER FIVE

Agent Simon Phelps was angry as he stepped around the reporters near the crime scene, trying to get to the CSI units working on it. In a situation like this, it was important to make progress quickly, and not just because there were currently a dozen cameras on them all. They needed to find answers before the killer had a chance to strike again.

The coroner was there with his people, already moving the body of Rose Ferne in a body bag. The coroner was a slender, Asian-American man in his forties, his dark hair peppered by just a few flecks of grey.

“What can you tell me, Liu?” Simon asked.

The coroner shrugged. “There’s not much to say. The cause of death seems pretty obvious, although it will take the autopsy to make sure that there’s nothing going on that we can’t see. There are no obvious signs of defensive wounds, and the knife only seems to have struck a single blow, straight to the heart.”

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