Page 48 of Absent Remorse

Amber wanted to run upstairs and tell Simon what she’d found. She wanted to persuade him to abandon the interrogation and go with her new lead, but would he? He already clearly thought that he had the killer. Palliser certainly wouldn’t be happy. She would just think Amber was trying to reopen the case so that she could spend more time working in the department.

Amber needed some kind of proof that she was right. She swallowed at the thought of what that meant. Could she really go to 104 Staveley Avenue to check it out alone? She still had Simon’s spare gun; in the rush after arresting Adam Trench, she hadn’t had the time to give it back, but could she do this, really?

She had to. There was no way she would be able to persuade Simon without more proof.

She left a message for him using her phone:

Gone to 104 Staveley Ave. Don’t think we have the right killer. Adam Trench is a distraction. Going to find proof.

She sent it and headed off. If the real killer was still out there, then she had no time to waste.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

The first person that Greg had killed had been his mother, Aisling. He hadn’t meant to; it had been almost an accident.

She’d come into the basement he’d taken over so that he could work on his grand puzzle, his game that would change the way people thought about puzzles. She’d come up to him at a point where he was still dreaming about it, thinking about the accolades he would receive for it and the legions of baffled players who would be a part of it all.

Then she’d knocked it out of his hand. “Greg, you need to stop wasting your time on this,” she’d snapped. “I’ve supported you for too long. You’re wasting your life. You need to grow up!”

He’d gone to pick it up, trying to explain that he was on the cusp of seeing how it all fit together, that all he was missing was a grand story arc for it that would give it some meaning beyond just the puzzle. Only she’d moved faster than him, stamping on the puzzle, hard enough that the wood of that first prototype shattered.

He’d felt the anger then and the confusion. The screwdriver had been in his hand before he even knew about it. Even then, he hadn’t meant to stab her. If she hadn’t taken that crucial step forward at the wrong moment …

Of course, he was lying to himself. He must have thrust with the weapon. He just didn’t remember doing it. All he remembered was the moment when she had staggered back, falling to her knees, a look of incomprehension on her face as she died.

Greg should have felt horror in that moment. He should have felt as if the world was falling apart. Instead, in an instant, everything made sense. His mother had given him the greatest gift of all in the instant of her death: inspiration.

He’d known then what the core of his puzzle should be, what would give it meaning. Life and death stakes would elevate it all to something more than just another puzzle box. They would turn it into something that would be remembered, something that would be impossible to ignore.

And it had worked. His work was all over the news. The latest reports said that a man named Adam Trench had been arrested on suspicion of the murders.

That meant that they’d misinterpreted the final puzzle layer, just as Greg had hoped they would. He’d had to put his own freedom on the line for the puzzle to mean anything, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to be caught. If the FBI had taken this wrong step, that meant that it was time for him to run with the money he’d received from the sale of his mother’s house.

He wasn’t there now, of course. He was in the lockup garage he used as both a workshop and a place to live, down near the railway lines. He guessed that eventually, the FBI would find this place, but he would be long gone by then.

He moved around it, grabbing his things and shoving them into a bag. He wouldn’t take much with him. He didn’t need it now that he’d proved the brilliance of his game. Greg threw in clothes, cash, everything he would require to start elsewhere. Maybe he could even make a version of his game again in a new city.

As he got ready to leave, he armed the traps that he’d set up around the workshop. It was important not to make thingstooeasy for the FBI when they came here. Greg picked his way through them carefully, knowing exactly where the dangerous spots were.

He was still slowly making his way to the door when he heard the sound of a key in the lock. The lock that he’d had made to carefully match that of the railway locker he’d chosen. The door swung open, and a woman stepped inside, alone.

Someone had solved his game. But who? Whowasshe?

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

From the moment Amber arrived at the address she’d gotten from the key, she knew that she ought to sit there and wait for backup. She ought to call Simon and make him listen, then simply cover the exits until he arrived.

She didn’t do that though, for two reasons: First, she wasn’t sure that she had enough to convince even Simon yet, and she certainly wouldn’t be able to convince Agent Palliser. They both thought that they had the killer in custody already. Secondly, Amber wanted to see the truth of all this for herself. She thought that she had completed the puzzle, but now she needed confirmation of that. She needed to know that she was right.

That was why she approached the garage that sat there near the railway line, moving around it, and looking for signs of life there. The windows on the ground floor were covered over and barred though, so it was impossible to get much of a sense of what was going on inside.

Amber went to a door at the front instead, trying the handle. She wasn’t surprised to find it locked. She thought about hammering on the door and trying to get anyone inside to open up, but what would Amber do then? As Palliser had pointed out several times, she wasn’t an FBI agent. Besides, she didn’t even know if there was anyone in there.

An idea came to her, one that didn’t make a lot of sense except in the context of the puzzle. Taking the key, she tried it on the lock. It shouldn’t have worked. After all, the key fit the lock on the locker back at the railway station. A key fit one lock; that was the point. But maybe, as a deliberate misdirection in the puzzle, it made perfect sense.

Amber tried the key in the lock and to her surprise, it fit. She turned it and the lock opened with a click. It occurred to Amber that the moment the lock opened, she had the proof she needed to show Simon that this was the place. Amber took a photograph of the key in the lock, then sent it to him.

Simon, the key fits another lock! The railway locker was a distraction. 104 Staveley Avenue. Hurry!

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