Page 8 of Absent Remorse

“Suggesting that the killer knows what he’s doing,” Simon said.

Liu shrugged. “I can only tell you the facts. What they suggest is up to you. Iwillsay that most people don’t hit the heart that easily. They tend not to know exactly where it is.”

“Implying medical training or military training?” Simon said.

Again, the coroner shrugged. He clearly wasn’t about to get drawn into speculation, despite Simon’s best efforts. This was one of the problems with being assigned to a case like this alone: while Simon was confident in his ability to catch the killer, there wasn’t anybody there to bounce ideas off or talk over the possibilities with. That made all of this more difficult.

“What about the note?” Simon asked.

“We dusted it for prints, but there wasn’t anything. We’ll test for DNA, but if the first murder was anything to go by, then there won’t be anything.”

The first murder had been of a young woman named Mandy Grieder, killed two days ago, and left outside one of the many embassies in the city. That, and the fact that the multiple murders pointed to a serial killer, meant the FBI’s involvement in the case. It meant that Simon had received a call from his superiors this morning and had needed to rush to be here.

“Do you know how the press got hold of the contents of the note?” Simon asked.

“Not any of my people,” Liu said, giving Simon a look that dared him to contradict that. “Probably one of the staff from the hotel.”

Simon would need to get to the bottom of that later. It might matter if it turned out that no one had handed over the note, because that might suggest that the killer had gotten in touch with the media to tell them the contents. That might potentially provide a way to trace him, although that would in turn probably run into the problem of journalists wanting to protect their sources.

For now, though, Simon needed to focus on trying to make progress in other ways. He’d already talked to the manager who had found the body, but he probably needed to talk to other people in and around the hotel to try to find out if they’d seen anything.

“Do we at least know if this woman was killed here?” Simon asked.

“I won’t be able to tell you for sure until I conduct the autopsy,” the coroner said. “But based on the blood around the scene, I’d say it was likely.”

So, had this location been because the killer had known he could ambush his victim here, or was there something more to it than that, something symbolic?

More importantly, what did the note mean? Solve the hardest puzzle? What puzzle? The puzzle of who the murderer was, or something else? Without any context, the note didn’t seem to make any sense.

Simon was still thinking about that when his phone rang. He saw that it was Amber. Was she calling for something to do with her FBI training? Simon knew that he should focus on the murder in front of him, but he still found himself answering.

“Amber? What is it? Is everything ok?”

“I just saw you on the news, and I heard about the note,” Amber said. Simon could hear the excitement in her voice. Was it the mention of a puzzle in the note that had caught her attention?

“I know it says something about a puzzle,” Simon said. “But I still haven’t even worked out what puzzle it means.”

“I might be able to help there,” Amber said, the excitement still there in her voice. “I think … I think I’m holding it.”

***

Simon stood outside Amber’s apartment, remembering the first time he’d come to see her there. They’d been hunting a killer who left puzzles that potentially allowed them to find his victims before they died. This time though, the victims were already dead, and there was no obvious puzzle to solve.

Simon knocked on the door and waited. Amber answered. She looked almost the same as she had those months ago, with the same slightly rounded features and golden hair tied back in a braid, but there were differences too. She wasn’t wearing the same rounded glasses that she’d been wearing before, and she seemed in better shape. Obviously, all the training at Quantico was having an effect on her.

“Simon, come in,” Amber said, showing him into her apartment.

It was as full of puzzles as Simon remembered from his last time there, with examples of wooden and metal puzzles set out on shelves, paper ones set out on tables, board games stacked up. There were two chess boards set up on small tables, although unlike last time, it didn’t seem that Amber was in the middle of a game.

“You’ve finished your correspondence games against IDEA?” Simon said. The last time he’d been there, Amber had been in the middle of an ongoing series of chess games against the puzzle editor of another newspaper.

“We haven’t played in a while,” Amber said. “I don’t think he’s forgiven me for getting him arrested.”

The editor in question’s pen name had been encoded into the puzzles the previous killer they’d hunted together had sent. They’d had good reasons to arrest him but doing so had obviously soured relations between him and Amber.

They weren’t there to talk about that, though. As much as Simon wanted to take the time to catch up with Amber, there had been two murders, and Simon had little time in which to find the answers.

“You said on the phone that you think you have the puzzle mentioned in the note the killer left?” Simon said. He couldn’t keep the sense of urgency out of his voice. He had a hard time believing that Amber might, by coincidence, have exactly what he needed, but if she did, he needed it right away.

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