Page 27 of Nothing Watching

She glowered at him with an unfriendly gaze.

He was trying to talk to her, his lips moving although she couldn’t hear him over the rock music in her ears, and that gave her a quick flash of fear, because what if he was a plainclothes cop?

Then the next moment, logic caught up. Of course this guy wasn’t a cop. He was just some dude who was mesmerized by her hair, as so many others were.

She wasn’t listening to him.

Gazing at him scornfully, making it very clear that she despised his attempt at engaging with her and that she was not listening, she tossed her head and turned away.

But the man didn’t give up that easily. He seemed determined to get her attention, and he quickened his pace to walk alongside her. Toula gritted her teeth, feeling more and more uncomfortable with each passing moment. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like being followed by a strange man in the middle of the night.

“Piss off,” she snapped, glaring at him.

For a moment, she saw his face change. And she didn’t like what it showed. It gave her a deep, primal clench of fear. There was something predatory in his eyes that had seemed so yearning just a minute ago. Now, she sensed something deeply evil in him.

And then he reached out and grabbed her arm, his grip like iron.

“Let go of me!” she shouted, trying to pull away. But the man’s grasp was immovable. He didn’t say anything now, just kept staring at her with that same intense expression.

“Let go!” Toula said again, struggling to get away. But the man’s grip only tightened.

Suddenly, she realized that she was in trouble. This wasn’t some random guy trying to hit on her. Something was very wrong here.

“Who are you?” she asked, her heart racing, raising her hand to rip one of the headphones out. “What do you want from me?”

The man’s expression didn’t change, but Toula could see a glint of something in his eyes. It was almost like he was enjoying her fear.

He leaned close to her and he spoke, his breath hissing against her face. A pause in the music allowed her to hear his words, although in her fear and confusion, they made no sense. He was saying something like, “It’s too late now, Iseult. Your chance is over.”

And then, with impossible suddenness, like the striking of a snake, his grasp moved from her arm.

And clamped, instead, around her neck.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Juliette sat bolt upright in bed in her darkened hotel room, every nerve jangling as the sound of the phone drilled through her. She hadn’t been deeply asleep. Even a woman who loved her sleep the way she did couldn’t possibly have enjoyed any real rest while waiting for that dreaded sound.

She’d been drifting in and out of a fractured slumber, punctuated by nightmares in which men with knives, whose faces she couldn’t see, were standing over her in her hotel room.

Now, with that dream still vivid in her mind, she was grabbing the phone, knowing that the fears she’d faced were reality.

“Hello?” she said, seeing just before she took the call that it was her boss, Ebury, calling.

“Bad news, Juliette,” he said, his voice hard. “There’s been another murder.”

Juliette swore silently to herself as she switched on the light. Her eyes felt red and grainy. It was five a.m.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We did everything we could, but the lead didn’t pan out. There were warnings posted by the police, but I guess not everyone saw them.” She paused. “Who’s the victim?”

“A woman named Toula Timonen,” he said.

Juliette raised her eyebrows, switching the phone to speaker as she scrambled out of bed and grabbed her clothes. “She doesn’t sound American?”

Up until now, she had wondered if Americans were being specifically targeted.

“No, she doesn’t.” Ebury also sounded confused. “I’ve been told she has German ID on her.”

“Can you send me the details, and we’ll go straight there.”

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