Page 19 of Absent Reason

The sheer intensity of those feelings had faded a little, given what had happened to Joseph. It had been a reminder that what Amber did affected him and potentially put him in danger. Even so, the feelings were still there, at least a little.

Part of the reason that Amber had left to go on this case was because of the feeling that Joseph was safer without her there, but a part of that... Amber wanted to be here with Simon. Was that because of the need to solve the problem of a case like this, or was it because of Simon?

She pushed that thought out of her mind. This wasn't the time or place for those kinds of thoughts or feelings. She and Simon were both professionals working on a case that had to be solved. Nothing else mattered, and there certainly wasn’t going to be anything between them here and now.

Amber went into her room, locking the door behind her. She turned on the lights, taking a deep breath. She needed to clear her mind and get some rest. This case was starting to get to her, and she couldn't let that happen.

But as she lay down on the bed, she couldn't help but think about Simon. He was handsome, smart, and had a commanding presence that she found attractive. She shook her head, trying to think of something else, but his face kept popping up in her mind.

Amber had to force herself to focus on Joseph instead and on what had happened to him. She thought about calling the hospital to see how he was, but it was late, and Denise had already promised to call if anything changed. Calling now wouldn’t be a good idea.

Amber focused on the question of who might have attacked him instead. She didn’t have the diary with her because it was in evidence with the Washington PD. She couldn’t simply take it out to look through it, but she could remember some of the notes that someone had written there. She could remember the puzzles that this person had corrected. And that one note beneath one of them:

Almost good enough.

There was no doubt that he was intelligent. Certainly clever enough to solve the puzzles Amber had worked on there. Clever enough to improve on some of them. Was there a point in doing that? Was it intended as some kind of challenge to Amber?

Couldthis be someone from the puzzle world? Someone she knew? In her first case, she'd upset Raymond Johns, the puzzle editor for the Gazette under the name Idea, by accusing him of being a killer. Might he have done something like this to retaliate?

No, Amber didn't believe that. Even so, when she got back, she was going to try to get the Washington PD to compare the handwriting in the notes to some of Raymond's, just to make sure.

That was a matter for when she and Simon were back in DC, though. For now, they had a killer to catch here in Verdice, and that meant that Amber had to try to find a new lead that might get them somewhere now that the most likely suspect from near the bridges hadn't worked out.

That was a matter for the morning, though. There was nothing Amber could do tonight. She just had to hope that the police watching the town's bridges would be enough to keep the women of Verdice safe while she and Simon slept.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Victoria wasn't sure what it was that woke her up, sending her blinking her way back into consciousness. Some sound from her apartment in the night, perhaps? Some hint of something in the dark that didn't quite fit?

For a moment, Victoria wanted to believe that it was just a bad dream, but she still sat up in bed, her heart racing as she tried to listen for anything out of the ordinary. But all she heard was the sound of the wind outside, the normal sounds of her apartment building at night. Nothing that would have woken her up.

Victoria took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down and not really succeeding. She didn't know why she was so jumpy tonight. It had been a long day, but that was no excuse for her to be this on edge.

Maybe it had something to do with the weird note that she'd been sent earlier, the one demanding that she walk over all the bridges in town. It had been a strange joke, the kind of thing that she should have been able to dismiss out of hand and never think about again, but something about it had unsettled Victoria. Apparently, to the point where she lost sleep over it.

Briefly, she looked over at the clock on the bedside table. The display told her that it was twenty minutes past midnight. Victoria’s mind automatically jumped to the fact that it was twenty minutes after the deadline from the note.

Victoria knew that, with her thoughts racing like this, she wouldn't get back to sleep quickly. She got out of bed, walking over to the window to look out at the moonlit street below. There was no one there, no sign of anything suspicious. Maybe she'd heard an animal outside or a branch snapping in the wind. She couldn't shake the feeling of unease, though, the feeling that something wasn't right.

Victoria was still looking out of the window when she heard a sound somewhere in her apartment. Something definite this time, something that couldn’t be put down to just a bad dream or an unexpected sound outside. It was a faint creak, nothing much, but it was a sound that shouldn't have been there. Not in her apartment.

Victoria wondered if she should call the cops, but a part of her was still half-convinced that this was all a joke by one of her friends. Victoria grabbed her phone in case she needed it, but she also picked up the baseball bat that she kept near the bed in case she neededthat, too. If someone wanted to scare her, she was more than capable of scaring them right back.

Victoria set off through her apartment, turning on lights as she went. She held the baseball bat ready, as much to scare whoever was doing this as because she thought that she would actually need to use it. If she did… well, she wouldn’t hesitate to swing it right at anyone she found.

"You got something wrong," she called out, trying to keep her voice level. "The puzzle you set doesn't work. If you want to scare me with some fake threat, you need to do better than that."

There was no answer, and Victoria kept moving through her apartment. Maybe there was nothing there. In which case, she needed to check, needed to be sure. It wasn't a huge space, so Victoria could quickly establish that there was no one in the main room. She headed for the bathroom, wanting to make sure that she was alone. She reached the door to it, her heart beating fast in spite of herself.

Victoria threw the door open, baseball bat at the ready. There was nobody there. Victoria let out a sigh of relief. She’d obviously imagined this whole thing.

That was when she heard a sound behind her. She tried to turn, but she was too slow.

Something dropped around her neck. It started to tighten rapidly, cutting into her neck, cutting off her ability to breathe. Victoria wanted to say that this wasn't fair, wasn't right that the problem was impossible, but she didn't have the breath to do it then.

She was pulled backward, and the noose only continued to tighten.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

---