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- Author: Adam Nicholls
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“What, then?” she asked.
“I’m a private investigator.” Morgan cleared his throat and returned to the patio, shivering as he spoke. “I take it you’ve heard about what happened?”
“At the Whittle residence? I saw the news on TV.”
“Is it worth me asking if you know anything?”
The old lady smiled. Her teeth were too perfect to be her own, but the kindness in her humored expression was enough to compensate for that. Even her crow’s feet were perfectly symmetrical. “You’re quite bright. But actually, the police never did get as far as me.”
“Why’s that?”
“I was with my nephew for a couple of days after the incident. The ladies in my bingo group said they were all visited by the police and asked questions. Getting agitated, they were, being pressed as if they knew something.”
“That explains why nobody wants to talk to me.” Morgan craned his neck to see the view of the Whittle residence from where he stood. It was visible, but only barely. “And you? Do you feel like you might know something about what happened?”
“Ah.” The lady licked her finger and held it up to the air as if she were to reveal a huge secret. “As a matter of fact, I might know something, but I can’t promise it’ll be of much use to you. Wait here a moment.”
While the lady disappeared behind her door, Morgan felt a twinge of excitement. She’d said it might not be helpful, but at this stage anything at all would serve him. Civilians never knew just how useful they were until they’d donated some information. Although that wasn’t always the case; most of the time they were just creating drama.
It felt like forever before the woman returned, delicately handing over a cell phone as she shuffled toward him, revealing her grotesque green sweater. She passed it into his hands like she was scared to break it. Maybe she was. “My nephew took this for me.”
“What is it?”
“Look.”
Morgan squinted to view the image on the screen. What he saw made his pulse quicken, his mouth turning dry at the prospect of finding something new. “You say your nephew took this?”
The lady nodded. “It was a few days before those awful murders happened. I was seeing the same car parked outside my house every day for a week. At first I thought it was just somebody taking a break before work, but one day I saw him taking photographs.”
Breathless, Morgan continued to stare at the photo, using his thumbs to zoom in on the image. The car was parked at such an angle that the driver could easily watch Carrie’s house, and although it might have meant nothing, there was the slimmest chance it might’ve meant everything. “Please tell me he was taking photos of the house.”
“Oh, no. Not at all. He was photographing Carrie Whittle.”
That was enough. Morgan’s heart pounded. A smile crept onto his lips, and he leaned into the phone like he was about to fall into it. The license plate was unreadable, as was his typical luck, but there was something else about this car that stood out, and it couldn’t be ignored.
Morgan zoomed in further and scrolled across, reading the sticker on the rear window.
RICO’S CAR HIRE
“Like I said,” the lady continued, “it might be nothing.”
“It’s definitely something.” Morgan handed back the phone, placing it into her wrinkled palm as softly as she’d put it in his. He reached into his pocket and produced his own phone, his shaking thumbs ready to google the address of Rico’s Car Hire. “Thank you so much for your time. Could you call the police and tell them what you told me?”
“And endure hours of interrogation?” She screwed up her face. “No.”
Morgan could only laugh, but there was no time to let her see it. He was down the driveway and headed back to his car before he knew it, his thumbs dancing across the screen to follow up on the clue he’d lucked into finding.
If only everything was that easy.
The killer just had one of those faces, he supposed. It never took much to change his appearance: usually something as simple as a wig or a bit of eyeliner or, in this case, a pair of glasses stolen from the café table of an old gentleman who wasn’t paying attention. Those things came cheap, he knew, but the thrill was in the theft, so why not try his chances?
The next thing he needed was a quick ruffle of the hair, and he was off. There wasn’t much of it really—mostly just a clump of brown fluff he didn’t much care for—but a dab of hair gel made all the difference. Now, he looked like an entirely different person, perhaps an accountant or a number puncher from some random office cubicle. The point was that he looked like a nobody, and that made it easier to gain access to her home.
Just like before, he stepped up to her front door, shocked by the similarities to the last house he’d entered, and pressed the doorbell. It wasn’t long before there was a click, and the door swung open. This was it, the killer thought; it was time for another.
But someone else opened the door.
It wasn’t her.
“Can I help you?” the young woman asked. She had mousy-brown hair and small hazel eyes that swung up and down the street. She seemed to have immediately noticed the sweat he’d worked up on his way over, dripping from his clammy face.
“I know this is really weird, but could I come in for two minutes?”
“What’s going—”
“Please, it’s an emergency. Someone was chasing me. H-He had a knife, and he just kept swinging it at me. I started to run, but he just k-kept coming.” It was all he could do not to smile; making it this far without being told to leave was more than he’d expected. Not that he didn’t have a more brutal backup plan.
The young woman opened the door wider and waved him inside. “Quick.”
It couldn’t have been easier to get inside her home—unless he’d chosen to break in instead, that was—but where was the other woman? Where was the one he wanted? The one in front of him was beautiful enough, and he might’ve even argued she was too beautiful, but she wasn’t the reason he was here.
There was no choice but to improvise.
The door had barely closed before the killer pulled out the knife. Grabbing the hilt with the blade held outward, he stood smiling as he waited for her to turn around and then enjoyed the shock in her eyes as they registered the danger.
“What the—”
“Shut your mouth, right now,” he spat. “Where’s Danielle?”
The woman froze, tears already streaming from her eyes. This was too easy.
“Where is she?” he demanded again, jerking the knife.
“She’s at work. Please, don’t hurt me.”
“Jesus,” the killer said, forcing back a grin. If he’d known it would only take the flash of a blade, he would’ve done this years ago. “How about this: you give her a call and tell her she has to come home, and I might not hurt you.”
Blubbering now, the woman buried her face in her hands. “You might not?”
“Believe me,” the killer said, the grin revealing itself like that of a hungry lion, “your chances are far greater than if you don’t. Now, go get your phone and we’ll make this quick. Do it within a minute, and I won’t make you watch as I cut up your friend.”
Morgan found the car rental place across town with no problems. It was a modest, independent establishment with only three cars outside and a colorful sign that could be seen from a mile down the road, but he had to park too far away for this to be a convenient location. Then again, he supposed most customers didn’t need to park, since they obviously didn’t have cars.
There was a short wait inside the dusty seating area where Morgan could barely keep still. His leg bounced up and down as the excitement of revealing the killer’s name came closer. That was presuming, of course, that the man who’d been watching the house was in fact the killer, though Morgan had little reason to doubt
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