Her reflection in the window looked as though it belonged to someone else.Pale.Strung tight.Eyes ringed with fatigue.It had taken every remembered ounce of the FBI’s Evasive Driving course before she could be entirely sure the Oldsmobile wasn’t behind her anymore.Yet even now, in the muted clatter of cutlery and murmured conversation, she couldn’t quite convince herself she was safe.
The phone buzzed against the Formica.
Marcus.
She snatched it up.“Tell me you’ve got something good.”
“I’ve got something-of-nothing,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion, but warm all the same.
“Go on.”
“You remember the CCTV sweep we ran through the Bronx subway stations?Nothing.It’s like he went into the tunnels and never came back out.I’ve got Torres digging through maintenance logs, but so far, nada.”
Kate frowned.“Underground,” she said slowly.“That reminds me—there was a piece I read a while back.Homeless encampments in the disused lines under the city.Old maintenance tunnels.Whole communities down there.”
Marcus made a low noise.“If Cox wanted to vanish, that’d be a good start.I’ll have the transit authority pull records,” Marcus said.“If anyone’s been using those lines, we’ll know.Want the rest of the update?”
“Any of it good?”
“Good in the ‘okay, we don’t need to waste more time on it’ sense.”
“Hm.”
“The blood on the stairwell was all Brennan’s.His buddies from that old magazine piece are no-nos.Aprahamian surrendered his passport to the British authorities just over a month ago, under investigation in a massive money-laundering case. The other guy, McAfee – he's in a hospice.Weeks left to live."
“It’s what we thought it was.”
“The killer’s Cox.But hey.What about you?You sound… off.”
Kate took a breath.“Just drove through a bad dream.Someone was tailing me, I think.Old car, maybe seventies.I lost it near the river, but it rattled me.”
“You need backup?”
“No.I’m fine.Just needed to hear a friendly voice.”
“Glad to be of service.How are the 15th-century laundry lists?”
She hesitated.“I’m not working it.I went to the prison to interview a couple of Cox’s groupies.”
“Take it Winters doesn’t know about that.”
“You take it right.”
“Be careful then.”
“I’m trying.They gave me three possible leads.St.Cecilia’s church in Newark.An old fisherman’s chapel on Long Island.And a former psychiatric hospital in Yonkers, called St.Dymphna’s.”
Marcus whistled softly.“That’s a hell of a spread.”
“Yeah.Cox was interested in how to occupy spaces like that, set yourself up without being found or evicted.”
“I’ll start running them down from my end.”
“Thanks,” she said, meaning it.
There was a pause—comfortable, almost.For a moment, the diner’s noise seemed to fade.
“Kate,” Marcus said quietly, “Get some rest.You sound beat.”
