“We need the network online,” Marcus said, leaning forward, frustration tight in his voice.“Cox doesn’t move without leaving a trace.Cameras, traffic lights, ATMs—he’ll be on something.”
Torres gave a short, humourless laugh.“If only the city could afford to keep someone watching.”She pointed at the clock on the wall: 07:39.“Operator clocks in at eight fifteen.That’s when our surveillance begins again.”
Marcus stared at her.“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was.Budget cuts.They don’t monitor twenty-four-seven anymore.We get what we pay for.”She sat back, shaking her head.“You know, this reminds me of a story from the seventies.City bus drivers were on work-to-rule.They did exactly what the handbook said—nothing more.Dispatch radioed a guy driving through Queens.Told him to detour, there was a serial killer on board.He refused.Said if he took the detour, he’d have to drive extra mileage to get back onto his route.So he stayed the course.”
Marcus looked up from his coffee, brow creased.“What happened?”
She shrugged.“The killer got off two stops later, apparently none the wiser.Rules don’t keep people safe.People do.”
Her phone buzzed sharply on the table.She answered, voice clipped.“Torres.”
It was Gina Park, breathless through static.“We’re at St.Bartholomew’s hospital, ma’am.No one here, but someone’s been living rough—sleeping bag, food cans, kettle on a stove.And a lot of photographs.Same guy in all of them—looks like a doctor, or a scientist.There’s one more thing… a half-full box of Tic Tacs.Peppermint.”
Marcus was already on his feet.“Kate,” he said quietly.“That’s her.It has to be.”
Torres’s expression didn’t change.She took a slow sip of coffee, considering.“Or Cox wants us to think so.”
“Come on—peppermint Tic Tacs?That’s Kate’s tell.I promise.”
“Maybe.Maybe not.”She snapped her phone shut and stood, pulling on her jacket.“Either way, we don’t wait for eight fifteen.Get uniforms, patrol, aviation—flood the area around St.Bart’s.If they’re both there, I want them boxed in.”
The tired hum of the precinct snapped to life.Phones rang, boots scuffed, radios crackled.Outside, sirens began to rise—a low, swelling chorus that rolled east toward the river.
***
Kate followed Cox’s instructions to the letter.The bus hissed to a stop on Lexington and 47th, and she stepped out into the brittle morning light, phone pressed to her ear.
“Walk south,” his voice murmured.“Keep to the right-hand side of the street.No pauses, no sudden turns.”
She obeyed, merging with the slow current of commuters and early risers.Steam rose from subway grates; delivery vans idled, engines growling.Every few minutes his voice returned, low and steady, directing her like a conductor guiding an unwilling instrument.
“Cross at Forty-Second.Use the subway entrance.Take the express train downtown.I'll tell you when to get off."
She passed under the ironwork arch, the city’s heat closing in around her.The phone signal wavered as the train roared through the tunnel.Kate’s reflection in the window looked alien—pale, sleepless, eyes alert but unfocused.She tried to slow her breathing.
When she surfaced again at Canal Street, Cox’s tone had softened.“Left.Then west toward Broadway.You’re being very obedient today.”
But she wasn’t listening to him so much as to the world around her.She kept noticing people—men and women who didn’t quite fit the Saturday morning throngs.A woman wrapped in three coats, staring too long at her reflection in a pawnshop window.A man with a shopping cart stopped dead at the curb, head slightly tilted, lips moving in rhythm to her footsteps.Another on the corner of Grand, clean fingernails, tidy hair.Smoking an unlit cigarette.
And they all had that way of being that reminded her of Tommy Rodrigues. Alert yet also vacant.Stamping their feet, blowing on fingers that never got warm.Watching, waiting.
Her pulse ticked upward.This is paranoia, she told herself.You’re seeing ghosts in daylight.But the doubt crawled under her skin like static.If Cox had turned the city’s forgotten into his eyes and ears, then she was walking through a maze of invisible threads.One wrong move and he’d know. And he drew people to him.She’d seen that, time after time; Cox was a pied piper.
Her radio came to life with a hiss of static.It startled her.
“Who’s calling?”Cox asked sharply, his voice rasping against her jaw.
“It’ll be my partner.”
Cox laughed.“The quarterback with the brain damage?”
Kate refused to dignify that with a response.The unit made robot bleeps as Marcus keyed the channel.
“Don’t answer it,” said Cox.His tone had turned icy, almost ugly.“Keep walking.”
“He’s going to know something’s wrong if I don’t respond,” Kate hissed under her breath.
