Through a window in the spare bedroom, cracked even in winter because of an irritating anomaly in the ductwork that always baked this corner of the town house while other rooms froze, Barwick heard him when he jumped the iron fence into her tiny, neglected back garden. In a sweatshirt and black jeans, he looked like a panther against the new covering of snow, but less graceful, putting his face clumsily to the downstairs windows, peering inside. If he was a predator, he didn’t seem to be stalking prey so much as peeping it.
That was Sam Coyne for sure. She recognized the blond mess of hair and, when he looked up into a streetlight, those cheekbones. Maybe he is a TTL after all, she thought. The avatar didn’t lie.
Still online with Justin, she dialed 911. She also tried to come up with a way to defend herself. As she gave her address to the emergency operator, the closest thing to a plan she could manage was to grab a softball bat from under the bed.
“How did he find out where you live?” Justin asked. “Or even who you are?” Sally could hear Justin’s own voice again. He must have picked up the headset.
“I don’t know,” Barwick said, standing at her computer now, whispering, trying to figure out where Coyne had gone. “Maybe someone at the club recognized me from the story I did on their opening.”
“You think?”
Without her even commanding it, Sally’s avatar looked around the hospital room and then down at her own hands. Watching it on-screen, the action jolted real Sally. “Oh shit!” she said into her headset. “My purse! I left my purse in the garage! My Shadow ID is the same as my real one. Shit!”
“Do you have a weapon or something?” Justin asked. “Like a gun or a bat?”
“You know, for a deep thinker, you’re about two minutes behind the curve,” she said. “Do you think I should hide? In the closet?”
“No!” Justin yelped. “How will I know you’re okay if you’re away from the computer?”
“Not a priority for me right now, Justin.”
She removed her headset and bounced from window to window, following the man as he made the perimeter of the house. If he was the Wicker Man, so notorious for leaving no evidence at the scenes of his crimes, Coyne was having an off day. The bottoms of his boots had made dozens of impressions around the foundation. She took that as a hopeful sign he wasn’t here to kill her.
“What’s going on?” Justin asked at intervals.
Hearing his muffled voice from across the room, Barwick grabbed the headset and held it to her face. “He’s just walking around the house.”
“Like he’s looking for a way in?”
“I don’t know. Why doesn’t he just bash in a window?”
“Noise, maybe?” Justin said.
“This is insane!” The ends of her sentences were starting to betray fear.
Justin was still trying to grasp the strangeness of it – the way they were having a real-world conversation and navigating this tense situation through avatars sitting quietly in a hospital waiting room. His real life suddenly seemed like the surreal one. “Don’t freak out,” Justin said.
“Easy for you.”
“Just stay away from him. You’ve already beaten him once tonight. This time you’ve got an advantage. It’s your house. He’s got more to lose. The cops are on the way…”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Are you kidding me?” Barwick said.
“What?”
“He’s knocking on the front door.”
“Maybe it’s the police.”
“Have you ever called the police?”
“No.”
“They’re not that fast.” She dropped the headset and lifted the bat to her shoulder. The simplest explanation, remember? The simplest explanation for that knocking sound is that the deranged madman I saw lurking outside my house wants me to let him in so he can kill me.
She was exhausted. The last four hours had been long and intense. She was more tired of being frightened than she was frightened. Frankly, she had been more scared when Coyne had been chasing her in Shadow World. Her whole life seemed inverted.
She decided she was going downstairs. She let Justin get her into this for the sake of a story, and now the story was knocking on her door. It was probable the story wanted to kill her, of course, but she was going to ask Sam Coyne a few questions, nevertheless.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“I’ve called the police!” Sally shouted from the stairs.
A pause. “I just want to talk!” Coyne said through the door.
“I know who you are!”
Another pause. “I know. That’s why we need to talk. Call the police back.”
“And tell them what?”
“That you made a mistake.”
“You can’t cancel a nine-one-one call,” she said. “I already gave them your name.” That was a lie but she wondered why she hadn’t.
“You’re a reporter. For the Tribune. ”
“You’re a murderer. Nice to meet you, asshole.”
A long silence. She thought he might have left. Or gone around back. “How did the boy know my name?” he said finally.
Sally said, “That’s right. He does know who you are. And he knows you’re here. We’re sitting together at Shadow Stroger Hospital right now. I’ve been telling him everything that’s happening.”
The doorknob shook. “Please, if we could just talk for a few minutes.”
“Not a chance. I saw what you did to that girl in the garage.”
“But…” he said. “That was just a game. Sally. Miss Barwick. I was playing. We all were.”
She took another step toward the door. It was thick and heavy. Mahogany or something. It was the first thing she’d loved about this house and she was never more thankful for it than now. She wondered if he had the balls or the sense of drama to crash through a window. They were five feet above the ground outside and he’d have a tough time climbing through. She’d get a few swings at his hands with the bat before he hoisted himself up, anyway. “That’s sick,” she said. “And I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t believe me?” Coyne seemed puzzled. “Hell, you saw…” He was recalling something. “You’re a TTL, aren’t you? I checked it out. You write for both Tribune s. Shadow and real.”
Checked it out? How did he do that so fast? In the middle of the night?
“I know it must have been scary for you. In the garage. I didn’t know. If I’d known you were a True-to-Lifer I wouldn’t have come on so strong.”
Come on so strong? Jesus.
“Why did you do it?”
“Kill the blonde?”
Incredible. “Yes, kill the blonde.”
Pause. “I don’t know… It’s a game. Look, I want to talk to you because, well, maybe we can work something out. I’m an attorney.”
“So?”
“So, you’re writing an article, aren’t you? For the Shadow Tribune or the real one, or both? Whatever it is you’re going to write about me, there would be certain things that would be, obviously, embarrassing if they were to get out.”
No kidding. “How many other girls have you killed?”
He sighed. It was an odd and frightening sound, Sally thought. The discontented sigh of a serial killer. “This isn’t an interview, Miss Barwick. Not unless you can guarantee my name will stay out of the paper with regard to tonight’s incident.”
Barwick placed her hands and her right ear against the door. Where were the cops? “I can’t guarantee anything, Mr. Coyne.”
“You have to let me give my side of the story, then, at least,” Coyne said. He was just beyond the door, his head only inches away from hers.
Sally thought about his offer. An interview. An interview with the Wicker Man. To expose him. Capture him. When the police arrive, the opportunity will have vanished. She checked the chain to make sure it was secure. She put her hand on the knob. This is what it means to take risks for your career, she thought. She turned and pulled the door open until the six-inch chain stopped it. Coyne leaned from the other side, expecting to be let in the house. He wrapped his fingers around the door and pulled his face into the opening between the door and the molding. “Miss Barwick?” he said.
Face-to-face at last, she looked him in the eyes.
And as the short, loud braaaap and blue-and-red lights of a police car pulled to the curb, she got the answer she’d been pursuing for nearly thirteen years.