He didn’t like it.

He looked around the area. In the living room, the TV was turned on, the sound muted. On the table sat a container of box wine, some prescription pill bottles, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s Sea Salt & Vinegar chips.

‘Watch the hall and our backs,’ Striker told Felicia.

‘Got it.’ She moved up behind him, using the wall as poor cover.

Striker stepped inside the living room and adjoining kitchenette. On the stove was a cast-iron pan with the element below it glowing red. He looked at the switch and saw it was set to High. He moved up to the stove and looked inside the pan. In it was the source of the burned smell. It made him frown.

‘Coffee granules.’

‘Oh fuck me,’ Felicia said.

Striker felt her concern. There was a reason for it. In the old days, before the influx of proper breathing apparatuses, the burning of coffee granules was sometimes used by cops – as well as murderers – to hide the smell of a dead body.

To see them burning in the pan was not a good sign.

He turned off the element.

With the kitchen, bathroom and living room both cleared of threat, he made his way down the hallway towards the lone bedroom. The door was half open, the light also on. When he reached the archway, he peered inside the room.

The bed was messed, piles of clothes spotted the floor, and the bureau was covered in old newspapers. Some pill bottles, too. The drawers were left open. Everything was a mess, but the room was empty. The closet, too.

Striker picked up one of the prescription bottles from the bureau. Most of the writing had faded, but the name was readable.

Sarah Jane Rose.

‘We’re definitely in the right place,’ he called out. ‘She lives here.’

He rejoined Felicia in the hallway, then took the lead. Gun at the low-ready, he made his way towards the final corridor to the left. There, all the lights were turned off, and Striker didn’t like it. After a few more steps, he liked it even less. The burned smell of the coffee grounds faded and was replaced by a new stink. One all too familiar.

‘Shit, we got us a DB,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘Don’t lose focus.’

He stared ahead and let his eyes adapt to the gloom. The corridor was long and narrow with no room to move. There were no doors on either side, just a single room at the end. An office, or a second bedroom maybe.

Regardless, it was a bad place for entry.

‘Hold back,’ he said to Felicia.

‘What?’

‘Just hold here.’

‘No way, I’m coming with you.’

Striker never took his eyes from the darkness ahead. ‘It’s a fatal goddam funnel, Feleesh. If someone starts shooting we’ll both be screwed. At least from back here you can cover me.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing. Just hold.’

Felicia said nothing more. She repositioned herself in the doorway of the living room for better cover, and Striker made his way down. With every step, the darkness thickened and the smell got worse. Dirty, foul . . . oily.

He reached the doorway of the last room, peered slowly around the corner, studied the room. It was dim. At the far end, near the top of the wall, was an iron-barred window. It was small, less than a foot high and two feet in length, built obviously to give the room a trace of natural light.

And it did, just barely.

Within that cone of natural dimness, Striker could see a recliner positioned in the very centre of the room. Seated in it, with her feet up and facing the opposite way, was a woman. Her hand dangled off the armrest, her fingers clutched tightly into a fist.

Striker scanned the room one more time to be sure there were no threats. When he saw none, he made entry into the small room and slowly rounded the person in the chair. When he reached the front and studied her face, his stomach tightened.

It was the woman from the photocopied picture Dr Ostermann had given him. It was Sarah Jane Rose. And judging from the amount of rigor on her face, she’d been dead for quite some time. They were too late again.

Another woman was dead.

Forty-Four

When the two cops went inside the building, the Adder tied the long laces of his leather mask and pulled up the hoodie of his kangaroo jacket, fully hiding his face. He left the Command Room by cutting through the sheers and drapes, and climbing out of the front-room window. The frozen blades of grass crunched beneath his feet.

He hurried down the slope, then raced across Hermon Drive, the cold wind blowing through the eye slits of the mask; the screw-gun dangling from his tool belt. In his hands, he carried a burlap sack, filled with the metal brackets, a package of thirty ten-inch wood screws, and the four cans of Steinman’s wood varnish.

The fifth can he kept separate.

When the Adder was close enough, he opened it, then threw both the can and the lid into the bushes that flanked the front walkway of Sarah Rose’s townhome.

Up ahead, the front door was slightly open.

The Adder took note of this. He rounded the lot and came in from the side; no point in being seen just yet. When he was close enough to the doorway to smell the burned coffee grounds inside the unit, he slowed down. Reached the entrance. Peered inside.

All he could see was a dark stairway leading down.

Somewhere down there were the cops. Deep inside the trap. Oblivious of his presence. Unaware of the danger.

And so the Adder initiated the plan.

The front door was heavy, built of solid oak – he knew this for he had installed it himself – yet it shut smoothly and silently as he pushed on it, thanks to the heavily oiled hinges he had screwed into the frame. He pushed the door all the way closed until the lock clicked in place. Then he put the key into the slot and locked the door from the outside.

A sense of excitement blossomed in his chest.

The critical part was done.

He put down the burlap sack, removed the metal brackets, and began fixing them alongside the frame. There were six brackets in total – a pair for each of the three two-by-six beams. As the almost-inaudible whirr of the screw-gun filled the air, the Adder smiled beneath the thin, cold leather.

It was happening,

It was really happening!

The Beautiful Escape was almost here.

Forty-Five

‘The place is clear,’ Striker called to his partner.

Felicia marched into the room. The moment she saw the body slumped back in the chair, a hard look took over her normally pretty features.

‘Sarah Rose?’ she asked.

Striker nodded and handed the photocopied picture to Felicia.

She gave it a quick glance, then handed it back. She cursed and place a hand against her forehead as if disbelieving what they had found. She moved around the room for a better look at the body. After a brief moment, she asked, ‘How long?’

Striker shrugged. ‘Judging by the smell, I’d say more than two days. Judging by the rigor, I’d say less than three.’

‘So before Mandy,’ Felicia said.

‘I would think so. It’s hard to tell. We’ll leave that to the medical examiner. The question here is why. Why kill Sarah and then Mandy? Did they both know something? Was it an act of jealousy? A love triangle or something to do with the sessions at the clinic?’

‘Or was Mandy murdered next because she knew Sarah?’ Felicia suggested. ‘Because she knew what had happened to Sarah?’

Striker paced the floor and thought this all over. After a moment, he stopped talking and craned his neck. Somewhere behind them – back from the way they’d come – there was a soft whirring noise. Like a drill.