“Woman got a mouth on her,” she heard him remark to the doorman as the door swung closed.

Melanie thought of making further trouble for the doorman but decided against it. She’d made enough of a fool of herself for one day—enough for the rest of her life.

She stalked along the crowded sidewalk, gripping her purse tightly and swinging it almost as a weapon to clear a path for herself. She knew one thing—she would never again play the fool for any man. She hated all men, every single one of them. They were the enemy.

And one in particular terrified her.

Beam set aside his coffee cup after finishing a lunch of angel hair pasta in an Italian restaurant on Second Avenue. He glanced again at the forensics report on Judge Parker. The bullet wound to the head was the only injury to the judge and had proved instantly fatal. The bullet, still intact after penetrating the skull, was indeed a thirty-two caliber, and it matched the others that had been used in the Justice Killer murders. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that it was fired from the same gun.

He doesn’t care if they match. He wants them to match. Likes to taunt. Helen the profiler is so right about that one.

Beam’s mobile phone buzzed. He set aside the lab report and dug the phone from his pocket. Probably Nell or Loop; he’d assigned them to interview people close to the late Judge Parker. Drone work that would probably lead nowhere, but it had to be done. Every side road along the way had to be explored, because any one of them just might lead to a six-lane highway.

But it was neither Nell nor Looper on the phone.

At first Beam didn’t recognize the voice. Nola.

“Beam, I need for you to come to the shop as soon as possible.” Her voice, always so level and without emotion, had a slight quaver in it.

Fear?

“You alone, Nola?”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

“No. As soon as possible.”

“I can get a radio car to you within minutes.”

“No, I want you.”

“I’m on my way.” Beam signaled for the waiter.

“The closed sign will be up,” Nola said, “but the door’s unlocked.”

She broke the connection.

On the wild drive to Things Past, Beam worked the phone’s keypad with one hand and called to talk to her again. He got only her machine with its recorded message. Nola but not Nola.

44

They were moving rapidly through the lobby. Carl Dudman couldn’t have felt better. He could see that it was a wonderful afternoon outside, with sunlight brightening his side of the street. He’d been on the phone most of the morning, and now it seemed as if his efforts were going to pay off and the agency would represent sales of a projected new West Side condominium tower.

What real estate bubble?

Dudman patted Mark the doorman on the shoulder as he passed. The considerable bulk of Chris Talbotson, his bodyguard, was in front of him. As soon as he’d cleared the door Mark was holding open, Chris’s head began to swivel. Dudman followed him outside into the clear, sun-washed air. The orange scaffolding was still up in front of the building, but new sidewalk had been poured and the fresh concrete looked pale and unspoiled.

Chris had impressed upon Dudman that timing was important. Chris would precede Dudman, open the waiting limo’s right rear door, and without hesitation Dudman would follow and duck as he approached the big car, then remain low and lean forward as he entered. Chris would quickly follow. All within seconds. All carefully choreographed.

Gripping his black leather attaché case, Dudman lowered his head and made for the inviting dark sanctuary of the limo beyond its open door. He edged past Chris, placed one foot off the curb in the street, and began to duck into the limo. The traffic signal had changed up the street; he was vaguely aware of a string of cars rushing past, the smell of exhaust fumes that would dissipate as soon as he was inside the limo.

It was the exact time that his foot touched the street and he was beginning his forward lean that he felt the sharp pain high on the right side of his chest.

What?

He was sitting awkwardly, one leg in the street extended beneath the limo, the other bent beneath his body. His attaché case had come open and papers were scattered all over the sidewalk.

Did I fall? Slip off the curb?

He knew Chris was trying to help him up, looming over and gripping him, but he couldn’t feel anything from the neck down.

My suit…Ruined…

Chris was talking, his face contorted, but Dudman heard nothing.

“Chris, my papers…”

No one reacted. He hadn’t made a sound.

Then the pain in his chest was back, blossoming, exploding!

And suddenly it wasn’t afternoon. It was dusk. Dark. Nighttime.

The pain faded with the light.

As it turned out, the shot had actually been a simple one. The street Dudman’s agency was on ran one way, so the limo had been on Justice’s left, the driver’s side of the car. The angle and opportunity were brief, but there, for just a few seconds, diagonally above the trunk of the limo, a shooting line straight to the target. Dudman. Deadman.

Justice had time to lead Dudman crossing the wide sidewalk. The target paused as the limo door was opened. Dudman actually seemed to pose as he ducked his head preparing to enter the vehicle.

Almost simultaneous to the shot, Justice managed to take his left hand from the wheel long enough to drop the plastic vial out the window into the street near the limo.

That was important.

They would know he was the one. The bullet, the letter, the hammer of fairness and fate and balance, balance…

After the shot, he’d turned the corner and was gone. He was positive no one even knew for sure the shot had come from a passing car—any passing car.

Driving legally at the speed limit, blending with the thousands, millions of vehicles in New York, he had to giggle at how easy it had been. How easy it would be to execute anyone in the city.

He missed the moment of ice, but that couldn’t be helped. And Dudman did seem to hesitate getting into the limo, as if somehow he knew. Perhaps the cold moment of knowledge had frozen him, presented him to the bullet that would deliver him. Either way, this one had been warranted.

It had been righteous. He would do it again.

He would do it again.

Brake lights flared ahead. Horns honked. His foot darted from accelerator to brake and he brought the car to a halt with a brief skid and squeal of tires. Vehicles around him also slowed and stopped. All of them lined up neatly, drivers patiently staring at the traffic signal.

Red light. Had to stop. The law.

Da Vinci was a little out of breath from hurrying when he entered his office, and what he saw actually made him gasp.

The police commissioner was seated in one of the brown upholstered chairs angled toward the desk.

Da Vinci smiled, stammered, and absently smoothed back his slightly mussed hair.

“Startle you?” the commissioner asked. He’d moved the chair slightly so he had a better view of the door. Its legs had left deep depressions in the carpet, marking its previous position.

“Well…yes, sir, you did. It’s just that I’m not used to anyone being here when I come in after lunch.”

“Natural,” said the commissioner. “It’s your office.”

Da Vinci didn’t know quite what to say to that.

“I thought we needed to talk,” the commissioner said.

That the commissioner had come to da Vinci’s office, rather than the other way around, seemed to da Vinci to be meaningful. This meeting wasn’t for public consumption.