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This doesn’t say a lot to me about the crime scene. He’s like twelve. His own throw-up could possibly make him hysterical. I’d tell him to lay off the Happy Meals, but he’s kind of a sweet kid, and sweet isn’t stupid. I prefer to save my sarcasm for those who deserve it. “Believe it or not,” I say. “It gets easier.” I walk past him, with Jay settling in at my side.
“You were nice,” his voice filled with obvious shock and awe.
I glance over at him. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult me. I can be nice.”
“Usually not with stupid people and let’s be frank, telling an FBI agent who outranks you that you lost your lunch seems pretty stupid.”
“Naïve in his case.”
“Stupid,” he replies.
“Okay,” I concede. “We’ll call him stupid. And since stupid is a good way to get yourself killed, I’ll be mean to him on the way out. It might save his life.”
“That’s not what I suggested.”
“You didn’t have to. I did.”
We reach the front door of the building, where an older, extra well-fed cop, is pretending not to hold up the wall but it’s ridiculously obvious he’s on the lean. I flash my badge again. “What do we have?”
“A lot of blood,” he says. “They’re handing out bodysuits inside.”
“Lilah,” Jay murmurs, urgency clipped in his tone. “Look to your right in the crowd. I know a lot of this is all in the news but that doesn’t seem like something a normal person would do.”
Me and the officer follow his lead and there, right behind the yellow tape, in the midst of a crowd of a good one hundred, is someone wearing aScreammask. My jaw clenches. The murders were reported in the news, and I replay that announcement in my head now. A lot of gibberish about my father and his FBI daughter who blew open The Umbrella Man case. Nothing about horror movies being connected to the killers. This is our killer, and he’s here to taunt us, or rather me because I’m the one my father declared his adversary.
The profiler in me says he killed tonight to call out my father. He’s not his fan, therefore he is now mine.
I’ll process what that means about our killer later. Right now, it’s all about the moment.
If I make a move to call for help, he’ll drop back into the crowd and disappear, in which case, we have to hope cameras catch him. That’s a long shot with the shadow of a dark night and the shelter of people everywhere. I eye Jay. “I’m going to drive him into the crowd. Make sure you’re there when he runs. That means you run when I say run.” I glance at the officer who’s still staring at the man in the mask.
“Eyes on me, officer,” I command, “and don’t reach for your radio or weapon.”
His gaze jerks to mine. “No one knows—”
“The minute I start walking toward him, you call for back-up but not a moment sooner. Wait until he’s all eyes on me. Your men need to back-up my man and get behind him.”
“Lilah, no,” Jay says. “It’s too dangerous. Do not—”
“He could kill someone in the crowd. Do you want that?”
“No. Of course, not.”
“Then run.Now.”
I don’t wait for him to agree to my plan. I start walking toward the man in the mask.
Chapter Nine
The man in the mask doesn’t move.
He stands in the center of the crowd, a freakshow, and not one of the hundred or so people around him even seems to notice. But then this is New York City, and what you see in just one trip in the subway makes this man and his Scream mask appear normal. And so he stands there, boldly holding his ground, daring me to close the space between me and him. Am I worried or scared?
Hell no.
But I’m also not a dummy. If I had on a coat, my weapon would be in hand, and underneath it, hidden from the masses. Instead, I’m in a skirt and blouse, and my firearm is nestled all intimate and wrong between my legs. That’s proven a bad decision not once but twice tonight. If I reach for it, I put on a show. And a show—translation: one wrong move—and the crowd will panic, chaos will ensue, and the freak will be gone. Or not. On some level, I’m still holding onto the idea that this is Jack. And Jack would stand his ground. He fears nothing because he believes he’s one of us. When I discover this is him, he’ll make up an excuse for this behavior, something like he’s stealing the killer’s thunder and luring his attention to him. It’s a stupid thing to do, but Jack is Jack. He does stupid shit, even if I have to loathingly admit that he still makes it all work for him.
He did get me on the case and to this building tonight.
