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"I've seen him. I'm thirty yards away."
"I'm about the same. Closing in," Juliette said.
"Let's take him down!"
Juliette jumped at the sound. Wyatt's voice was surprisingly loud. There he was, striding out from behind a pillar, approaching the American tourist with purpose in his stride.
But his voice had been too loud.
And clearly, the man they were chasing had an ear well attuned to the American accent.
His head turned sharply. He stared at Wyatt, taking him in, seeing the intent in his strides.
And then, he turned and ran.
Juliette gasped. She hadn't expected him to make a break for it. But he was sprinting away, dodging through the pedestrians, and weaving around the streetlamps, past the buildings, past the throngs of tourists who were milling around, staring up at the building and waiting to get in and taking their photos.
"Suspect escaping!" she said. "Sierra, see if you can track him!"
And then there was no time to do anything but chase him down.
The American was fast. He weaved through the crowd, ducking and dodging, every now and then glancing back to see if they were still following him. He almost rammed straight into a tourist and she yelled, swearing at him in colorful German, waving her arms so that Juliette, following, had to jump aside.
Resuming the chase, Juliette surged forward, her arms and legs pumping, her breath coming in short gasps, seeing Lucien sprinting alongside her.
But he was fast. Too fast. And he was gaining ground. And there were so many people around, congregating, moving slowly, getting in the way of their sight and their movement.
There was a real chance, Juliette knew with a flash of fear, that they might lose him in the dark and the crowds.
CHAPTER NINE
They called him Goldenface. He knew that because he'd heard the police speaking about it.
That had been purely by chance. It was the closest he'd ever come to getting caught, and it had been back in New York, just after his second kill.
He'd hidden himself well, and followed his plan for leaving the scene, but had left a critical piece of evidence behind. Critical to him, anyway. Perhaps the police would never have noticed or seen it, but to him, it felt like a sharp glass fragment tearing at his mind.
So he'd gone back to get it, and they'd already been on the scene.
"It's another Goldenface kill," he'd heard the officer say into the radio, in worried tones.
He'd been worried, too. Secrecy and staying under the radar, staying disguised even when not in his golden skin, were vital to him. Luckily, he'd passed by, head bowed, heart drumming, and they hadn't realized or followed. And he hoped they hadn’t realized that the small piece of evidence belonged to him.
Since then, he'd been more careful. As cautious as he could be.
Now, in the tiny Paris apartment that he'd rented a couple of months ago – just another way he planned ahead - he was washing off the paint.
He didn't use real paint, of course. For his own use, and to paint the faces of his beautiful statues, he used a high-end body make-up. He’d found a brand that supplied the perfect color, a dull gold with a very slight sheen to it. He couldn’t always use it. It depended on the circumstances. Once, in the States, he’d used a different color on himself. He was sure the police knew what the paint was, that they’d analyzed the formula and tracked the supplier, but he’d planned very carefully and had bought more than he needed, over time.
He smiled as he thought about the message he’d left, flying all the way back to the U.S. to leave that phone in the apartment. He’d wanted to leave a breadcrumb trail. He was eager to tease them with his brilliance, and to take joy in the fact that they were blundering after him, too inept and too slow.
Although, perhaps, if they were faster, he might be able to arrange a special meeting here in Paris? There was one of the FBI agents that had caught his eye. It wasn’t a certainty that this could happen. But if the circumstances played out the way he thought they would, it would be nice to have. Something to remember. An experience that he could replay in his mind.
Carefully, using a special make-up remover, as the paint was waterproof, he was now standing in the shower and wiping it off.
It was a terrible feeling to rid himself of the thickly painted disguise. He felt that it was a part of him. That he was, in fact, that gold statue. When he put on the paint, it felt as if he put on a whole layer of power and invincibility.
He was disguised. He was a figure, an image, something that people would watch and wonder about. He wasn't himself anymore.
