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There weren't any clues there, butAmber didn't want to give up yet. There was a small dressing table beside thebed with a lot of Alice's things spread out on it. There were a few items ofjewelry, nothing expensive looking, each obviously something that Alice hadsimply liked.
One caught Amber's eye immediately.It was a pendant on a length of leather cord, shaped into the astrologicalsymbol for Aquarius. Recognition flashed in Amber instantly, as she rememberedthe pendant Katrina's boyfriend had shown them. Could it be the same? She gotout her phone, wanting to check the picture she'd taken.
The style wasn’t just similar, itwas identical. With shaking hands, Amber took it through to show to Simon.
“What do you have there?” Simonasked her.
“This pendant, the style is thesame as the one Katrina van Nuit gave to her boyfriend.” Amber held up herphone so that Simon could see the image.
“It’s pretty close,” Simon agreed.
“It’s exactly the same,” Amberinsisted. She felt a moment of hope. For the first time in this case, it feltas though they had a connection between the two victims, in spite of the timebetween their deaths. “We need to look into this. We need to find out wherethey got these pendants.”
Simon nodded. “I agree. Butanywhere that sold them something like that will be closed by now. We’ll lookinto it in the morning. Maybe it will give us the answers we need.”
Amber hoped so. Finally, it felt asthough they were making some kind of progress with this case, but she couldalso feel the seconds ticking away. How much more time did they have beforesomeone else died?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Amber was exhausted by the time sheand Simon pulled up outside her apartment building. It wasn’t just the driveback from Keystone; it was the fact that her mind had been running all day,trying to find answers in this case.
“Let me come up and make sure thateverything is safe here,” Simon said, getting out of the car.
“You think it might not be?” Amberasked.
“Colm O’Rafferty is targeting you,Amber,” Simon said. “I know how dangerous he is, and I want to make sure thatyou’re safe before I head home.”
The work they’d been doing inKeystone made it easy to forget that there was another case, just as deadly,running in the background of their lives. One that had connections to both ofthem, it seemed.
“Well, maybe you can tell me moreabout Colm if I make us both coffee?” Amber suggested.
Simon nodded. “Although I’m notsure how much there is to tell.”
The two of them headed into Amber’sapartment building, then up the stairs to her apartment. She saw Simon checkingthe door carefully, obviously looking for any sign of intrusion.
“You think he’d just be waiting forme in there?” Amber asked.
“I don’t know, which is why I’mchecking,” Simon said. “He already broke into your place once, remember.”
"Oh, I remember," Ambersaid. At the time, it had seemed strange because she hadn't been able to findanything missing. It was only later that she realized that her diary was gone.Now, she realized that Colm must have been looking at her life, trying to learnmore about her. Somehow, that felt like even more of an intrusion now than ithad been at the time. It felt as if this man that she now had a name for hadcrawled into all the deepest recesses of Amber’s life.
She shuddered at that thought.
“Are you all right?” Simon askedher.
Amber shook her head. “Not really.I think it just hit home how personal all of this is. But I don’t think there’sany reason for Colm to try to target me here, is there? His last threat saidthat he’d target someone close to me. The most precious person.”
And maybe that phrasing had beendeliberately designed to drive Amber’s imagination to all the darkest placesshe could think of, trying to guess which of the people around her Colm meant,trying to look in every direction at once to make sure that the people shecared about were safe. The problem was that he’d shown in the past that he wasmore than capable of sending Amber down a false trail, showing her a threat inone direction so that he was free to strike in another.
“Everyone close to you isprotected,” Simon said. “Colm is clever, and he’s dangerous, but I don’t thinkeven he will be able to get past an FBI protection detail that knows he’scoming. Showing his face was a mistake.”
It didn’t feel like a mistake toAmber as she and Simon headed inside. The interior of her apartment was ascluttered as always with partially completed designs for puzzles. There werestacks of paper there and partly completed puzzle boxes. Amber had a couple ofchess boards set up in the positions of games she was currently playing throughto look at.
Only the boards weren’t set up inthose positions. Amber knew exactly where she’d left off with both boards, onebarely out of the opening in a Petroff defense, another deep into an endgamestudy. Someone had rearranged the boards, setting them up with chess puzzles.
And now, Amber knew the name of theperson who’d done it.
“He’s been here,” Amber said, anote of horror creeping into her voice. “Colm was here.”
