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So, the whole puzzle was a trap? Itexisted just to kill her if she tried to complete it? Amber shook her head. No,that wasn’t the way Colm’s mind worked. She’d seen the puzzles that he’dreworked from her designs. He’d made them deadly, and built in tricks to foolthose who thought they worked in normal ways, but he’d kept them as functioningpuzzles. There had always been the possibility of beating them.
Amber stared at the maze, lookingat its design. She checked her watch. She had perhaps an hour and a half beforemidnight. It didn’t feel like much time to find an answer and get to Simonbefore Colm killed him.
Yet, if she couldn’t complete thepuzzle without dying herself, what was she meant to do?
CHAPTER THIRTY
“There has to be an answer,” Ambersaid, turning the puzzle over and over in her hands, trying to make sense ofit. But that answer wasn’t immediately apparent. It looked as though the onlyway to beat the puzzle Colm had set was to play it, and that meant potentiallydying if she completed it.
Amber considered the puzzle,picking out the way through the maze. It wasn’t much of a maze, the pathwaysseeming to connect to one another far too frequently, without as many dead endsas Amber would have expected. In that sense, it was barely a maze at all.
When was a maze not a maze, Amberwondered. Why would Colm O’Rafferty, who seemed to revel in fiendish puzzles,send her one that was so simple to complete? Because completing it wasn’t thepoint.
When was a maze, not a maze? Whenit was a map.
Getting out her laptop, Amberstarted pulling up maps. She tried maps of Keystone at first, but they didn’tline up with the patterns of the maze, didn’t even come close. Amber’s nextimpulse was to try DC.
The maze didn’t fit the whole city,but she shouldn’t expect that, should she? There were enough pathways in themaze that this could only be a few city blocks, at most. Amber started to scanthe city, turning the pattern around in her mind, trying to find a spot whereit slotted into place like a jigsaw piece.
Amber kept going, then felt herheart rate spike as she finally found a spot where it fit. It was a map,and a map meant that she could get a location. But where on this map wouldSimon be?
There was only one possible answerto that question: the spot where the hole was. The spot she was meant to getthe ball bearing to. That had to be it, had to be the spot where Colm washolding Simon.
Amber had a decision to make then,the same decision that she'd had to make before. Should she involve the rest ofthe FBI? Amber had come to an answer on that, but that had been before sherealized that Simon was being held in DC. An hour away, if Amber drove quickly.Would she be able to make it in time? It would be tight. If Amber starteddriving, wouldn't that put his life in danger?
No, it was still better thanrisking Colm’s wrath if he learned that Amber had contacted the rest of theFBI. Amber would only do that if she realized that she wasn’t going to make it.Anything else was simply throwing Simon’s life away.
Amber started the engine and roaredaway, driving as fast as she dared through the dark. She set the vehicle’slights and siren going, speeding through the night, weaving through the cars asshe hit the freeway. Amber could feel her heart pounding in her chest as shefocused on the road ahead, determined to gain every minute she could on the wayto try to save Simon.
It was raining, the water streamingdown her windshield as Amber peered out into the dark. The rain was heavyenough that Amber should have slowed down, but she knew that she couldn’t, notif she wanted Simon to live.
She wanted that more than anything.The idea that he might be killed, that he might be hurt in any way, was almosttoo much to bear. Amber pushed on, determined not to take her foot off the gaseven for a moment.
The city came into view ahead ofher, its lights filling the darkness. Amber followed her sat-nav towards thelocation she’d found on the maze, and now, doubts were starting to creep in forher. What if she was wrong about this? What if there was some other layer tothe puzzle to decode, and she was heading in the wrong direction?
No, Amber couldn’t believe that,couldn’t let herself believe that. Simon was in danger, and she washeading towards him to save him. She would make it, she had to.
She was getting closer now, andAmber risked turning off the lights and siren. She didn’t want to announce toColm that she was coming. She also didn’t want to risk him thinking that therest of the FBI was heading for his location, giving him a reason to killSimon.
The spot on the map turned out tobe a large, abandoned building in a more run-down area of the city. There wasgraffiti on the walls and debris outside that suggested someone had given uppartway through renovating it. Amber pulled up a little way from the buildingbut knew she couldn't hesitate there for long. She only had minutes to gobefore the deadline Colm had set.
Amber moved towards the building,watching it carefully for any signs of movement as she went. She kept low,looking around with her hand resting on the butt of her gun.
She moved around the building andfound that the front door was open, the lock obviously broken. Amber movedforward into the darkness beyond. She had to risk a flashlight, because sheknew Colm was the kind of man who liked traps, but Amber tried to keep itangled down, limiting how far it would be visible for.
Amber could see a glimmer of lightahead of her and started to move towards it. She moved quickly but carefully,not knowing if Colm’s plan was simply to sneak up on her and kill her once shewas there.
Would he settle for something sosimple, or would he have something more elaborate planned? He'd talked about afinal game. What kind of game? Were they just going to play cat and mousethrough the dark, or was there more to it than that?
Amber came out into what herflashlight showed her was a large, open space, held up by structural steelpillars but with the walls knocked through. The light Amber had glimpsed wascoming from the far end of the room.
Amber moved closer, and as soon asshe saw what was going on at that far end, she had to stifle a gasp.
Simon hung there by his hands fromropes, his bound hands above his head. He was gagged, and one side of his facewas bloodied and bruised. Amber didn’t know if that had happened in Colm’scapture of him, or if the killer had done it since then. The thought of Colmhurting Simon like that made Amber’s heart tighten painfully in her chest.
Amber hurried over to Simon, movingfrom the cover of one steel pillar to the next, hurrying because for the momentat least, it seemed that they were alone. Amber needed to get to Simon, neededto get him out of there before Colm O’Rafferty came back to kill him.
Amber made it over to him. She tookout her small pocketknife and started to work on the ropes holding Simon inplace. She pulled away his gag, and even as she did so, Amber saw the franticlook in his eyes.
