127: “It’s that one!” Direnzo shouted. “The shotgun with the green and white trim!”
Poole darted across the street, the alley at his back. A taxi screeched to a stop, fishtailing. The driver shouted something, but Poole couldn’t make out what he said, wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Werner’s office was dark.
He peered through one of the windows and saw the dim outline of a deserted desk and some chairs at the back of the room.
No movement.
At the door, he pounded with his fist. “Sarah Werner. I’m Special Agent Frank Poole with the FBI. I need you to open this door!”
No response from inside.
He shuffled back onto the small porch and tried to see through one of the second-floor windows. Too dark.
Poole returned to the door, tried the knob.
Locked.
“Sarah Werner!”
He pounded again.
Nothing.
Poole pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster and used the butt to break one of the door’s windowpanes. He reached through, mindful of the glass, and twisted the deadbolt.
He opened the door and stepped inside, his free hand groping the wall until he found the light switch and flicked it on.
“Sarah? Sam? I’m coming in! If you’re in here, I need you to come downstairs with your hands above your head.”
From above, the floor groaned. The barrel of his gun instinctively pointed toward the sound. Poole couldn’t be sure if it was the result of someone moving upstairs or one of the many sounds made by old buildings as they sagged and settled slowly into the dirt.
He crossed the room, his eyes darting over each shadow, every alcove. The office offered little in the way of hiding places, even with all the clutter.
At the back of the small office, a hallway led off further into the dark, the office lights held back by the opening and the ornate millwork. Poole drew in a breath and started toward it. His gun rounded the corner first, and as he followed, he prepared to pull the trigger on whatever waited on the other side. He found nothing but a staircase leading to the second floor. He considered turning on these lights too, then thought better of it. If someone was up there, they didn’t need to know he was on his way just yet. Let them think he was still downstairs.
He tentatively placed a foot on the first step, then followed it with his weight, unsure of whether or not it would betray him with some kind of sound. Nothing but silence.
Poole ascended the stairs, his eyes adjusting to the dark above, the shape of an opening coming into focus as he drew nearer, some kind of alcove, a closed door beyond that.
His hand wrapped around the cold metal of the doorknob. He turned it slowly, careful not to make a sound. The lock wasn’t engaged. There was a slight pop as the cylinder pulled free of the strike box.
The door swung into the room.
The smell hit him all at once.
Decay, rot.
The lights were off, the room crowded with the dark.
Poole stepped inside and switched on the light, then wished he hadn’t.
A woman stared at him from the couch, her vacant eyes clouded over, milky. She slumped there, leaning awkwardly to the side. Her face was pale, the blood having drained away to lower ground some time ago. This accentuated the dark, black hole in her forehead, a puckered gunshot wound. She had been eating when it happened, a plate of something unrecognizable spilled on her lap and the vacant cushion beside her.
Her killer probably stood right where Poole did now, surprising her from this very doorway.
He approached the body, knelt at her side.
This wasn’t the woman from the prison, couldn’t be. This body had been here for at least a week, maybe as long as two, decomposition hungrily eating away at what was once a living thing. She wore a silver ring on her right hand, the finger plump and swollen like a hot dog around the metal.
“Shit,” Captain Direnzo said from behind him. “That’s Sarah Werner.”
Poole hadn’t heard him come in.