Fear the Night Read Online Free Page B

give me what I demand, and soon. I’m patient, but I won’t wait forever.”
    Click. Buzzzzzzzzz.
    Melbourne replaced the receiver and looked at his watch. He knew the killer had cut the connection soon enough.
    Mathers stuck his head back in the office. “The call was from a cell phone, sir.”
    “Sure,” Melbourne said, knowing that if the phone were ever found, it would turn out to be stolen and wiped clean of prints. “We record the call okay?”
    “You betcha.”
    Instead of leaving his office, Melbourne sat behind his desk for a long time, thinking of ways to be persuasive.

4
    At ten the next morning, Repetto was seated at his desk cleaning his father’s old .38 police special revolver, when the doorbell rang.
    Lora was upstairs selecting paint samples to show a client. Usually she didn’t hear the doorbell there. Repetto put down the container of bluing he was holding and wiped his hand on the rag the gun had been wrapped in, then made his way to the front door and peered through the peephole.
    A tall woman with long red hair stood on the concrete stoop. Repetto opened the door to get a less distorted look at her.
    Since it was a sunny April morning, she wasn’t wearing a coat. She had a good figure beneath a brown blazer with a matching skirt. Her face was angular, her eyes green and pink-rimmed beneath strands of hair the breeze had laid across her face. She appeared to have been crying, but he suspected her eyes were always like that, in the manner of some redheads. Her makeup was sparse but it was there, pale lipstick, paler green eye shadow. Repetto guessed her age at about forty.
    She smiled. Straight teeth, nice smile. She said, “Only an ex-homicide detective could size up a woman like that.”
    Repetto grinned, embarrassed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. It wasn’t . . .”
    “Lascivious?”
    “No. I mean, yes, it wasn’t.”
    “So what did you decide about me?” She cocked her head to one side as she asked the question, almost the way Lora did.
    “We haven’t met,” Repetto said. “You’re educated—that word lascivious—and well enough off financially but not wealthy.”
    She raised her eyebrows. There wouldn’t have been much to them were it not for eyebrow pencil.
    “Your clothes,” Repetto explained. “A good cop can judge clothes like a fashion expert, at least when it comes to price. Yours are in good taste, and medium-priced except for your shoes. They’re expensive.”
    “You can’t be too kind to your feet,” the woman said.
    “You’ve got a job, maybe a profession, that pays you well enough. You’re unmarried.” He saw her glance at her ringless left hand. “You’re well adjusted and reasonably happy, ambitious, and you want something.”
    She smiled. “What makes you think I want something?”
    “You’ve managed to stir my interest and keep me talking while you’re sizing me up.”
    “You can learn a lot about people from what they think about you,” she said.
    “If they’re honest.”
    “A former NYPD detective would be honest.”
    “Different kind of honest,” Repetto said.
    She seemed to think that over but didn’t say anything.
    “You don’t strike me as the type who’s selling something, so what do you want?” he asked.
    “My name’s Zoe Brady,” she said.
    “I wondered when we’d get around to that. You obviously know things about me, including my name, I’m sure.”
    “You’re Vincent Repetto. The legendary Repetto. Tough cop and true. Smart and every kind of honest.”
    “Now I know you want something.”
    “I’m a profiler in the NYPD,” Zoe said.
    “And I know what you want.” Repetto stepped outside and closed the door behind him; it wouldn’t do for Lora to hear any of this. “Lou Melbourne sent you.”
    “He okayed it. Coming here was my idea.”
    “Whoever came up with the idea, it wasn’t a good one. I’m not going to change my mind about the sniper.”
    “The thing is,” Zoe said, “he’s not going to