style="font-size:15px;"> “What’s going on?”
“Wish I had a better handle on that.” Then Duncan gave his brother a condensed version of what had happened and what they knew or theorized so far. While it helped to run through all the essentials again, it increased his sense that Piper could really be in danger.
“Could be it’s someone who’s unhappy with the fact that she helped to set Lightman free.”
“That’s a long list, but the police will have to start with Suzanne Macks’s family, especially her twin brother, Sid.” They’d been through quite a bit already. So if he could find anything that would narrow the list and eliminate them….
“I assume you have a plan,” Reid said.
“Working on it.”
“If I were you, I’d consider getting her the hell out of Dodge. Working on the vice president’s security detail, I don’t often have the luxury of doing that when my guy becomes a possible target.”
“I’m considering that.” The problem was to get Piper to agree.
“I’ll leave it in your very capable hands, and I’ll call the Scotland group to let them know that you’re handling it.”
After glancing at his watch, Duncan glanced down the alley, trying to see and think about it the same way the man who was threatening Piper’s life had. She’d told Nelson that she ran at the same time every morning. That didn’t surprise him. Her route took her past the shops on the street. Turning, he stepped out of the alley and glanced up and down the street. It was bustling now with both cars and pedestrian traffic. At six o’clock, she would have been easy to spot from a variety of locations. A regular routine made a serial killer’s work easy.
The perpetrator hadn’t had much to carry in, Duncan mused as he turned to walk down the alley and climb the stairs. The sheet, a couple of plastic bags filled with petals and the note. Everything could have been easily tucked into one bag. Maybe a backpack or a shopping bag. He recalled Piper’s observation that the sheet had been new with the folds from the original packaging still apparent. She had a good eye for detail.
On the landing he crouched down to examine the lock. Duncan found nothing to contradict Nelson’s judgment that it hadn’t been tampered with. He took a slim tool out of his pocket, and twenty seconds later he was inside the apartment. Then he pantomimed moving the coffee table aside, shaking out the sheet. Thirty seconds. Adjusting and tucking the edges to replicate a perfect square took two minutes. Scattering the petals ate up another thirty. Tops.
He gave himself another thirty to examine the scene in his mind and thirty after that to make adjustments. Then he backed up to the door, took his cell phone out of his pocket and took a video, first panning the scene, then zooming in on the sheet and the petals.
It took him another minute to prop the ladder-backed chair against the door. Halfway down the stairs, he glanced at his watch. Seven or eight minutes from start to finish. Ten if the guy let nerves slow him down. But nothing else in the apartment had been disturbed. Whoever it was had come for one purpose only. To set up the scene, record it and get it on TV.
Mission accomplished.
Then he remembered the bag or whatever the guy must have used to carry in his props. If it had been a shopping bag, it hadn’t been in the apartment. And it wasn’t needed anymore.
On a hunch, he stopped by the Dumpster at the end of the alley. Duncan held his breath, ignoring the mix of odors he released as he lifted the lid. A Macy’s bag lay right on the top, and inside he found a sales slip and the plastic covering for a single sheet.
Bingo.
He had his phone out, intending to pass the information along to Mike Nelson, when a long dark sedan pulled up to the mouth of the alley and his boss stepped out.
Adrienne Monticello was a tall, slender blonde with long curly hair. Today, she wore it pulled back into a ponytail. She had the same camera-ready good looks as her brother and she knew how to dress to enhance them. Her jacket and slacks were purple, her shoes designer. Gold winked at her ears and on her wrist. Although he knew she was in her mid-fifties, she could pass for a decade younger.
She whipped her oversize sunglasses off as she approached, and her expression was worried. “You aren’t answering your phone.”
“I don’t like to be interrupted when I walk through a crime scene.” And that’s how she’d figured out where to track him down. The fact that she’d left the office to do so didn’t bode well.
“Abe called me. He says you don’t believe that Lightman was involved in this.”
“He wasn’t.”
She studied him for a moment, and then nodded. “He’s worried about Ms. MacPherson. He’s been watching the TV coverage at his office, and they’ve located a photo of her from law school. They’re running it along with the little petal scene.”
“And Abe noticed that she’s the Rose Petal Killer’s type. Slender, long brown hair,” Duncan added. Serial killers often had a type. Some even went for females who were left-handed or played a certain sport in high school. There’d been one who’d even chosen his victims because of the number and sequence of vowels in their first and last names.
“It isn’t just Abe who’s noticed it. The press is announcing it to the world about every fifteen minutes or so.”
Not good, Duncan thought. That put an even bigger target on Piper’s back. One that might tickle the fancy of Patrick Lightman. “Where is she right now?”
“In Abe’s offices. He wants protection for her.”
What he wanted, Duncan suspected, was for his big sister to help him out of the mess he’d created when he’d ignored her advice and taken the Lightman case.
“I thought you might have some ideas,” she said. “Piper MacPherson is your stepsister, right?”
“Yes,” Duncan said. “My mother married her father seven years ago, but we’ve never shared a home.” And his feelings for her were definitely not brotherly. “You’re having Lightman watched. Does he have an alibi?”
She nodded. “They didn’t see him leave his apartment.”
“I’m betting there’s someone else who has a beef with Piper.” He told her about the Macy’s bag and the rest of what he was thinking. “It could be Sid Macks, Suzanne’s brother.” The young man had appeared on all the talk shows he could get himself booked on to protest the release of Lightman and the miscarriage of justice.
“Yeah. He confronted Abe a couple of times outside his office, but he never made any personal threats. He didn’t seem the violent type.”
“Maybe he or someone else is doing this to get Lightman’s attention focused on Piper, hoping he’ll do the dirty work.”
“Shit. You’re making me remember why I hired you. You can really get into the twisted way someone like Lightman would think.” She glanced up at the apartment building. “Maybe it’s a onetime thing. And maybe you’re being paranoid about Lightman. He should be grateful that she helped get him off of death row.”
“Hard
