Silent Stalker by C. E. Lawrence Page B

called to fill in for another waitress who had taken ill. Sara had worn her other winter coat, the gray down jacket with the red lining, so Caroline decided it wouldn’t do any harm to use the green coat. Besides, it was a rare opportunity—Sara rarely wore anything else this time of year, and could usually be seen a block away in her bright green coat. So Caroline snatched the chance to wear the coveted garment, just this once.
    She often wore her roommate’s clothes without asking. There was something delightfully wicked about getting away with it. Lately Sara had been asking questions that made Caroline think she had begun to suspect, but Caroline always denied her accusations. The clandestine nature of it was half the fun—if she asked permission, the whole thing would lose its appeal. She was very good at acting innocent—or thought she was—though she worried that Sara, being an actress, could see through her wide-eyed protestations.
    Still, she enjoyed the game, and as she pulled the collar tightly around her thin neck, she sighed with pleasure. This particular shade of green went so well with her eyes, she thought—the coat really looked better on her than on Sara. She was pulling on her leather gloves when she thought she heard the soft click of the front door latch. She peered down the narrow flight of stairs but didn’t see anyone in the tiny foyer of the tenement building.
    Caroline piled her hair up inside a gray wool beret, slid on a pair of sunglasses, and proceeded down the steep staircase, clutching the banister as she went. There was a loose step right before the landing, and she looked down to make sure of her footfall.
    She never saw the attack coming. Her first awareness of it was the sensation of the cold metal as it slid into her gut, perforating her small intestine. She made no sound except for a single guttural grunt as she sank to her knees. She stared down in disbelief and astonishment as thick dark blood pulsed from her body. Only then did she look up into the face of her attacker. Curiously, her face held an expression of wonderment rather than fear, as though she was bewildered that anyone could want to do such a thing to her. By then it was too late—life was draining from her body with every beat of her heart.
    She was still alive when her attacker fled the building, walking quickly in the direction of the subway. But by the time he reached the platform, she was dead.

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
    â€œNo mask this time,” Elena Krieger said. “But otherwise the same MO?”
    â€œYep,” said Butts. “She was ambushed in the foyer of her building, run through with a single stab wound, and left to die.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t have taken her long to bleed out from a wound like that,” said Lee.
    They were staring at crime scene photos taped to the bulletin board in Butts’s cramped office. The call had come in about Caroline’s death a little after noon, and now it was nearly four. Her body was already at the ME’s office, and the three of them were back at the precinct awaiting the autopsy results. Not that they expected to learn much from it, though there was still a thin hope of some trace evidence turning up on the body.
    â€œWhy no mask this time?” asked Krieger, studying the photos. Poor Caroline lay on her back, her unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling of the drafty lobby where she had taken her last breaths. Her bright green coat was stained with crimson blotches of dried blood. A pair of sunglasses lay to one side of the body.
    â€œCould have been he was in a hurry because he was about to be discovered,” Butts replied. “Or—”
    â€œHe realized he had killed the wrong person,” Lee finished for him. “Caroline Porchowsky was Sara Wittier’s roommate.”
    â€œSo when he saw that he had the wrong person, he abandoned his plan and fled?” said Krieger. “Without leaving