Heart pumping, Sylvie leaned forward, her palms on the desk. “Is Sami Yamal here today?”
The professor shook his head. “I haven’t seen him.”
Sylvie’s mind raced. Sami was the right size to be her assailant. Had he decided to lay low to hide the bruises she and Bryce must have given him? Or was he with Diana?
“Did he call in sick?” Bryce asked.
“It’s Sunday. He often comes in, but he’s not required to be here.” Bertram raised a shaking hand to his forehead, as if the hassle of answering their questions was too much for him to handle.
Sylvie felt for the man. He seemed so much weaker than the last time they’d seen him, as if the past hours had taken a horrible toll. Losing his daughter to a serial killer had to be the definition of hell. And revisiting that horror would stress the strongest man.
But even if Sami Yamal was the one who had kidnapped Diana and attempted to kidnap Sylvie this morning, even if Diana’s disappearance had nothing to do with Dryden, she still couldn’t excuse the professor for exposing Diana to that evil in the first place.
No matter how she could sympathize with his need to understand his horrible loss, she couldn’t forgive him. “Where does Sami Yamal live?”
Bryce
As soon as they emerged from the building, Sylvie handed Bryce the slip of paper with Yamal’s address. Her hand shook. Lines of worry dug into her forehead and flanked her lips.
With the emotional stress she was under, he doubted she needed to be searching down the assistant professor, but he had learned enough about her to realize she had to face him herself. And hell, he could hardly blame her for that.
But he could take precautions. “I’m going to call Perreth, have him meet us at Yamal’s apartment.”
She shot him an uneasy look, then nodded. “I suppose that’s a good idea.”
“Perreth is a prick, no doubt about it. But he seems to be doing his job.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust anybody.”
“You’re doing all right. So far, anyway.”
Bryce pulled his cell phone from his pocket and squinted down at the slip of paper to hide his smile. He couldn’t remember when a heavily qualified half-compliment had meant more.
He punched his phone’s redial as they walked down Bascom Hill and left the address on Perreth’s voice mail. He sure as hell hoped the detective checked his messages. He didn’t want to be stuck facing down Yamal alone.
“How far is Sami’s apartment?” Sylvie asked when he finished.
“A fifteen-minute walk up State Street, tops.”
Sylvie nodded. “What do you think about Bertram?”
“He seems like a man in pain, like all of Dryden’s victims’ families.” Like him. Maybe like Sylvie, if her sister was dead.
“I don’t know how those families coped.”
“Who said they coped?” Coping was overrated. Bryce would rather get justice. Or maybe even flat-out revenge.
“Good point.” She shook her head and increased her pace. “Somehow, I never really considered Sami might be responsible for Diana’s disappearance. I know we talked about it, but he just seemed so helpful that day, so proud of his work.”
“When Diana and Professor Bertram arranged to work together, they cut him out of the mix. And if he had unrequited feelings for Diana on top of that…” A clear recipe for disaster. Out-of-control passions always made things more complicated. More volatile.
They crossed the footbridge over Park Street and negotiated their way to Library Mall.
The wind kicked up, blowing blond strands across Sylvie’s face. She brushed them out of the way. “I hope Perreth gets there before we do. If Sami hurt Diana, I might just kill him with my bare hands.”
Emerging from Library Mall, they crossed Lake Street and started up State in the direction of the capitol dome. Several blocks up, they turned off State Street and located the old Victorian home at the address Bertram had given them. The house had been separated into three flats, each with a separate entrance.
Sylvie poked the buzzer next to Yamal’s name.
No answer.
Bryce cupped a sore hand and shielded the window in the door. Through the wavy old glass, he could see a staircase stretching to the second floor. Judging from the stairs, Yamal didn’t believe in cleanliness. Tiny muddy cat tracks peppered the old linoleum. And at the base of the stairs, a small orange feline peered at the window and mewed incessantly. “His cat is home.”
Sylvie pressed up next to Bryce and peered in. “She seems upset. Do you think something’s wrong and she’s trying to let us know?”
“Do cats do that?”
“Not a cat person?”
“I don’t even have house plants.” God, he sounded pitiful. Lonely.
“One of my foster families had a cat. Believe me, when anything was wrong, she’d let you know.”
The cat paced back and forth on the stairs without taking its eyes from their faces. Its meow was low, urgent.
Sylvie put a hand on the doorknob and twisted. It turned under her fingers. “My God, it’s open.”
“Perreth should be here any minute.” A trickle of foreboding ran down Bryce’s spine. He checked his phone. Nothing. “I hope.”
Sylvie pushed the door inward. She stepped inside, stopping at the base of the stairs as the cat wrapped itself around her legs. She bent to stroke the animal’s arching back.
The scent hit Bryce through the open door. Sweet. Sort of metallic. Memories of finding Tanner flooded his mind and turned his stomach. “Sylvie. Get out of there.”
She turned to him, wide-eyed. “That smell. Is it—”
“Wait for the police.”
She turned back to the steps.
He grabbed her arm before she could start up the staircase. Damn, he wished he had a gun, a knife, a baseball bat… anything. “Wait.”
“I can’t just stand here, Bryce. I have to know.” Sylvie tried to pull her arm away.
He held on. “Perreth will be here soon. He has to be.”
Where was Perreth?
“Please, Bryce. If that body in the morgue isn’t Diana…”
“Don’t think that way.”
“I can’t help it. Imagine how you would feel.”
He didn’t have to imagine. He’d smelled that odor as soon as he’d opened Tanner’s front door. Even though he’d never smelled anything exactly like it before that time, he’d known what the scent was, what it meant. It hadn’t stopped him. It hadn’t even slowed him down. “Okay, stay behind me.”
Bryce slipped his hand down her arm until he gripped her palm in his. Then he started up the stairs, stepping on the edge of the linoleum to avoid walking on the cat tracks—tracks of blood, not mud. “We can’t touch anything. This is a crime scene. We can’t destroy evidence that might help the police. We shouldn’t be going up here at all.”
Sylvie’s hand trembled in his, but her steps were steady. From the bottom of the stairs, the cat’s mewing grew louder, the sound emanating from deep in its throat.
They approached the dark doorway at the top of the stairs. Bryce’s eyes drew even with the floor above. More tracks spotted the wood. The smell clogged his throat.
An image crashed through his mind: Tanner’s broken body lying in a bed of autumn leaves.
Placing a hand on the door frame, Bryce steadied himself and peered into the apartment. Blood spread over the hardwood floor, not fresh, but brown and sticky. And just inside the archway leading to the kitchen, Sami Yamal stared at them through shattered lenses. A ravaged hole gaped where the top of his skull should be. And in his hand, he still held his gun.