Page 113 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Amanda’s thoughts came rushing back to her, recalibrated, and yet too jumbled to allow her to express any of them. She let out her breath in a rush.
That’s why Crone didn’t get the subway to work that day. That’s why he didn’t show up for his psychiatrist appointment. Ruth had made the call to the cops, got him arrested and off the street, then told Amanda she’d killed him.
‘Amanda? Are you okay?’
‘Ah, yeah, I’m fine.’
‘Good. I’m sorry it took so long to reach you. I know you always wanted to be updated first. I respect that. Look, we can talk later. This elevator isn’t coming down any time soon. We’ll take the stairs. Wait here.’
Amanda stood aside as Farrow and Dr. Marin stepped by her, opened the door to the stairwell.
Then she heard something. Loud and clear.
They all did.
It was unmistakable.
The sound of a gunshot.
65
Ruth
She tried the door to apartment 1003.
Locked.
Placing the basket on the floor, she took hold of the gun inside her pocket and was about to knock when she heard something.
The elevator. Someone was coming up. Maybe to this floor, maybe not. But she didn’t want to take the risk of being seen going into the Granger’s apartment.
As the elevator car got higher and higher, the noise from the mechanism grew louder.
It didn’t stop.
Ruth saw a beam of light hit the carpeted floor from the elevator car. The beam grew wider as the car ascended, enough to see the pattern of shadows cast by the elevator gate. The light grew over the flooring, and up the wall. Ruth made her way back towards the elevator.
There was a man in the elevator car. She could see the top of his head through the gate, then his face. He was standing still, in the center of the lift. Something about his face drew her attention. It was hard to get a good look at him. Just when she thought she recognized him, part of his face was again obscured by the crisscross iron gate.
The elevator reached her floor and stopped with a sudden jerk.
Ruth peered through the gate. The man looked familiar, but out of place somehow. She knew his face, but couldn’t place it.
‘Don’t you remember me, Ruth?’ he said.
She knew that voice too.
‘My name’s Billy,’ he said.
She stepped closer. The man who said his name was Billy placed his right hand on the handle of the gate, but didn’t slide it open.
‘You knew me as BillyCam2003, remember?’
Ruth’s grip on the gun in her pocket tightened. Billy was one of her online targets from a bereavement forum. From her Felicia profile. A good candidate for Quinn, initially. He’d said he would kill him, but he’d wanted to meet Ruth first.
She never met her online targets.
Better to keep them at a distance. There were only so many support groups in the city, and she was taking enough chances by maintaining different identities in real support groups – so she never met the online people. And Billy had been adamant that he wanted a face-to-face. Too pushy, so she’d pulled out, burned the Felicia profile and found Amanda White for the job instead.
