Read The Watcher in the Wall for Free Online Page B

nothing got any better. Earl kept bursting in, the drink on his breath. Kept beating Gruber. Nothing Gruber could do about it but dream of the day he could stand up for himself, the day he found an outlet for the frustration and hatred Earl was creating inside of him.
    < 16 >
    It was past midnight when Windermere piloted her daddy’s old Chevelle out of the parking garage. Saturday morning, early, the last of the Friday-night partiers still straggling their way home. She drove across downtown, aiming for the interstate, ran into a roadside checkpoint just before the on-ramp. A handful of patrol cars were pulled over with their flashers on, cops with flashlights and reflective vests funneling cars into a long, single line.
    Windermere examined her reflection in the rearview mirror. Checked her breath. She’d had, what, three beers? Felt fine, not even tipsy, but knew she shouldn’t be driving. Screw it. Too late to turn around.
    She rolled down the window for the young cop who approached the Chevy. “Had anything to drink?” the cop asked her.
    “One beer with dinner,” she lied, handing over her license and her FBI badge.
    The cop studied the badge. “Working tonight?”
    “Headed up to the office,” she told him. “Couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d kick around some casework instead, you know?”
    “No rest for the wicked, huh?” The cop handed the badge back, Windermere’s driver’s license. “Stay safe out there, anyway. Lots of crazies out tonight, especially this neck of the woods.”
    “Don’t I know it.” Windermere rolled up the window, pulled ahead. Pointed the Chevelle north, trying not to think about what Stevensand Mathers would have thought if the young cop had pulled her over for a breath test.
    •   •   •
    CID was quiet when Windermere walked off the elevator. Dark, just a handful of emergency lights, and the hum of the computers in the rows of cubicles. Windermere walked past a motion detector and the lights came on around her. She navigated through the department to the office she shared with Stevens.
    She’d angled for her own office for three years before Drew Harris, her SAC, finally relented and made good on the promise he’d given her when he recruited her from the Miami field office. “Your own office. Plenty of room. Plenty of autonomy.”
    Well, she had her own office, anyway. Had to share it with Stevens, though—and Windermere was pretty sure she’d still be working a cubicle if her BCA colleague hadn’t joined the violent crimes task force.
    Adrian Miller’s laptop was where they’d left it, on Windermere’s desk, still connected to the Bureau’s network but otherwise forgotten. Come Monday, Windermere knew she and Stevens would be back tidying up the last of the sex-trafficking case, no more time to spend on Ashley Frey, wherever and whoever she was.
    But that left Saturday and Sunday. And Windermere wasn’t ready to give up on the girl yet, not after seeing Adrian Miller’s parents, after talking to Lucas Horst. She pulled up her chair and flipped open the laptop, squinted at the screen, the bright electronic light. Brought up the chat logs Adrian had cached from the Death Wish forum. His conversations with Ambriel98.
    Adrian had talked to Ashley Frey for four months before he hangedhimself. Windermere scrolled to the top of the logs, the very first conversation. Scanned the office, Stevens’s desk, the pictures of his wife and kids, looked out through the door to the empty cubicles beyond. Felt the pull of fatigue and craved a cigarette, wondered what she was doing here, middle of the night and a weekend besides.
    Giving up already, Supercop?
    She turned back to the computer. Settled in and started to read, the chat logs and Adrian Miller’s profile, Ashley Frey’s, anything that would help her get a fix on the girl.
    Around dawn or so, she figured she’d found it.
    < 17 >
    Even Sarah couldn’t dodge Earl’s reign of terror forever. She lost her