Read Watch Me for Free Online Page B

corridor. Whoever he was meeting with was important enough for him to want to be on time. He was one of the big bosses around here. The only people who ranked above him were his wife and the mayor. My money was on his meeting being with the mayor, probably to bring him up to speed on the investigation. Not that there was much to tell.
    Shepherd led the way to the next office and entered without knocking. There were two plain-clothed cops in the room. Both male, both in their thirties. Both of them had black hair and blue eyes. They could have been twins except for the fact that one of them had a thirty-inch waist and the other’s was forty inches.
    There were sweat stains under their armpits, so they’d probably spent the morning out in the heat playing detective and been called back here to meet me. A murder happens in a place like this, the last thing you’re going to do is have your entire squad of investigators sat around the office twiddling their thumbs.
    The desks were pushed flat against the walls, which was a mistake since it meant the two men spent most of their working days with their backs to one another. The desks should have been pushed together in the middle of the room so they were eye to eye. Brainstorming was much more efficient when you could see the person you were brainstorming with.
    They turned from their desks when we entered the room and gave me the new-kid stare. It was a look that combined suspicion and curiosity, a look that said Who the hell do you think you are? It was another look I was used to.
    After my father’s arrest, my mother went into flight mode. She started running the day they came for him, and kept running until she’d drunk herself into an early grave. Between the ages of eleven and seventeen I lived in fifteen different cities in ten different states, so I was used to being the new kid. Even now, whenever I step into a situation like this, it’s as though the clock has been wound back. I reckon I’ll always be the new kid, no matter how old I get.
    Shepherd turned to Taylor and dismissed him with a curt ‘You can go now.’
    ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘if it’s okay with you, I’d like him to stay. I’m working on the assumption that this unsub’s a serial killer. If that’s the case then we’re going to need all the help we can get.’
    It sounded like a request, but wasn’t, and we both knew it. Everyone in the room knew it. Taylor was frozen to the spot, halfway to the door, unsure what to do. All eyes had turned towards him.
    ‘Okay, you can stay,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘A serial killer?’ This came from the skinny guy.
    Shepherd nodded towards the skinny guy. ‘This is Barker.’ A nod in the direction of the fat guy. ‘And this is Romero.’
    The way he introduced them told me everything I needed to know about the pecking order. Shepherd at the top, then Barker, then Romero. Taylor didn’t even figure on the radar, which was crazy, but understandable. Understandable because of his gentle giant act. Crazy because he was probably smarter than Barker and Romero combined.
    Handshakes all around, then I perched on the windowsill. There weren’t any spare seats. Barker and Romero didn’t look as if they were about to give theirs up any time soon, and Shepherd didn’t look like he was about to make them. Even with the blinds down I could feel the burn of the sun. It was twenty-two minutes after three. I pictured the website page, pictured those white numbers glowing on a pitch-black background, pictured another stick figure about to hang.
    08:37:23.
    ‘So far you’ve got one victim, but there are going to be more. By my reckoning the next one is going to turn up in a little over eight and a half hours’ time.’
    ‘The countdown on that website,’ Shepherd said. ‘You think this guy’s telling us when he’s going to kill again?’
    ‘What else could it be for?’
    ‘But that’s crazy. Why the hell do something like that?’
    ‘Okay, the first thing you