Next Victim by Michael Prescott

dangerous. She would be exposed, without cover or concealment.
    The smart thing to do was call for help, get some backup in here, but she knew she wouldn’t do the smart thing.
    She took the steps fast but quietly, grateful for her soft-soled shoes that made no noise and the firm treads that did not squeak. Then she was on the second floor, in the hallway near the laundry nook, smelling the aroma of fabric softener as she tried to look in both directions at once.
    To her left was the guest bedroom, made up as a den. Lamplight glimmered from inside, but it signified nothing. The lights in there were on a timer. Next to the den was the bathroom, dark. To her right, the master bedroom. Light spilled through a crack in the door, left a few inches ajar.
    She moved toward the bedroom, taking long, sliding steps, the way they’d taught her in Hogan’s Alley.
    She reached the door and stood back, peering through the narrow opening. She saw the dresser and the mirror over it, reflecting only the bare white wall across the room.
    Not quite bare. She saw smudges on the wall. Red smudges.
    Blood.
    She forgot caution, forgot her training and everything else in a spurt of fear that sent her rushing headlong into the bedroom where Paul lay in bed, fully clothed, his wrists taped to the nightstands flanking the bed, his throat opened by a knife and coated in blood.
    Mobius.
    His MO.
    He’d learned her address, picked the lock—
    She spun in a full circle, looking for Mobius, wanting him to be there, willing to let him shoot her if she could get a shot at him first.
    He wasn’t there. She checked the closet. Nothing.
    She turned to Paul again, feeling the wound in his neck to see if the blood still flowed. A flow of blood meant a pulse, and a pulse meant life.
    There was no pulse.
    He was dead. She had seen death at other times in her life, and she knew the feel and smell of it.
    "Why did you do this?" she whispered in a stranger’s voice, a voice hoarse and raw as if from prolonged weeping. "Why did you take him? He wasn’t the one you wanted. I am. I am."
    Slowly she raised her head, understanding that this was true.
    He had come for her. He had seen the bureau car in the carport and the lights inside the house. He might even have heard the sound of dishes being washed as he opened the front door. So he’d entered the kitchen, ready to seize her from behind—only to find a man there. A man he’d never seen.
    Paul might have heard him, sensed him, or perhaps he’d never heard anything at all. Either way, he had been overpowered, knocked unconscious. He must have been, or there would have been signs of a struggle in the kitchen. And he had remained unconscious until the end. Tess was sure he had because his mouth had not been taped. There had been no need to gag him when he was out cold.
    Probably he hadn’t suffered much. Probably it had been quick, a blow to the head, a moment of surprise, then oblivion. Probably it hadn’t been too bad, not too bad.
    "Not too bad," she whispered, and then she realized how insane it was to think that anything about this was not too bad.
    She touched the wound again, still hoping vaguely to find the warmth of life, but the blood on his neck was dry and tacky, as were the few blood spots spattered on the wall.
    The killing had been done some time ago. An hour at least. And Mobius was gone.
    But he couldn’t be.
    "You can’t be gone!" she shouted at the stillness of the house. "Come out and face me, come on, come on! "
    She left the bedroom at a run and bolted into the bathroom, pulling aside the shower curtain, half ripping it from its hooks. He wasn’t there. She stumbled down the hall and entered the den, pushing the TV off its stand to look behind it, scattering the pillows on the sofa. Finally she fell on her knees with her hair tangled over her face and her thin arms shaking. She had lost the gun, dropped it someplace, and even if he had been here, she couldn’t have shot him.
    "You son