The Cold Moon

ideas—they seem good on paper but they’re not very practical.”
    Duncan studied the golden disk with affection. “I like watches from that era. Back then a watch was power. Not many people could afford one. The owner of a watch was a man who controlled time. You came to him and you waited until the time he’d set for the meeting. Chains and fobs were invented so that even when a man carried a watch in his pocket, you still could see he owned one. Watchmakers were gods in those days.” Duncan paused. “I was speaking figuratively, but in a way it’s true.”
    Vincent cocked an eyebrow.
    “There was a philosophical movement in the eighteenth century that used the watch as a metaphor. It held that God created the mechanism of the universe, then wound it up and started it running. Sort of a perpetual clock. God was called the ‘Great Watchmaker.’ Whether you believe it or not, the philosophy had a lot of followers. It gave watchmakers an almost priestlike status.”
    Another glance at the Breguet. He put it away. “We should go,” Duncan said, nodding at the women. “They’ll be leaving soon.”
    He put the car in gear, signaled and pulled into the street, leaving behind their victim, about to lose her life to one man and, soon after, her dignity to another. They couldn’t take her tonight, though, because Duncan had learned that she had a husband who worked odd hours and could be home at any moment.
    Vincent was breathing deeply, trying to keep the hunger at bay. He ate a pack of chips. He asked, “How are you going to do it? Kill her, I mean.”
    Duncan was silent for a few moments. “You asked me a question earlier. About how long it took the first two victims to die.”
    Vincent nodded.
    “Well, it’s going to take Lucy a long time.” Although they’d lost the book on torture, Duncan had apparently memorized much of it. He now described the technique he’d use to murder her. It was called water boarding. You suspend the victim on her back with her feet up. Then you tape her mouth shut and pour water up her nose. You can take as long as you like to kill the person if you give her air from time to time.
    “I’m going to try to keep her going for a half hour. Or forty minutes, if I can.”
    “She deserves it, hm?” Vincent asked.
    Duncan paused. “The question you’re really asking is why am I killing these particular people.”
    “Well . . .” It was true.
    “I’ve never told you.”
    “No, you haven’t.”
    Trust is nearly as precious as time. . . .
    Duncan glanced at Vincent then back to the street. “You know, we’re all on earth for a certain period of time. Maybe only days or months. Many years, we hope.”
    “Right.”
    “It’s as if God—or whatever you believe in—has a huge list of everybody on earth. When the hands of His clock hit a certain time, that’s it. They’re gone. . . . Well, I have my own list.”
    “Ten people.”
    “Ten people. . . . The difference is that God doesn’t have any good reason for killing them. I do.”
    Vincent was quiet. For a moment he wasn’t clever and he wasn’t hungry. He was just regular Vincent, listening to a friend sharing something that was important.
    “I’m finally comfortable enough telling you what that reason is.”
    And he proceeded to do just that.

    The moon was a band of white light on the hood of the car, reflecting into her eyes.
    Amelia Sachs was now speeding along the East River, the emergency flasher sitting cockeyed on the dash.
    She felt a weight crushing her, the consequences from all the events ofthe past few days: The likelihood that corrupt officers were involved with killers who’d murdered Ben Creeley and Frank Sarkowski. The risk that Inspector Flaherty might take the case away from her at any minute. Dennis Baker’s espionage and the vote of no confidence from the brass about Nick. Deputy Inspector Jefferies’s tantrum.
    And, most of all, the terrible news about her father.
    Thinking: What hope is there in doing your job, working hard, giving up your peace of mind, risking your life, if the business of being a cop ultimately spoils the decent core within you?
    She slammed the shifter into fourth, nudging the car to seventy. The engine howled like a wolf at midnight.
    No cop was better than her father, more solid, more conscientious. And yet look at what had happened to him. . . . But then she realized that no, no, she couldn’t think of it that way. Nothing had happened to