Page 9 of Sharp Force

“… Just watch. I swear this is real…”

She plays the recording she made with her phone, the phantomlike hologram outfitted in a black frock coat and hat from an earlier century. Waving a big Bowie knife, he hovers in front of her, his face chalky white, his eyes neon red. He moves his mouth, repeatedly hissing “death becomes you,” his teeth vampirish.

Dana Diletti goes on to mention Blaise Fruge and Pete Marino responding to her house. As I suspected, the TV news star is giving validity to her story by including them in the narrative as if my office and the Alexandria Police Department are working closely with her.

“… I’m cooperating fully with officials, and they’re encouragingme to relocate. But that’s not happening, folks…”Dana is saying when my phone starts ringing, my niece calling.

“I’m in the stairwell and might lose you,” I tell Lucy right off. “As soon as I clean up, I’m heading home. Where are you?”

“Quantico inside the OTD,” she says in my earpiece. “Had planned on heading out long before now, but no bueno.”

Since Lucy started working for the FBI, she spends much of her time at their training academy and labs in Quantico. Her office is inside a top-secret area of the Operational Technology Division, the OTD as we refer to it.

“I won’t be home for a while either,” I tell her as I climb the stairs. “Have to clean up first. Then I’ve got a quick stop to make along the way.”

“You shouldn’t be stopping anywhere. The snow’s already sticking, the wind gusting at more than thirty knots. Not to mention we have a serial killer on the loose who’s playing games with us, doing everything he can to cause a public panic.”

“I need to deliver something to a family. A mother and two little kids.” I tell her which case.

“Not a good idea for you to drop off anything. We’re talking about complete strangers,” she disapproves. “At least take Marino with you.”

“He’s busy and not here,” I reply, and Lucy is just as stubborn as I am. “I’m hoping you’re still on for dinner with Benton and me.”

“It’s not looking good,” she says.

“I was afraid that might be the case with all that’s going on.” I don’t let on how disappointed I am. “It worries me that your mom is home alone. She left me a message a few hours ago, saying she didn’t want to join us and stay over.”

“I just talked to her before calling you, and she’s well into the Chablis, watching an old movie.”

“After my errand I can stop and pick her up?” I again offer, my feet quietly scuffing on the concrete steps. “Are we sure we can’t change her mind?”

“She doesn’t want to venture out in the bad weather.” Lucy repeats what Dorothy told me in a voice mail. “She’s worn out from all her social media influencing and podcasting, yada-yada-yada.”

“That’s not the real reason,” I reply.

“I suspect she and Marino have been having their usual fireworks. Not the fun kind,” Lucy adds.

“I just watched the video of the Slasher’s hologram that Dana Diletti claims to have recorded inside her bedroom.” I unlock the heavy metal door opening onto the second floor. “Benton says you think it’s credible.”

“It is,” Lucy says as I follow the corridor, my corner office at the far end of it.

“Are we sure it’s not some sort of publicity stunt on her part as usual, her way of inserting herself into the drama?”

“It’s not looking like that’s the case this time,” Lucy explains. “We’re doing forensics on the video that’s now all over the internet thanks to her. People are freaking out as you’d expect, which is a shame. Causing more of a panic doesn’t help anything.”

“We both know she doesn’t give a damn who she hurts,” I remark, the staff offices I pass empty and dark.

CHAPTER 4

The breakroom is ahead, and I smell coffee brewing. I hear Wyatt on his phone, chatting to a funeral home delivering a suicide I was informed about earlier.Jeopardy!plays on TV, the microwave oven beeping.

Lucy explains in my earpiece that she’s been going through Dana Diletti’s hologram video frame by frame. The red-eyed apparition is the same projection that’s been spotted and caught on security cameras in the first three Slasher murders.

“Dana’s video wasn’t copied off the internet,” Lucy says as I reach the end of the corridor. “I’m not seeing anything to make me think her clip was edited.”

“Then the hologram really did appear inside her bedroom? The Phantom Slasher projected it in there?” I unlock my office door, flipping on the lights. “That’s an awful thought. An extremely disturbing one.”

“Yeah, it is.” Lucy’s voice is somber.