Final Breath

they'd just screwed somebody.

He felt a bit like that right now. Though he hadn't really had sex with Troy, he still carried his scent. He rolled up the window again, so he could savor it longer. That musky, pungent smell reminded him that he'd just killed somebody.

Sydney counted four ring tones until someone finally picked up: 'Kinko's/FedEx,' the woman said in a flat, tired voice. 'Please, hold.'

'Um, wait--' But it was too late, they'd already stuck her in Hold limbo. An instrumental version of 'Band on the Run' came on, periodically interrupted by a chirpy woman's recorded voice explaining the benefits of shipping FedEx.

Setting the fax pages on the kitchen table, Sydney kept the cordless to her ear and moved to the refrigerator. She took out the opened bottle of pinot grigio and pulled a wineglass down from the cabinet. Sydney filled up most of the glass.

'Kinko's/FedEx,' the same tired-sounding woman came back on the line. 'How can I help you?'

'Hi, yes. I just received a fax from your store about five minutes ago. My name's Sydney Jordan, and my fax number is--'

'One minute,' the woman said. Then Sydney heard her ask in a loud voice: 'Ronny, did you just send a fax? Did anybody just send a fax?'

Sydney sipped her wine while she waited.

'Nobody behind the counter sent you a fax. It must have been a customer using one of the self-service computer-fax machines.'

'Well, this guy was just in there five minutes ago,' Sydney explained. 'Did anybody there see him?'

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

'Please, it's very important.'

'Ma'am, we've got eight computer stations here, and right now, seven of them are in use. We're awfully busy. Early Monday mornings are pretty crazy around here--'

'Your self-serve machines are activated with a credit card, aren't they?' Sydney asked.

'Yes...'

'Well, if you could please just tell me the name of the person who sent a three-page fax at'--she glanced at the printing along the top of page 2--'at six thirty-two this morning from one of your self-service machines, I'd be very, very grateful.'

'I'm sorry, I can't give out that information,' the woman replied. 'Now, I have customers waiting.'

'Please, don't hang up!' Sydney said. But she heard the click on the other end of the line.

After another hit of pinot grigio, Sydney phoned them back and asked to talk with the manager on duty. The man named Paul with a Bronx accent was friendly enough, but he had to stick with company policy. They weren't responsible for the content of faxes or e-mail sent from their store. It sounded like he was reading it from a rule book. Even when Sydney explained that the fax was threatening, he wouldn't budge.

She even resorted to using the 'I'm Sydney Jordan from On the Edge, maybe you've heard of me' card, and the guy still wouldn't cave. But he admitted he watched the show and was a fan.

'Listen, Paul,' she said, exasperated. Her wineglass was already half empty. 'Could you do me a huge favor? Can you ask around and find out if anyone there just saw a man in his late twenties using one of the self-serve computer-fax machines? He's got a dark complexion. He's fairly good-looking, but one of his eyes is infected and all blood-shot. Could you ask your employees if they saw someone like that leaving the store about ten or fifteen minutes ago?'

He didn't answer for a moment. 'Sure, Sydney,' he said finally. 'Hold on.'

The woman's recorded voice came on the line again, the same FedEx pitch. Then a dentist-office version of Van Morrison's 'Moondance' serenaded her.

'Sydney?' the manager came back on the line. 'Sorry, nobody here noticed anyone fitting that description. I even asked a few of the customers.'

'Do you have surveillance cameras in that store?' she asked.

'Yeah. One near the counter.'

Sydney frowned. That wouldn't do her any good. The person who sent the fax wouldn't have needed to go up to the counter if he'd used the self-serve machine. 'Listen--Paul, all I need is his name from the credit card record. I hate people who always want to be the exception, but could you please ignore the rules this time?'

'Sydney, if I gave you his name, and you wanted to charge this guy with anything, the charges wouldn't stick, because the way you got the goods on him wouldn't be legit. You really want to track down this guy who's sending you these threats? You should call the police. Get a cop in here, flashing a badge, and we'll give him this wacko's credit-card info. Okay?'

Defeated, Sydney thanked the Kinko's manager, then clicked off the line. Setting her near-empty wineglass on the counter, she pulled the pinot grigio out of the refrigerator again. As she refilled her glass, she heard a noise outside.

Glancing up, Sydney thought she saw someone in the window above the sink. She gasped, knocking over her glass and spilling wine across the counter. Then she realized it was her own reflection in the darkened window. 'Stupid,' she murmured.

Sydney frowned at the mess she'd made on the countertop. At least her glass hadn't broken, just some spilt wine--and her cue that she'd probably had enough to drink for tonight. Grabbing a sponge from the sink, she started to wipe up the puddle of wine. It extended to the green Formica backsplash. As she wrung out the sponge, Sydney noticed a few grains of rice in the perforations. She was ashamed at her own sloppy housekeeping. The rice must have been hidden at the far edge of the counter since that box of Minute Rice had mysteriously tipped over on the night of July Fourth.

As she plucked pieces of rice out of the sponge and tossed them in the sink, Sydney realized something. The mess in the kitchen that night hadn't been an accident. It had been deliberate--as deliberate as that dead bird on her pillow and now this faxed diagram of the Heimlich maneuver.

Why hadn't she seen it before? She'd walked through Thai Paradise with Som and Suchin Wongpoom surveying the damage to their restaurant. It had still been a crime scene at the time, and they hadn't been able to clean it up. She'd seen the shards of glass, the smashed plates, and spilt food on that damp, moldy carpet. She'd noticed several steel teapots and spilt bowls of rice on the floor by a bus table that had been knocked over. Rice and tea, staples in almost every Thai restaurant.

On the night of July Fourth, the same night Leah and Jared had been murdered, someone had broken into this apartment and arranged that 'accident' in the kitchen. The smashed teapot and the spilt rice were cryptic reminders of the Thai restaurant where Leah and Jared had become heroes. The intruder had returned to the apartment again on Saturday, planting a dead bird to show what had happened to Angela Gannon.

Sydney stared at the fax on her breakfast table. With a shaky hand, she picked up the crudely illustrated Heimlich maneuver instruction sheet. No intruder had broken into the apartment tonight. He was in New York right now. Yet he'd still found a way of getting inside--through the fax machine and her phone.

The last Movers & Shakers story she'd done in New York had been in November--about the people who decorated the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Square. But before that, she'd shot a story about a woman who taught classes in CPR and the Heimlich maneuver in Chelsea. Sydney remembered her name was Caitlin, and she was a great subject--very down to earth, very funny. At one time, she'd been homeless and she ended up putting herself through nursing school.

'Oh, my God,' Sydney murmured. 'Caitlin...'

Wiping her damp hands on the front of her pajama shorts, she hurried into her little office. Frantically she clawed through her files for the final quarter of last year. She found the one labeled: Episode: Choke Detector--Airdate: 10/17/07. She opened up the file, and found all her paperwork for putting together the five-minute segment. That included records of expenses accrued during the trip, her editing and scoring notes, lists of the locations used, and schedules and contact numbers for her interview subjects.

Sydney found Caitlin Trueblood's phone number. She accidentally knocked the file folder off her desk as she ran back to the kitchen. Papers scattered on her office floor, but Sydney didn't care. She snatched up the cordless and dialed Caitlin's number. Someone answered after two rings: 'Well, God bless caller ID. I wouldn't have picked