Fear the Night

rules. They both knew what this investigation meant.

No, not Birdy.

But Repetto had seen unlikely relationships develop between seemingly incompatible partners on the Job. He knew how sex and love could turn people into … other people.

He used the back of his forefinger to nudge his plate toward Meg. “You sure you don’t want the rest of this cinnamon bun? They’re really good. I’m just not hungry.”

“No means no,” she said, not smiling.

There was no part of that Repetto didn’t understand.

On the roof of the Myler Building, high enough above the turmoil of the Times Square area that it seemed isolated, the Night Sniper shifted his weight, achieving comfort and balance. The rare Azner Line Premium rifle was assembled, its scope adjusted, and it now rested against his thigh.

A cloud passed over the moon, then moved on quickly in a light-hazed night sky. A warning to the wise. This one would be an easy shot, so he mustn’t let himself become complacent.

He felt confident, though. Even smug. He remained a step ahead of Repetto and his team.

Where they might assume he’d leave his next note, was where they would, in fact, find his next victim.

Too late.

The entire audience in the Bellam Theater rose to its feet, applauding, shouting approval, exhorting the cast to come back onstage for yet another curtain call.

The cast obliged. The star of the hit Broadway musical American Cat Burglar in London, Libby Newland, was center stage, hands joined with the cast members on either side of her. She was smiling big and meaning it.

This was the way every performance of Burglar ended, with what in these uneasy times was a good house, more than half the seats sold, everyone on their feet and applauding. But Libby knew that financially the play was struggling to stay in the black. What a hit it would have been if the Night Sniper creep wasn’t out there somewhere, scaring the hell out of everyone as soon as the sun went down, holding people prisoner where they lived, or making them simply decide not to drive into the city after dark. Even Libby had to admit it wasn’t worth the risk, though she never shared that thought. She didn’t think you should let other people tell you how to live, especially people with guns. She hated guns.

The cast gave a final bow from the waist, then jogged offstage in a way that made it clear they were spent from the performance, but still spirited. Some of them waved their appreciation of the audience’s response, or maybe of the audience’s courage in attending the theater.

As the houselights came up, the audience, smiling and making favorable comments, began filing toward the aisles and exits.

“Another one down,” Libby’s leading man, Victor Tobin, said, as she made her way to her dressing room. He was a tall man with generous actor’s instincts and ever-present Listerine breath. Vic was a little short in the voice department but could dance like Najinsky. He was, more than anything, a pro. Libby thought sharing the stage with him was a pleasure.

“It’d be nice to play to full houses,” she said, stopping for a moment to let two black-clad stagehands pass with a plywood prop.

“It seems odd,” Tobin said beside her, “to be playing to full-house matinees and half-house evening audiences.”

“Night Sniper asshole,” Libby said, by way of explanation. She opened her dressing room door.

Tobin grinned. “Dead on, Lib.” He bent down and gave her a peck on the cheek before moving on.

As soon as she was alone in her dressing room, Libby got a chilled bottle of carbonated water from the tiny refrigerator and downed half of it. It was too warm in the room, so she switched on the floor fan in the corner, wishing these old theaters would work on their air-conditioning.

There were three knocks on the door; then it opened and Beth from wardrobe entered.

The play had run long enough that there was no need for words between the two women. Their actions after each performance had become routine. The elderly, saturnine Beth helped Libby out of the tight black Lycra costume she’d worn in the closing dance number, then draped it over a padded hanger on the metal rack against the wall. After taking a few garments from the rack that needed cleaning or sewing, she waited to see if Libby required anything more.

Libby glanced around, smiled, and shook her head no, and Beth withdrew to help someone else with awkwardly placed Velcro or zippers.

Leaving the door open a crack to facilitate the flow of air from the fan, Libby sat down before her lighted mirror and looked at herself, the ultimate London cat burglar. Elfin, mischievous, even feline.

Anyone would pick me out of a lineup as a cat burglar. Maybe I missed my calling.

Nobody in the theater world would agree with that last part.

Time to disassemble the cat burglar. Libby carefully removed her wig and placed it on its form for Beth to comb tomorrow morning. Since the shedding of the Lycra dance costume, Libby was wearing only panties, no bra, and decided to stay that way to remain cool while she removed her makeup.

The door opened all the way and a male dancer named Edmund stuck his head in. “Oops! Wrong room,” he said. “Sorry.”

“You don’t seem sorry,” Libby said, smiling as the young man closed the door.

When she was in her street clothes, her dark, short-cropped hair a charming mess, she put on an ankle- length light raincoat, tinted glasses, and a jaunty denim cap. She had an appointment to meet her agent and a TV producer in Marteen’s Lounge, where they would have a few drinks and talk over a possible television series based on the success of Burglar.

Libby was sure nothing would come of the idea, but she knew this was the way it went in her business. Meet someone over drinks or food, then listen, talk, listen, forget it, take a phone call six months later, and you had work. The acting life. She loved it, and finally it was starting to love her back.

She adjusted the angle of the denim cap that made her look sixteen and as if she should be hawking newspapers, then lowered the dark glasses on her nose so she could peer over the tops of the frames at her image in the mirror.

Nothing left of the cat burglar.

“Good to go,” she said to herself, then left the dressing room and made her way to the glowing red exit sign, saying good night to people as she went. She was sure no one would recognize her on the street when she left by the stage door on the side of the theater.

She was wrong.

After closing the heavy steel door behind her, she turned around and felt a terrible pain in her chest. Her thoughts went flying. Her heart began a wild hammering.

Beyond the mouth of the passageway, almost everyone dropped flat or sought cover at the crack of the shot Libby had barely heard in her sudden shock. She felt dizzy, completely. . disoriented. She heard someone whimper- probably me-and with a dancer’s grace she sat down cross-legged on the hard concrete.

Libby lost her grip on time and didn’t know how much of it had passed. Her heartbeat was deafening and becoming more irregular, and that terrified her. She was only about ten feet back from the sidewalk and tried to call for help, but she could make no sound other than the soft whimpering.

Several minutes had passed since the echoing report of the rifle, and out on the street and sidewalk people were beginning to raise their heads and look around, or stand up uneasily and move on. None of them seemed aware that Libby had been shot. None of them happened to glance into the lighted passage where she sat bleeding.

Warm. . warm. . Am I bleeding?

She extended her forefinger and tried to touch the wavering red brilliance spreading all around her. She couldn’t reach it. Much too far away.

When she looked up she saw on the other side of the street a ragged derelict staring directly at her while