Penumbra (Spook Squad 3)

“Yes. No visitors recorded for the last forty-eight hours,” Illie said. “She left her apartment at five forty-five this morning and returned at two thirty this afternoon. She was alone both times.”

Another State Police officer stood at the elevator. Gabriel again showed his badge and asked, “Who’s the officer in charge up there?”

“Captain Marsdan.”

Who was the head of Sam’s squad when she’d been a State Police officer, and a man with no real liking for SIU interference. But he was an excellent cop and, despite his adverse opinion of the SIU, he was probably the reason they’d been called in so fast.

They made their way up in the elevator. Illie shoved his notebook in one pocket, then retrieved a small crime scene monitor from another.

Gabriel watched with mild amusement as Illie activated it, then tossed it into the air. It was always easy to tell raw recruits from those who had been with the bureau for years, simply because the newbies followed the rules to the letter. Those who had been around for a while recorded information only when there was actually something to record. And in cases like this one, there’d be a CSM in place anyway, so there was really no point in doubling up.

Black uniforms dominated the fifth floor, several interviewing neighbors and others guarding Douglass’s door. Gabriel flashed his badge yet again and stepped inside the apartment.

A spherical CSM hovered in the middle of the living room, red light flashing to indicate it was recording. It swung around as he entered. “ID, please.”

“Assistant Director Gabriel Stern, SIU, and Agent James Illie, SIU,” Gabriel said almost absently as he looked around.

Douglass might have made a ton of money, but aside from the location of her apartment, there was little to indicate wealth of any kind. In the living room there was only a small TV, a coffee table and a brown leather sofa that had seen better years. The pale gray walls were bare, and the claret-colored, heavily brocaded curtains had that aged, dusty look that only came after years of neglect.

“A woman of minimalist taste, isn’t she?” Illie commented. “Hard to imagine, given the image she’d presented at Pegasus.”

“Yeah, it is. Do you want to check out the rest of the apartment, see what you can find?”

Illie nodded, and Gabriel looked around as a balding man in his mid-forties came out of a doorway to his right. The captain himself. Surprise flickered briefly through Marsdan’s small brown eyes. “I didn’t think this case was big enough to bring out an assistant director.”

“It is when the case has links to an investigation already underway.” Gabriel walked across to the doorway Marsdan had exited through. It led into a bedroom—the place where Kathryn Douglass had met her death.

And it hadn’t been an easy one, if the evidence indicator tags were anything to go by. There were at least ten of them, but only five of those caught his immediate attention. They were spread across the room, each one joined by a trail of blood that was already beginning to dry and darken. They were an indication of where the body had lain. Kathryn Douglass had been torn apart.

His gaze rose. A warning had been painted—in what looked like blood—on the wall.

Do not revive Penumbra. Douglass was warned. She chose to ignore it.

Something inside him went cold. Penumbra—the project that seemed most likely to have produced Sam.

What the hell did Kathryn Douglass have to do with that project? She was far too old to be one of the children raised from those projects. And according to her records, she’d never been a part of the military, even if the foundation she controlled had deep military links.

So who was the warning aimed at? The military? The SIU? Or someone else entirely?

Someone like the mysterious, ever elusive Sethanon? But what did he have to do with someone like Kathryn Douglass?

Or was it, he thought, reading the message again, nothing to do with Penumbra itself, but rather Douglass—perhaps in partnership with the military—attempting to revive that project in some manner? Was that why only some files had been destroyed during the break-in at Pegasus?

And was it a coincidence that not only had a fire destroyed the Penumbra project, but whatever project Douglass might have been working on? Again, he seriously doubted it.

“Who reported the murder?” He walked over to the wall, carefully avoiding the outlines, blood trails and evidence markers.

“A neighbor. Apparently she heard screams and strange thumping.”

“Did she hear any voices? Or see anyone enter or leave?” Gabriel stopped and looked a little closer at the writing. It smelled like dried blood to his hawk-sharpened senses, and given the almost scraped effect of each letter, it appeared something other than fingers had been used as a writing tool. He’d guess rolled-up paper, or something like that. It certainly wasn’t the type of effect achieved with cloth, though there’d obviously been plenty of blood-soaked material lying about.

“The neighbor didn’t hear the elevator or any other voices, but these apartments have very good soundproofing,” Marsdan said. “The screams would have to have been extremely loud for the woman to have heard them at all.”

“How many minutes passed between the report and a squad car arriving?” Gabriel stepped back to take another overall look at the writing. The letters sloped to the left rather than the right, which was usually a good indication that the author was left-handed. Not that that meant anything in itself. A good percentage of the population was left-handed these days.

“The report came in at three fifteen. The squad car was here by three twenty-one.”

Gabriel looked around. “That’s fast work, Captain.”