Final Sins by Michael Prescott

Author:Michael Prescott
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Kidnapping, True Crime, General, Murder, Suspense, Fiction, Serial Murderers
ISBN: 9780739479568
Publisher: Onyx
Published: 2007-04-03T03:00:00+00:00

27

Cafe Eden hadn’t changed. It seemed to Abby that the exact same clientele were occupying the exact same tables as last time.

For this meeting Faust had arrived first. He, too, was ensconced at the table they’d used before. A cup of coffee rested near his hands, which lay flat on the table, manicured nails gleaming.

She slid into the chair opposite him without a word.

“I hope,” Faust said, “we may dispense with introductory chitchat. My curiosity, Miss Sinclair, has been piqued.”

“I’m so glad I could make your life more interesting.”

“Tell me, please, why you should ask if there are police or reporters in my neighborhood.”

“Because the man who was stalking you lived only a block away.”

“So close? How bold of him. And yet I never noticed him in the area.”

A waitress—the girl with metal doohickeys in her face—drifted by to ask Abby if she wanted anything. Abby shook her head. When the girl had left, Abby said, “He was a recent arrival. Renting a guesthouse.”

“You use the past tense. He is gone now?”

“He’s dead now.”

“Is he?” He lifted his coffee cup and took a complacent sip. “Well, then, it appears our problem has been solved.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“And what am I expected to do? Express my condolences? Bewail our common mortality? Launch into Hamlet’s soliloquy about the undiscovered country from which no traveler ever returns?” He set down the cup, smiling. “Incidentally, Shakespeare got it wrong. Someone did return. Hamlet’s own father had come back in the form of a ghost. Odd that Hamlet should forget a thing like that.”

“You don’t seem too interested in how he died.”

“Hamlet’s father? As I recall, he was poisoned by Claudius. Some nonsense about poison poured into his ear.”

“Your stalker. You haven’t asked about the circumstances of his death.”

Faust stared into his coffee cup as if seeing visions there. “He is greatly overrated, Shakespeare. But then, all genius is overrated. Genius is merely a deviation from the statistical norm. As is perversion, for that matter. Or great goodness. Or great evil.”

Abby leaned forward. “You seem to want to talk about anything except what happened to the man who was stalking you.”

“I assumed that you would prefer to keep such incriminating details to yourself.” He looked up, his gaze frank. “You did kill him, did you not?”

She’d known this question would come, and how she would answer it. “I’m not a killer.”

“Quoth the jungle cat.”

“I didn’t kill him. I found him dead in the guest cottage last night.”

Faust seemed to see through her pose. “It must have been difficult for him to let you in, given his condition.”

“I let myself in. I thought the cottage was empty. It was dark inside, no sign of activity. I found him there. He’d been shot.”

“Tragic.”

“The fact that there are no police or media in your neighborhood probably means the body hasn’t been discovered yet.”

“I imagine his landlord will find it soon enough. When does the rent come due?”

“This is a joke to you, isn’t it?”

Faust sighed.

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