Panic: An Alexander Gregory Thriller by LJ Ross

Author:LJ Ross [Ross, LJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Gregory ran through the Inns, back towards the river. He covered the ground with long-legged strides and burst out of the iron gates onto the Embankment, where he paused briefly to scan the road for any sign of Leonora. By then it was lunchtime, and the pavement crowds had swelled so there was now a sea of people wearing the same homogenous city uniform, which made it hard to distinguish one woman of average height and build from the next.

He jogged towards the tube station, eyeing the people he passed, ignoring the strange looks they gave him in return.

Then, miraculously, he caught sight of her entering the station a few hundred yards ahead of him.

“Thank God,” he muttered. “Leonora!”

She didn’t hear his call, but Carl did.

He turned to look through the crowd, eyes bright with a hint of madness, pupils dilating as they fell upon the good doctor. He stood still, waiting for a dangerous moment to allow Gregory to see him, to really see him. It was reckless, he knew; but he wanted the doctor to recognise him and know that he’d lost, and that there was nothing he could do to change the course of events that were now in motion. There was no action he could take, no apology he could offer, no amends to be made—all of that was much too late now. Rather, he needed Doctor Alexander Gregory to look into his eyes and see the hatred blazing there, and be afraid, as he had been afraid every night he’d lain his head upon a stained prison pillow.

But Gregory did not see him. Carl Deere went unnoticed, as always; just another city dweller whose face and clothing might have belonged to a thousand others.

Disappointed, angered, Carl turned away and followed his quarry down into the bowels of the station.

There would be time enough for Alexander Gregory to understand the meaning of fear.

* * *

Leonora couldn’t say how many times she’d passed in and out of the turnstiles at Embankment tube station, but it must have been somewhere in the thousands. She placed her card on the reader, heard the familiar bleep, and moved towards the escalators, part of a throng heading in the same direction. If she’d stopped to look at her fellow passengers, she’d have seen tourists, lawyers like herself, grifters, security workers, students…an endless carousel of people from all walks of life. She probably wouldn’t have looked twice at the man with dark hair and glasses, who was quite good-looking but so very tired, of life and of death. Perhaps, if she’d seen him, she’d have recognised the danger and called for help. She’d have looked for her phone and realised it was missing, then turned back to retrieve it.

But she did none of those things.

Leonora continued toward the escalators, her mind far away as she thought of one killer and how to prosecute him, while another watched her.

* * *

Gregory saw Leonora Stewart passing through the turnstiles as he flew into the station, and called out to her again.

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