He chuckled. “Oh, it’s that simple, huh?”
“Just that simple,” Paris said. His wry smile softened. “This is going to be over soon. You’ll be okay.”
“We’ll be okay,” Misha said quietly.
“That’s right,” Paris said.
He worked quietly, comforted by Paris’s presence to defend him. It was just past eleven in the morning when Paris’s phone rang. He looked back, half expecting to find him silencing another alarm, but Paris was frowning at the phone. “Olivia? What’s up?”
The female voice from the phone was shaking with fear as she said, “I need you in my office right now. It’s Nikko.”
19
If there was any doubt that he was cursed, that doubt was erased when he walked into Olivia’s office to see her face paper-pale, fingers prying mercilessly at one ragged thumbnail. Without speaking, she turned her massive computer monitor toward him and Misha.
In all its standard-issue blue and red glory, a local news story showed the smiling face of one Nicolas Baudelaire with the garish caption superimposed: Person of interest in double homicide.
“What the—” Paris blurted.
“They killed someone,” Olivia blurted. “Two people, and they pinned it on Nikko. They look like us. This is our— We should have— I don’t know what to do,” she said, slamming her hands on her desk.
“Slow down and show me,” Paris said. Leaning over her desk, he scrolled through the article to see the victims. An unsettling chill rushed over him. The male victim had long blonde hair that made him look like a surfer—or perhaps a slightly younger and ruddier Nikko—and the woman was slim, with dark brown hair and warm brown eyes that smiled from a photo at the beach. Side by side, the resemblance to Nikko and Olivia was obvious.
He hit play on the video clip and listened with grim fascination. A middle-aged man in a sports coat stood at a podium in front of a bland beige backdrop. “Normally, in an ongoing investigation, we wouldn’t release details so early. However, we have substantial evidence connecting our victims to this man,” he said, gesturing to a large screen next to him. Nikko’s face appeared, and Paris instantly recognized it as the picture from their old database at Infinity. It would have been on his ID. “He should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you know anything about this man, please do not approach, but call our special hotline with any tips.”
Olivia reached past him and said, “Someone conveniently leaked crime scene photos, and they’re already posted on the Internet. Their throats were ripped out, and they were posed in each other’s arms when they died,” she said numbly. “But they didn’t know each other. It looks like they just found two people that looked like us and—” She burst into tears. “It’s a message, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Paris said grimly. He hesitated, not sure what might comfort the poor thing. He finally took her hand and folded it into his. “It’s not your fault. It may be mine, but it isn’t yours.”
She scrubbed at her eyes. “You have to find them and stop this.”
Misha cleared his throat and said, “If it’s of any comfort, we have a way in, and we know where they are now.”
Paris looked back at him and shook his head slightly. Misha’s eyes went wide.
“You do?” Olivia said. “That’s good. Are you moving tonight?”
“In a few more days,” Paris said. “We didn’t anticipate this shift, and we have to prepare a few more things before we take him down.”
“What if someone else gets hurt before then?” she asked. She shook her head. “I have to go wake up Nikko. God, he’s going to be devastated.”
Paris held up a hand. “Don’t wake him yet.”
“He’ll be upset.”
“Which is precisely why you should let him sleep. What good is it going to do for him to wake up in the middle of the day and flail around in his despair while being unable to do anything about it during daylight?” Paris asked. “Then he’ll be weak and upset, and he won’t be at his best when night falls.”
“But—”
“Olivia, consider this an order,” Paris said sharply.
Her jaw dropped. Then she angrily plopped back into her chair and turned her monitor again. “I’ll see what I can find out,” she bit out.
“Good. Keep me posted,” he said.
“Ollie?”a feminine voice called.
Paris’s stomach sank as he turned to see Danielle storm into the office. She stopped short. “You already saw it,” she said, meeting her sister’s gaze.
