Free Fear the Night by John Lutz Page A

stuff.”
    “Ruffly. That’s just what it looks like. Are you a writer?”
    He laughed. Nice teeth. “No, I’m an accountant.”
    “Oh. I thought, the way you knew about and described arugula, maybe you wrote advertising.” She gave him her best hesitant smile. She could play shy, too. “Thanks.”
    “Thanks?”
    “I mean, for knowing about the arrugla. I’ve got to buy this stuff to take to a dinner party where we’re all supposed to bring something. I’m bringing salad, and the host asked specifically for arugula.”
    “She can keep it. It’s kind of bitter.”
    “Really? Maybe she wants it because of her religion or something. Or for her health.” Zoe doing naive now. “I don’t know her well.”
    “I don’t know you well, either,” he said, “but I’d like to.”
    “You don’t know me at all.”
    “True, but I want to change that.” He reached into a wallet he carried inside his sport jacket instead of on his hip—sometimes a sign of wealth—and handed her his business card. It said he was Herb Closeman and confirmed that he was an accountant, for a firm Zoe had never heard of.
    “Mr. Closeman—”
    “It’s Herb.”
    “Okay, Herb.” She slid his card into a pocket. “It’s funny,” she said, “your name’s Herb and we met when I asked you about a herb.”
    “Clearly it’s fate.”
    “Clearly. I wouldn’t want you to think—”
    “I’m not even going to ask for your name and phone number,” he said. “You have mine. Think about it, and if you’re at all interested, call me.”
    She grinned and shrugged. “Well, that’s a safe enough proposition.”
    “I’m a safe enough guy. Really.”
    She held out her hand and they shook. “I’m Zoe.”
    “A nice name for a nice woman.” He seemed to catch himself; nice hadn’t been strong enough. “And a beautiful woman.”
    “So now we know each other,” Zoe said, “however slightly. But I have to buy my arugula and get out of here or I’ll be late for that dinner party.”
    “Wouldn’t want that,” Closeman said. “Take a chance and call me, Zoe.”
    “Okay, Zoe,” she said with a big grin.
    Herb appeared confused for a moment, then grinned back.
    She favored him with her brightest smile, chose a plastic container of arugala, and left the store.
    On the way to her apartment, she tossed the stuff in a trash receptacle.
    An hour later she sat, brushing her hair and getting ready to meet some friends at a restaurant for dinner and drinks. She was proud of her long red hair, so thick and slightly wavy, what some men might call luxurious. Some, in fact, had called it that. Herb Closeman was right, she thought, observing her reflection in the mirror. Beautiful wasn’t too strong a word for her.
    Neither was smart. And ambitious certainly applied.
    She forgot about Closeman as she continued to brush, absently counting toward a hundred. Her mind drifted to Lora Repetto’s discovery of the theater stub in the pocket of Repetto’s suit. The seat number hadn’t been a wild coincidence.
    The Night Sniper must have been shadowing Repetto, studying him, and followed him into the theater, maybe even sat near him. Repetto had been in seat 7-F in the Bernhardt Theatre, and now there was no doubt as to the reference in the Night Sniper’s message. This, Zoe thought as she brushed, was definitely creepy.
    Taped unobtrusively on the bottom of the seat, where Repetto had sat a week ago to see War Bond Babes, a musical about New York debutantes during World War Two, police had found a small, folded note. Its typed message was simple and cryptic: Detective Repetto, perhaps this will help you find rhyme and reason.
    The lab had matched the typeface with that of the Night Sniper’s previous message. The typewriter used was the Night Sniper’s. The meaning of the note had yet to be figured out.
    The killer playing his game.
    She closely examined her image in the mirror. There were crow’s-feet at the corners of her blue-green eyes, if