The Sinister Touch by Jayne Castle Read Free Book Online

emergency code. With her eyes riveted to the drama taking place across the street, she quickly gave the address and situation to the person on the other end of the line. "Just hurry, will you?" she snapped when the dispatcher patiently asked for her name and address as well as that of the victim's.
    Guinevere slammed down the receiver and leaned forward, staring out the window. She could see Mason's crumpled body on the floor. The hooded figure was straightening slowly. Some instinct must have warned him that he was being watched. Turning, the man glanced out of the studio window. For a taut moment his gaze locked with Guinevere's.
    She couldn't see much, Guinevere realized as she frantically tried to take mental notes. The hood fell forward around his face, hiding almost all of the details one was supposed to recall in this sort of situation. Besides, she was too far away to make out such things as the color of his eyes. But she could see the heavy line of the jaw, and there was a certain sense of bulkiness under the old shirt and pants he wore. A heavy man. She was almost positive she wouldn't be able to identify the man if she ever saw him again, though. Frantically she tried to find some unique feature. The hood, itself, was the oddest part about him. It was shaped like a cut-off monk's cowl. It shadowed his face and fell into a short cape around his shoulders.
    As they stood facing each other through the windows it occurred to Guinevere that the cowled man had as good a view of her as she had of him. Belatedly she reached out and turned off her kitchen light.
    But the man in Mason's apartment was already swinging around in alarm. He must have heard Zac's footsteps on the stairs. Or perhaps seeing Guinevere had jerked him into action. Whatever the trigger, it sent him running out of the apartment.
    Helplessly Guinevere watched as Mason's attacker fled. With any luck he might run into Zac on the stairs, she thought. But a few seconds later Zac burst through the door and went straight to Mason's prone figure. There was no sign that Zac and the cowled man had tangled.
    Guinevere raced across the kitchen and out her front door. At the last minute she remembered she wasn't wearing any shoes. As she grabbed a pair of sandals out of the closet she heard the first police sirens in the distance. She shoved her feet into the sandals and hitched up the narrow skirt of her suit. Then she was running down the two flights of stairs to the street. Out on the sidewalk she dashed toward the entrance to Mason's building. The security door was propped open with a copy of the Seattle Yellow Pages that belonged on the shelf beneath the pay phone in the small lobby. Zac's work, Guinevere assumed. Perhaps to make access quicker for the cops. She wondered how he'd gotten inside the security entrance so quickly. But Zac had a way of doing things like that.
    She flew up the stairs to the second floor and glanced down the old, linoleum-lined hall. Mason's building hadn't been as expensively renovated as hers. In fact, it looked to be in what was probably a sadly original condition. The dim halls and shaky banister on the staircase made the place look a little like a cheap hotel. At the opposite end of the hallway there was a faded exit sign, indicating a fire escape. If Zac hadn't met the escaping attacker on the staircase, it was probably because the man had used the other exit.
    The door standing open at the end of the hall had to be the one to Mason's apartment. Guinevere rounded the corner just as the sirens whined into silence outside the building.
    "Zac! Is he all right?"
    Zac was crouching beside Mason. He didn't look up. "He'll live. Whoever it was got him on the side of the head, but the blow must have been deflected. He's groggy but not unconscious. Did you see any sign of whoever it was who did this, Gwen? I didn't pass him on the stairs."
    "I think he must have used the fire escape. I got a brief glimpse of him through my window while I