Omega Dog Read Online Free PDF Page B

day and a half, it was easy to lose touch with what was happening in the world outside, and she was usually eager to catch up after her shift ended. This time, she needed something to distract her thoughts more than anything else.
    On the subway carriage, a kind elderly man offered Beth his seat, but she smiled at him and declined. She preferred to stand. Sitting down was dangerous, in her condition, as she’d discovered before to her cost. She was liable to nod off and miss her stop.
    She paged through the Times , barely registering the words, sleep clawing at her eyelids.
    Then something hit home in her brain. She stared at the print, trying to work out what it was.
    Nothing.
    Beth turned back to the previous page, and saw the picture that had caught her attention.
    It was the face of an African-American man, about five years older than Beth. Below the photo ran a short article. The headline read: Subway Fatality Named .
    Beth skimmed the article. Lawrence B. Siddon, 35, an insurance salesman from Queens, had fallen under a train as it was departing Metropolitan Avenue Station yesterday. He was killed instantly. There was no mention of possible suicide. He left behind a wife and two children.
    It was the kind of article that appeared all too regularly in the Times, and in itself there was nothing remarkable about it. But Beth found her gaze drawn again and again to the photo.
    I know you , she thought.
    But from where? He wasn’t someone she worked with, and although he might once have been a patient of Beth’s – sometimes it felt like she’d treated just about everybody in the Five Boroughs at one time or another – she didn’t think so. It felt like they’d had a more prolonged interaction. He certainly wasn’t an ex-boyfriend. Beth remembered each of them, however brief the relationship had been.
    Was she imagining things, in her sleep-deprived state? Misremembering connections that weren’t really there?
    No. She knew Lawrence B. Siddon from somewhere. She was sure of it.
    Carefully she tore the picture out of the paper and put it in her pocket. She’d take another look tomorrow, after she’d had some shut-eye.
    As Beth clutched onto one of the straps hanging from the roof, trying not to let the rocking of the carriage lull her into sleep, it suddenly occurred to her that two people she knew had died within the space of twenty-four hours.
    Despite the heat from the packed bodies in the subway carriage, Beth felt a chill run through her.

Chapter 8
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    V enn stripped the gun quickly, laying the component parts out expertly out on the table. It was a Glock 19, an efficient piece. He was familiar with it, though it wasn’t his handgun of choice. He’d always relied on his Beretta M9 when he was with the force.
    Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, he thought bleakly.
    The magazine was empty. Venn wasn’t surprised. It’d have been foolhardy of Corcoran to hand him a loaded gun. Even though Venn’s chances of breaking out of a fully staffed police station were virtually non-existent, he might just have been crazy enough to try it, for all Corcoran knew.
    Venn reassembled the gun rapidly and slammed the empty magazine home. He aimed the gun and sighted down it, rehearsing the moves several times. It had been a while since he’d been on the range, still longer since he’d fired a weapon in a combat situation. But the instincts were still there, the honed reflexes that could turn him into an effective killing machine at the drop of a hat.
    Corcoran watched in silence. If he was impressed, he didn’t show it.
    ‘I’m surprised,’ said Corcoran. ‘I’d have thought you’d keep a gun at home.’
    So they hadn’t searched his apartment, Venn realized. That was interesting. If they had, they’d have located the Beretta in its case in the gun safe. Or at least, they’d have found the safe, and asked him for the combination. He’d asked for the gun as a test, and had gotten his