The Confessor Read Online Free PDF Page B

throat. The thin, crooked tendrils of tension at the corners of his eyes straightened.
    ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What else is a man to say when he speaks the truth and is not believed?’
    Geiger blinked, once. ‘That is what I am here to find out.’
    ‘Jeez . . .’ said the tech. ‘That is one icy dude. What’s the name again?’
    ‘Geiger.’
    ‘And you think it’s him in Brooklyn? Hmm . . . Maybe.’ He started toggling the second video, fast and slow, looking for a matching angle. ‘Didn’t Veritas Arcana say he was dead?’
    In the video, Geiger started to walk the room in a slow circle, fingers tapping rhythmically on his thighs. The tech leaned forward.
    ‘Keep going . . . keep going . . . and turrrrnnn – now!’ Geiger came around to camera and the tech whacked a key. ‘Gotcha!’ He turned the face into a full-screen freeze the same size as its neighbor. ‘Which way you wanna go on this?’
    ‘The street shot. Lose the beard and give him back his hair.’
    Both heads took on a floating, three-dimensional quality as the tech matched angles, and blue dots started popping up on Geiger’s bearded face, white lines connecting them, a malleable web shifting by minute degrees. He played with the lighting, equalizing brightness and shadow. He made Geiger’s hair grow four inches in a second.
    ‘Too long?’
    ‘No. But make it wavier.’
    She felt the pony-trot kick in her veins, telling her body something before her brain was certain. If it
was
him, she already had her next move. That was her strong suit. Big picture, don’t miss the details. He was a runner, and there was ritual written all over his stride, so she’d get all the NYPD surveillance vids for Brooklyn. There were hundreds of cameras, thousands of hours to view – so how far back should she go? It was nine months since Dalton had carved him up . . . he would’ve needed at least four or five months to heal before he could run again. Going back to November would do it. She’d find him on the videos and track him. She might not nail the place where he lived, but she’d get close. A neighborhood. A street. A block . . .
    The tech raised a finger. ‘And now, as they say in Brooklyn –
Voila
!’ He tapped a key and Street-Geiger’s beard disappeared. Then the network of lines and dots was gone.
    She stared at the giant faces. Two Geigers. A match. It was him. The rush in her pulse became a stallion’s kick. She wanted chocolate. Desperately. Her reward.
    ‘Why do you want to find him?’ asked the tech. ‘They want to take him out?’
    ‘They didn’t tell me.’ She stretched with a soft grunt. ‘Nice work, Willie.’
    ‘Thanks.’ He gave her a grin. ‘I, uh, always aim to please – y’know?’
    She looked down at him, deadpan. Then she nodded. ‘I get it. That was a borderline-cute throwaway with some sexual innuendo for a kicker.’
    The tech shrugged. ‘Sorry. I can’t help it.’
    She smiled, and patted his hair like she would a puppy. ‘I know, Willie. I know.’ Then she whacked him on the back of the head so hard it sent his glasses into his lap.
    ‘Owww! Jeez, Zanni—’
    ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t help it.’ She turned and went out a door. The tech put his glasses back on, and grinned with equal parts admiration and lust.
    ‘Fantastic,’ he said.
    The tub water was getting cold, but she liked it that way. She’d been re-reading the transcript of her debriefing of Dalton. She’d forgotten it was so long. Dalton had been on heavy painkillers for a day before she could get to him, and his answers had made Hamlet look tongue-tied – but she’d let him huff and ramble because she’d had the feeling he’d completely lose it if she’d tried to rein him in. Both his hands were in casts to his elbows because Geiger had demolished them, and his jaw was wired because Geiger had broken it – and his slurp and grumble added to the bizarre spectacle. She remembered sitting across from him, listening to