‘Why weren’t you there?’

Mae froze. ‘Who said that?’

‘Who do you think, girl?’

Mae stared at the stain. ‘G … Grandma?’ It couldn’t be! No – it mustn’t be! The face of Grandma Betty on her desk was moving!

‘In the hospital, Mae. Why weren’t you there? At the end?’

Mae pulled her eyes away from the impossible image and stared around the newsroom, certain that someone would be watching her fall for this sick prank – or whatever it was. But everyone was hard at work. No one was even looking her way.

OK, so it wasn’t a prank. It must be the lack of sleep. Yes – that was it. Her mind was starting to play tricks on her. Either that or she was going insane. But what if – just, what if – it was really happening? There was only one way to find out …

She looked back down at her desk. ‘I had to go to Washington, Grandma. For the newspaper. Cuba was threatening to launch missiles …’

‘You always did put your job before your family!’ snapped the stain.

Mae felt her eyes grow wet again. ‘I tried to come home, Grandma. When they said you didn’t have long. But there was some kind of problem with the radar at Dulles Airport, and everything was backed up. I couldn’t get a flight.’

‘After all I did for you! Practically raised you after that no-good father of yours upped and left, what with your momma takin’ to drink an’ all. You left me to die alone on purpose!’

Mae flinched at the allegation. ‘What? No, I …’

‘Hoped to come home and find yourself with access to Grandma Betty’s savings account, huh?’

‘No! Grandma, all I ever cared about was you!’

Slowly, the coffee-stain face began to bulge out of the desk – the wood stretching and warping as it took on a three-dimensional shape. The badly varnished grain twisted into the old woman’s wrinkled skin, and dark, vacant hollows sank away where her eyes and mouth should have been. And that mouth kept moving, speaking, accusing.

‘You never cared one speck for me, Mae Louise Callon. You just wanted my money.’

‘No, that’s not true!’

The head was almost fully formed now, the writhing shape sending Mae’s paperwork tumbling to the floor.

‘Grandma Betty,’ she sobbed. ‘You have to believe me!’

Then the old woman’s mouth stretched wide – wider than any human mouth could ever open – and she began to scream.

Mae jumped back, knocking the remainder of her cup of coffee off the desk. Instinct kicked in and she tried to catch the mug, spilling hot coffee on her bare arm, causing her to cry out. She jumped to her feet and grabbed her typewriter with her uninjured hand, slamming it down hard on top of the writhing face.

‘No! No! No!’ she screamed. Again and again she battered against the vision until, eventually, it shrank back into the desk, nothing more than a coffee stain once more.

By the time she slumped back into her chair, her hand clamped over the red scald on her arm, the entire office had stopped work to stare at her.

Chapter 3

The window from where the sniper had apparently shot President Kennedy was on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository – exactly five more floors than FBI agent Warren Skeet wanted to climb.

He glanced out through the door at the younger, fitter agents scouring Dealey Plaza for clues, evidence that might build a case against the young man the police were holding in custody for committing yesterday’s atrocity. Beyond them, on the other side of the cordon, stood a crowd of stunned and crying onlookers, drawn to see the scene of the tragedy for themselves.

Warren knew he could ask to swap with one of the junior agents, use his years of experience to pull rank and get the cushy job pottering about in the sunshine while one of the others searched the sixth floor – but that would mean admitting he was too old and out of shape to climb the stairs. It wouldn’t seem like much at first – just a bit of a laugh around the coffee machine – but, sooner or later, he would arrive at work to find an envelope taped to the door of his locker, and his career would be over.

Still, he could put off the climb. He could go for an early lunch down at Don’s Bar, where a grilled cheese sandwich and a restorative nip of scotch often did wonders to lighten his mood. There was always the risk that the chief would be in there – that was the downside to frequenting the so-called ‘bureau bar’ – but, so long as he ate the sandwich quickly, and kept the scotch out of sight, he shouldn’t get any grief. Unable to decide, he chose to let the universe make the decision for him and pulled a coin from his pocket. Heads for the scotch, tails for the stairs …

Dammit! He made for the stairs.

Warren had started out as a rookie cop almost forty years ago now. An excellent service record and swift progression up the chain of command meant that it wasn’t long before he was noticed and recruited by the Bureau. He’d had a partner in the early days – a guy of almost exactly the same age, yet they couldn’t have been more different. Jock had a wife and kids, a happy home life, the works. Warren’s own marriage had lasted less than a year, and he had no intention of trying another one on for size. Jock said one saving grace of the break-up was that Warren and Shirley hadn’t had kids. There was no one stuck in the middle, no need to stay on barely speaking terms with the woman who had left him for the local butcher, of all damn people. Yeah … No one to call him on his birthday or father’s day. No one to give him good reason to keep his apartment clean, or his drinking under control.

Still, what he lacked in his own life, he made up for through Jock. His partner’s family welcomed him into their home with open arms. They’d even bought a cot for the basement so that he wouldn’t have to drive home after a late-night card game, or if he and Jock had celebrated closing a case with a few beers. Despite his single status, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d had to spend a Thanksgiving or Christmas alone. At least, not until that Sunday afternoon at the airport …

Warren reached the third-floor landing and paused for breath – although paused for an almighty coughing fit might have been more accurate. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his shirt was slick against his back with sweat. He’d never been the fittest guy on the team – Jock won out there, as well. And he often wondered if things might have been different if he had taken up jogging instead of spending his weekend on the couch with a six-pack and the game on the wireless.

Word had come in that there was to be a major meeting of mob bosses – right here on their home turf. Some of the country’s biggest gangsters would be flying in to Dallas. For hungry agents like Warren and Jock, it was as though someone had handed them half of the United States’ most wanted on a silver platter.

The boys had staked out the airport for two days straight before they spotted their first target. A new-to-the-scene mob boss from New Jersey called Pinky Bradford. He had a couple of goons with him and, judging by the bulges beneath their jackets, they were packing heat. So, the plan was to follow them back to their hotel, then catch them when they were off guard. At least – that’s what Warren expected the plan to be.

Jock didn’t want to leave the airport in case any of the other names on their list flew in unexpectedly and the collars went to rival agents. So he followed Bradford and his guys out to the taxi rank and tried to arrest them singlehandedly. By the time Warren realised what his partner was doing, it was already too late. He ran, faster than he’d ever run before, at the sound of gunfire – but it still felt like everything was happening in slow motion. By the time he left the terminal building, Jock was down and dying. Warren let off a few rounds and winged one of Bradford’s boys – but there was nothing he could do for his partner.