A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers) Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY MIKE OMER

  ZOE BENTLEY MYSTERIES

  A Killer’s Mind

  In the Darkness

  Thicker than Blood

  GLENMORE PARK MYSTERIES

  Spider’s Web

  Deadly Web

  Web of Fear

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Michael Omer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542022873

  ISBN-10: 1542022878

  Cover design by Faceout Studio, Spencer Fuller

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  The bedraggled man sat huddled on a rickety scaffold, staring at the thousands of lights glittering in the dark night. He wore baggy jeans and a faded corduroy jacket that seemed too thin for the chilly wind. Abby peered at him through the bare, unfinished window, trying to judge if he was about to jump.

  “He’s been out there for the past fifty minutes,” the patrolman said behind her. “Doesn’t answer when we call out to him. Won’t even look in our direction.”

  Abby nodded distractedly, never taking her eyes off the man. He shifted uncomfortably and kept glancing down. He was building up his determination; she was certain of it. She didn’t have a lot of time.

  She took a step back and looked around her, assessing the situation. The space they stood in was still under construction, the beams bare, the windows paneless, rubble and building materials everywhere. The floor was scattered with food wrappers, and a couple of stubs and an empty cigarette box were tossed by her feet. Her colleague Will Vereen was talking on his shoulder mic, and farther away, two Emergency Service Unit guys stood waiting in case she decided they had to make a grab for the jumper outside.

  It was windy up there on the fifty-second floor of the unfinished skyscraper. To talk to the man from the window, she’d have to shout. Her voice tended to be shrill when she shouted, hardly the reassuring tone of a calm negotiator.

  She glanced at Will, wondering if he should be the primary negotiator this time. He had a deeper voice and could shout louder. But she had a hunch that the man outside might think of Will as threatening. She was better in this instance.

  “Do you need the bullhorn, Lieutenant?” The officer held up a blue bullhorn.

  She shook her head. “If I shout at him through that, he’ll jump just to make it stop. I’m stepping out.”

  One of the ESU guys helped her latch the rope to her rappelling harness. Then, swallowing hard, she stepped out of the window and into the void.

  Once she was outside, the wind was much worse, buffeting her body relentlessly. She grabbed the scaffolding pole, her heart beating wildly, and tried to ignore the creaking and groaning of the metal frame. The rappelling harness felt almost like a joke now, a flimsy strap that would never hold her weight if she lost her balance. A wave of dizziness shot through her, bile in her mouth.

  She forced the fear away, focusing on the man who sat at the far end of the scaffolding, dangling his legs over the abyss. She took a step closer. He glanced at her, unblinking, his lips trembling. His cheek was scratched twice, two angry red lines, jagged and raw. Another step. She was three yards away from him.

  “Don’t come any closer! I’ll jump!” His voice was hoarse, desperate.

  She raised one hand slowly, palm facing outward. “Okay. I’m staying here.”

  “I swear I’ll do it!” He leaned forward.

  Abby carefully sat down on the ledge of the scaffold. “See? I’m right here. I just want to talk.”

  He turned away, facing the New York skyline, his thin hair fluttering in the wind. Coughing, he patted his pockets, then hawked and spat.

  “I’m Abby Mullen,” she said, keeping her voice calm and carefree. As if they were two strangers who had randomly bumped into each other while taking a stroll on the scaffolding, hundreds of feet above the street.

  He ignored her, lost somewhere in his own mind.

  “What’s your name?” she asked after a few seconds.

  No response.

  She waited, letting the time stretch. She was comfortable with waiting. Her arrival had interrupted the man’s focus, and he now seemed to be frozen in indecision. Whatever determination he’d mustered before had dissipated.

  It was cold. Abby had her long coat on, a sweater underneath, and a woolen hat. But she’d left her scarf and gloves back in her car. She had one hand shoved in her pocket, but she gripped the freezing scaffolding with the other, and wasn’t about to let go. Her nose and ears already felt like icicles.

  The words I’m cold hovered on her lips. It was basic human interaction. If you were cold, you mentioned it, because it was something to say and it was a way to create a connection, to start a conversation. But even such a
simple comment hid a trap within. Because I’m cold was about her. And the worst thing she could do right now was make it seem like she wanted to talk about herself.

  “It’s cold,” she said instead. “You’re probably freezing.”

  His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.

  “It seems like you’re in a lot of pain,” she said. “What happened?”

  His jaw clenched as if the question prodded his thoughts. But he also shifted slightly away from the edge, turning so that he could see her from the corner of his eye. Abby waited, hoping he’d talk again. She needed something, anything, to get him inside. She knew Will was frantically trying to find out this guy’s name and the reason that had driven him to go up fifty-two floors and step out a window.

  Finally she said, “Do you want to get inside and tell me what happened?”

  She didn’t expect him to agree. She wanted him to say no. It would be a start. And it would give him a sense that he controlled the situation. If he said no, they’d be in a much better place. But instead, he ignored her, his eyes vacant. He patted his pockets again, his motions erratic, clumsy. The movement of a drunk.

  “Do you want a warm drink? I can get you a thermos with hot coffee or tea.” Those sounded amazing to her right now. Surely they sounded just as good to him. But he tightened even more. As if the suggestion made him suspect trickery.

  Was it getting colder? She let go of the icy metal pole and shoved her other hand in her pocket as well. Even though she sat safely on the scaffold, letting go felt like a mistake. She accidentally glanced down, and the darkness below yawned endlessly. Another wave of dizziness hit her, even worse than the first one, and the blood drained from her face. She dug her fingernails into her palm as hard as she could, the pain clearing her mind.

  She quickly raised her eyes and focused on the skyscrapers. It was an amazing view from up here; she had to give the guy that. He’d chosen the location well. There were few things Abby found more awe inspiring than New York’s skyline. Brightly lit spires and countless rooftops. The Empire State Building, awash in white, and beyond it the colossal Freedom Tower, its blue light almost spectral. Surrounding them stood numerous buildings and towers, each dotted with dozens of windows offering small glimpses into the lives beyond. Even now, at four in the morning, there were still scores of lit windows as well as many cars traversing the streets below, their red and yellow lights glimmering in the night.

  “How did you get those scratches?” she asked.

  On and on she tried, asking questions, labeling his feelings, prodding for a way in. She did so tirelessly, making sure her mounting frustration and concern didn’t creep into her tone. The man seemed to tense up, fidgeting more, shutting his eyes, taking fast, shallow breaths. She was about to lose him. It was time to call the ESU guys.

  Would they get to him in time? She doubted it. But she was out of options, and they had to try.

  And then she thought of the stubs and the empty cigarette box on the floor by the window. The way he’d patted his pockets as if searching for his cigarettes. She could imagine him standing by that window earlier, having his last smoke before climbing over the windowsill and stepping out.

  She didn’t want to offer him a cigarette, remembering his reaction to her previous offer. Instead, she turned to the window and said, “Hey, I’m dying for a smoke. Does anyone have a cigarette?”

  One of the ESU guys handed her a cigarette and a lighter through the window. She carefully reached over and grabbed them both. Then she placed the cigarette between her lips and lit it. She hadn’t smoked since college, and the taste of it in her mouth nauseated her. But she sucked on the cigarette as if it were the best thing in the world, then expelled the smoke slowly.

  The man turned to watch her. She took another drag from the cigarette.

  “Mind if I have one of those?” he finally said.

  “Absolutely,” she said and turned to the window. “Can I have another one for the guy over here?”

  The ESU guy held out the entire box.

  “Toss it over,” the man said.

  She’d hoped he would reach for the box. It would have forced him to let her come closer.

  Still, at least he was talking. She carefully tossed the box over to him. A gust of wind nearly knocked it off the scaffolding, but it ended up on the edge. The man pried one cigarette out and lit it with his own lighter. It took him four tries, his fingers trembling, the wind puffing out the lighter’s flame. Finally he managed it and took a long drag.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No.” He gave her a small sad smile. “I’m Phil.”

  She returned a smile. “Nice to meet you, Phil. What made you come here?”

  He took another drag. “Life.”

  She was used to vague answers, knew how to pry the truth out. “Life,” she echoed.

  “Yeah. Life. Things didn’t go the way I wanted, I guess.”

  Once she got them talking, her main role was to keep them talking, and to listen. Good negotiators didn’t talk much at all. They mainly listened, prodding their subject to keep on going. Buying time. Gathering information. Looking for the things that would help influence the subject.

  “The way you wanted?” she repeated his words. It was the number one tool in any negotiator’s arsenal—mirroring. Repeat the subject’s words, demonstrate that you were listening, and make them elaborate more.

  A few seconds of silence followed, and then he said, “My sister died two days ago.”

  “I’m sorry. It must have been very painful to lose her. How did she die?”

  “Cancer.” He glanced at the cigarette between his fingers. “Lung cancer. She didn’t even smoke.”

  “I see.”

  “I went to her funeral, and I could see every person there thinking the same thing.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “That it should have been me.”

  Abby waited. The words were pouring out now. All she needed to do was listen.

  Phil took another drag from the cigarette. “I’ve been drinking my life away for the past twenty years. Spent two of those years in prison. My parents gave up on me. But not my sister. She kept trying to get me to go to AA or to talk to her priest.”

  “She sounds like a good sister.”

  “She was. And a good daughter. Gave my parents three lovely granddaughters. She was an amazing mother.” He stubbed out the cigarette on the scaffolding. “You know what I thought as they lowered the coffin?”

  “What?”

  “That now I have no one left to disappoint. What a terrible thing to think, right?”

  “Why is it a terrible thing to think?”

  “Don’t you get it?” He raised his voice. “I was already looking for a way to drink. My sister died, and I used it as an excuse to drink.”

  “It sounds like you were in a lot of pain.”

  He shrugged impatiently. “So I drank. And then in the morning, I bought another bottle and drank some more.” He seemed to lose his train of thought, staring vacantly at the city skyline.

  She tried to find a way to paraphrase his words, to make him see it in a better light. “You were grieving. So you slipped.”

  “I guess.” He didn’t sound convinced. “My neighbor keeps playing loud music at night.”

  “Loud music?”

  He paused and took out another cigarette, then lit it. “Really loud music. So I get up around midnight, right? And I’m angry. My head is pounding, and I feel like shit.”

  He took several puffs from the cigarette, his fingers trembling. The smoke curled and dissipated in the wind.

  “I have a gun at home.”

  Oh shit. If he’d shot and killed his neighbor, it would make this much more difficult. It would be hard to convince him to come back inside if he knew prison waited for him on the other side of the window.

  After a few seconds, when he didn’t expand, she said, “A gun?”

  “I need to pee,”
Phil suddenly said. “Been needing to pee for some time.”

  “We can get inside, you can go pee, and then we can finish this conversation.”

  Phil grinned at her. “I don’t think so.”

  He stood up, cigarette still in his mouth, and Abby’s heart missed a beat as he seemed about to jump. “Wait—”

  He unzipped his fly, and a few seconds later an arc of piss trickled into the night. “Hope no one’s down there,” he muttered. After finishing, he zipped himself. Then he took out the cigarette and expelled a jet of smoke, grabbing the metal pole for balance. “So I grab my gun, and I walk over to my neighbor. I pound on the door, and he opens it.”

  “Okay,” Abby said, taking a slow breath, calming her beating heart.

  “I step inside. He has a few friends in there; they’re all listening to this music, kinda stoned, right? And I empty my entire gun on his damn stereo.”

  Thank god. “Then what happened?”

  “One of his crazy friends goes apeshit, starts kicking and scratching me.” Phil shook his head. “So I push her and run outside. I hear them say they’re calling the police.”

  “I see.”

  “So that’s it. I would have shot myself except I emptied all my ammo in that stereo. I came here instead.”

  Abby nodded sympathetically and adjusted her tone of voice. Gone was the carefree, conversational stranger. Now her voice became deeper, slower, reassuring. She inflected it downward, every sentence becoming a statement. “It sounds like your sister was the one person who was there for you when you were down,” she said. “She really wanted you to pick your life up.”

  She paused, letting the silence sink in, doing her job for her.

  He blinked, seemingly startled. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “How about your nieces? You said they were lovely. Do you see them often?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I did when my sister was alive. They’re really great girls. The oldest one . . .” He grinned. “She has this crazy sense of humor. She could really crack me up.”

  Abby let the seconds go by. Let him come to his own conclusions. His nieces were still there. He could still laugh with his oldest niece. A glimmer of hope in his future. If he only would come inside with her.

  “How would your sister feel about you taking your own life?” she finally asked.

  “It doesn’t matter; she’s dead.”

  “What do you think she would have said if she was still alive?”