I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📕

out an iPad. ‘This is footage taken by a security camera in the subway. Now, you say you didn’t even see your attacker . . .’

‘I didn’t,’ Hannah insisted.

‘The whole thing is on this footage. It may be very distressing for you to view it.’

Hannah felt suddenly depressed. Distressing? To see yourself attacked out of the blue. Pushed in front of a train? Yes, that was distressing.

‘You look upset. Do you need us to wait on this until you’ve recovered a little more?’

Hannah shook her head and hesitated. Then she made up her mind. ‘No. He could be on another subway platform, right this very minute. Sizing up some other unsuspecting passenger. Let me see it. I want to see it.’

‘Very well,’ said O’Rourke. ‘I’m glad you feel that way. Trahn, can you work this damn thing for me,’ he said, offering the iPad to his partner.

‘Of course,’ said Trahn. He set the iPad up on the arm of the rolling tray table beside the bed, and swung it over in front of Hannah so that she could have a clear view. He turned on the iPad and some numbers came up on the screen. ‘Can you see it all right?’

Hannah nodded, looking at the screen in a kind of sick fascination. She began slowly to pick out some of the people she had seen on the platform. The school kids, the man in the tam, and she felt her heart jump with gratitude when she saw the woman who had reached out a hand to try to save her. She was standing on the platform, holding her shopping bag, conveying a sense of isolation that was calculated. Don’t talk to me, her body language said. Don’t get too close. But when the situation was desperate, that woman had offered her hand.

Then, with a jolt, Hannah saw herself coming through the turnstile, walking down the platform. Walking past that guy in the hoody slumped against the wall.

Was that him? she wondered. He looked so out of it.

She watched with a sickening fascination as she separated herself from the other passengers, and then froze as she saw something on the tracks. Now she remembered. That disgusting rat. The creature wasn’t visible in the video but her reaction to him was. She began to edge back toward the center of the platform. Toward her fellow passengers.

And then, though there was no sound, she could see the reaction of the others as the train approached. Every face turned in that direction, including her own.

Every face but one.

‘Now watch carefully,’ said Detective O’Rourke.

Suddenly, with a movement like lightning, the person in the hoody broke free from the crowd, was behind Hannah in a few steps, reached out and pushed.

Pushed her. Off the platform and onto the tracks. Hannah broke out in a sweat at the sight of it but she tried to concentrate. This is who they were looking for. This person in the hoody, who’d pushed her and turned away. As he turned, he faced the camera for a brief moment. Not long, but long enough.

‘I’m looking at your face, Mrs Whitman,’ said O’Rourke. ‘Do you see him? Is there any chance this is someone you recognize?’

Hannah was shaking her head from side to side as Trahn ran the sequence through again, and she covered her mouth with her fist to stifle a cry. This time she saw the hooded assailant get up from where he had been slumped against the wall. Rush up to her. Push her. Without hesitation. Push her onto the tracks.

‘I know it’s upsetting to watch. But try to think. Does he look familiar? Anything at all that you recognize about this person?’ O’Rourke asked.

‘Nothing. No,’ said Hannah.

Yes, she thought.

TWENTY-NINE

Still holding Sydney’s hand, Adam pushed open the door to Hannah’s room and looked inside. There was a light on over the bed but the bed was empty. Outside the window, the bright light of day had faded to charcoal gray, and a sliver of moon rose over the trees. From the doorway Adam could see that the bathroom door was open but the room was dark. There was nobody inside . . .

‘Where is Mom?’ Sydney asked fretfully.

‘I’m not sure. We’ll ask the nurse,’ he said.

Just then a young nurse in cheerful panda-bear scrubs came walking past.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

‘Can I help you?’

‘My wife,’ said Adam. ‘She was in this room but she’s not here. She can’t really walk.’

‘Oh, your wife. I’m so sorry about what happened to her,’ said the nurse. ‘Honestly, you never know. You have to be on your guard all the time.’

‘What do you mean?’ he cried.

The nurse looked startled by his reaction. ‘I mean about that nut pushing her in the subway,’ she said.

‘Oh, right. Sure. Well, luckily, she’s getting better. You all are taking good care of her here. Do you, uh, know where she is?’

‘Yes. She’s down in the solarium. I saw one of our aides pushing her down there in a wheelchair earlier.’

‘Thank you,’ said Adam, relieved. He bent over and spoke to Sydney. ‘Come on. I know where to find Mom.’

Sydney was more than willing to accompany him. In fact, she wanted to skip ahead in the long corridor with its shining floors, but Adam gripped her hand tightly. They walked down the hallway toward the lounge at the end of the hall.

A lot of people passed the door to the lounge but Adam did not see anyone going in.

He hurried Sydney along, and arrived quickly at the door and looked inside.

At first, the dimly lit room, which was half-lounge, half-greenhouse, looked empty. Then, Adam made out the figure of Hannah. Wrapped in an oversized robe, she was sitting in a wheelchair near a window, partly shielded by the bank of plants which flourished