Apollo and Emma walked alongside the house. From the street no one would guess at the arson inside. Not yet. Meanwhile the interior of Jorgen Knudsen’s home had already filled with fog. Shutting the windows, slipping a few of the circulars under the front door, had helped to turn the place into a smoke box. The lack of windows in the den meant even a nosy neighbor wouldn’t see the flames until they spread. By then it would be too late to save the place.
They were halfway down the drive when they were bathed in light, bright as a brilliant idea. The motion sensor had done its job again, capturing them. But this time Apollo didn’t flee or freeze up. In the middle of the day, the light wouldn’t even be noticeable to people across the street, or even on the other side of the alleyway. He and Emma stopped at that curious door. No handle. No locks.
“Look at that,” Emma said.
At hip level, a faint handprint.
“That’s blood,” Apollo said.
Emma pressed at the door, but it didn’t move. “What’s down there?” she asked.
“I never got in,” he said.
“If the old man kept pictures in his den, what do you think he might be hiding in the basement?”
She didn’t speak again but pointed at the mattock in his left hand. He lifted it and slipped the adze end in between the door and the frame. He looked across the street and behind him. No neighbors watching. He pulled back, and the wood squawked loudly. He didn’t hesitate, moving the adze lower and yanking again. A third time, lower, and the door lifted off its hinges and fell back. Apollo pushed it farther so they could get inside.
A long staircase led down into the basement. They remained there at the threshold, silent, and heard the faintest tapping sound. Another moment, and they heard it again.
“I’m going to activate subject twelve. You guys will like this one.”
A man’s voice.
Apollo recognized it.
He gestured down with the mattock. As they descended, they felt heat from the floorboards above their heads.
A BOILER, A WASHING machine and dryer; six cans of paint so old their lids had oxidized; an air mattress with a comforter heaped in a pile on top; one thin pillow, and two garbage bags containing a jumble of clothes fit for a stocky, middle-aged man; a black ergonomic office chair, a computer desk and computer system exactly, perfectly the same as the one Patrice had built in his basement apartment; and an iPad propped up beside one of the monitors. The iPad showed a photo of an infant cradled in a man’s hands.
And Kinder Garten was down here, too.
He sat in the office chair, staring at the middle screen of his rig, a pair of giant headphones on his ears. Droplets of blood stained the floor beneath his seat.
“This is the place in Charleston,” William said, as if answering someone’s question. He laughed softly. “No, I will not give you the address. Only paid subscribers get platinum access.”
Apollo and Emma watched this man in a choked silence.
Kinder Garten had slipped a camera into the home of a family in Charleston, South Carolina. Five people—a father, two grandparents, and two teenage girls—flitted around an expansive kitchen, preparing breakfast. And he watched them from here in Queens.
Not only had Kinder Garten found a way inside their home, it seemed like the camera wasn’t even well hidden. The perspective suggested something right at counter level. The kind of thing at least one of the people in that kitchen should see, but all five appeared oblivious. Worse was the moment when the grandfather came right up to the camera, leaned close, and looked into the lens with no apparent concern. He raised one finger and typed slowly, occasionally looking up at the camera.
This was when Apollo and Emma realized what was going on. “It’s their laptop,” Apollo said. “He turned their own laptop into his camera.”
Both of them tensed now, waiting for Kinder Garten to hear them, but with those headphones on, the man had no idea they were there. He’d turned his computer station into a kind of sensory deprivation tank.
With a sting, Apollo realized Kinder Garten must’ve done the same thing with Patrice’s computer. Apollo, Dana, and Patrice had been in the basement playing the video of Emma’s escape while Kinder Garten, quiet as you please, watched them. He felt weariness weigh down his eyelids. You could never outthink these guys.
Now Apollo noticed the other screens, the ones that weren’t spying inside some middle-class kitchen. On each there were four smaller boxes, and in each smaller box a man sat at a desk. Each face was captured in the greenish reflective light of his computer screen. Each man wore headphones just like Kinder Garten’s. Each had a small microphone arm extending from the right ear cup. They could’ve been a crew of online buddies playing a videogame, but instead of pillaging a dungeon or fighting some simulated war, they were invading a family’s home together, a bit of harmless fun.
“I don’t think I can stay up that long,” Kinder Garten said. “Come on, man, we’ve been at it for, like, eight hours! I’m crashing.”
Apollo and Emma stood immobilized.
“No,” Kinder Garten said. “The mother’s in Chicago. She’s staying at the Renaissance Blackstone Hotel. Two more nights.”
Quiet for a moment, he leaned forward as one of the men in one of the small boxes spoke. Apollo watched the lips move.
“Yup,” Kinder Garten said. “The dad is a true beta cuck. The mom is fugly, but the girl’s all right for now. But you just know if the mom looks like that, the girls are going to turn just as fat when they grow up.”
Emma snatched the mattock from Apollo. “That’s enough,” she said.
She swung the mattock at Kinder Garten sideways, more like a bat, so the sharp ends of the head weren’t aimed at his flesh. She wasn’t being gentle, the mattock just turned out to be heavier than she’d expected. It connected at shoulder level, sending Kinder Garten out of his chair. He fell sideways, and the chair came down with him.
A puddle spread out on the basement floor when he landed. The chair had been collecting his spilled blood. It was as if a jar of raspberry jam had been shattered. His headphones flew off. The man actually yipped like a puppy. He looked up to find Emma standing there, and Apollo right behind her.
“Fuck,” he said, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. The right side of his sweatshirt showed dark with dried blood.
Emma, realizing her mistake from the first swing, turned the mattock so the pick end faced Kinder Garten. She leaned back and raised the weapon.
“No, no, no,” he shouted. “I can help.”
Emma brought the mattock down. The pick end pierced Kinder Garten’s collar, and now the man screeched, small and shrill like a bat. The tip of the pick lodged just above his clavicle. His legs thrashed. Apollo flinched, remembering Jorgen’s last moments in the kitchen upstairs. Emma pressed one foot to Kinder Garten’s chest and cracked the mattock free.
Kinder Garten’s eyes swam in his head and found Apollo. “Please,” he pleaded. “Control your wife.”
Emma raised the mattock again and brought the pick down. This time it landed in his chest, the sharp edge sank in about an inch, lodged in the pectoralis major. “You don’t beg him,” she said. “You beg me.”