I shook my head.
“It doesn’t make me mean, either. So why did it make him so mean? Why did he have to get angry and hurt me whenever he touched this bottle? Why couldn’t it have been like it is with us right now? Fun. Oh God, he’s really dead. My Simon is really gone. They really killed him, didn’t they?”
Perhaps the second drink was a bad idea. Two Mrs. Carters sat across from me now. If I squinted just right, they merged back together into one, but then there were two again. I covered one eye, then the other, then back to the first.
Mrs. Carter quieted, then suddenly spoke in a low voice. “I know you saw me the other day, out by the lake.”
Adrenaline burst through me, and the two Mrs. Carters became one and stayed that way. “You . . . you do?”
She nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.”
My face flushed. My eyes fell from her and landed on the table, on the bourbon. I reached for the bottle, but before I could grasp it, Mrs. Carter’s hand took mine. She was shaking. “I think I wanted you to see. I watched you walk out there with your fishing pole. I knew you’d be there.”
“Why would you—”
“Sometimes a woman wants to be desired, is all.” She took another drink. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
I nodded. She was one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. And she was a woman. Not like the girls at school, barely out of training bras and princess parties, and passing notes and lusting after the latest and greatest pop band. She was a woman—a woman talking to me, about this. That feeling down below returned, warm blood rushing. I knew she couldn’t see under the table, but I grew embarrassed nonetheless. I pulled my hand out from under hers and lifted the bottle to my lips; there was no burn this time. I found it simply delightful.
I handed the bottle to her, and she didn’t hold back. Nearly a quarter of the bottle disappeared before she finally tried to set it down on the table, missing entirely. It crashed to the floor and burst with a bang, glass and bourbon spreading out at our feet.
“Oh my, I . . .” she said. “It’s a mess I made. Bad.”
“It’s okay, I’ll clean it.” I stood up, looking for a dishrag. The room spun around me. I steadied myself on the back of my chair and took deep, slow breaths until the kitchen righted itself. Mrs. Carter watched me from her yellow vinyl and metal chair, then laid her head down on the table within her folded arms.
I stood there in complete silence. I remained still until I heard her breathing fall into the rhythm of sleep. Then I pushed out the door into the ever-increasing cold of night.
I had to get Mother and Father. I would need help tying her up.
30
Porter
Day 1 ? 4:49 p.m.
“It’s old. Out of print.” Watson was reading the tiny display on his iPhone as he, Porter, and Nash hovered over the book on Emory’s desk. “Calculus in the Modern Age by Winston Gilbert, Thomas Brothington, and Carmel Thorton. First published in 1923, looks like the final edition went out in 1987.”
He leaned down to the black Pelican case at his side and came back up with a small brush and fingerprint powder. He dipped the brush into the powder and began to run the bristles over the top of the text, his hand twisting in a circular motion, spreading the dark powder evenly over the cover.
“Good luck returning that to the library,” Nash frowned.
Watson ignored him.
Reaching back into the bag, he withdrew a large flashlight, flicked it on, and crouched back over the book.
“Is that standard issue?” Porter asked.
Watson shook his head. “It’s a Fenix 750. Has an LED array capable of putting out twenty-nine hundred lumens. That’s nearly twice the brightness of the ones we get from Supply. It also does infrared and has a strobe function.”
Nash whistled. “That’s one fancy fucking flashlight. I guess we cops ask Santa for a new gun at Christmastime, you guys ask for flashlights. Makes perfect sense to me.”
“Anything?” Porter asked.
Watson leaned in closer. “I only see one set of prints, probably Burrow’s. I’ll need a sample to rule her out. And check out the spine.” He pointed at the edge of the book. “There’s not a single crease. I’d say this book has never been used. It’s in remarkable condition.”
“Not to sound all conspiracy theory, but do you think it could be rigged?” Nash asked.
Porter frowned. “Rigged?”
“Yeah, like a bomb or something. Maybe hollowed out?”
Watson began to open the cover.
“No, don’t—” Nash shouted, before backing up into the wall.
The cover flapped against the desk with a soft thud. Nash squeezed his eyes shut.
Porter read the first page. “It’s just a book. No boom.”
“I’m getting some water,” Nash said, before disappearing down the hallway toward the kitchen.
Porter flipped through the pages. Watson was right—for a book last published in 1987, it looked new. The glossy pages stuck together. That “new book” smell still lofted from it, bringing back memories of third-grade English class—the only time he ever received a new textbook. “If 4MK placed this here, what do you think it means?”
Watson sighed. “I don’t know. Has he ever left a clue behind?”
“Not one.”
“He’s clearly trying to tell you something. Why else would he bother?”
“Where do you think he got it?”
Watson thumbed through the pages. “The city has its share of vintage bookstores, but I don’t know of any dealing in textbooks.”
“Who would want an old math book?”
“A math teacher?”
“Do you think it came from a school?”
Watson thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “If this book ever circulated through the school system, it wouldn’t be in this condition. Textbooks don’t just sit around. They get used and abused.”
“Okay, how about a supplier?”
Watson flipped back through the pages at the beginning. He skimmed some text on the second page, tapped it with his finger, then spun the book around so Porter could see. “It was manufactured here in Chicago. That address is less than three miles from here—in Fulton.”
Porter frowned. “Did you dog-ear that page?”
“No, sir.”
Somebody had. The corner of the page had a soft crease, barely visible but there nonetheless. 4MK wanted them to find this.
Porter pulled out his phone, dialed Kloz, and read the address off to him. He hung up a moment later. “The address belongs to a condemned warehouse scheduled to be torn down day after tomorrow.”
Porter and Nash understood the significance. The Four Monkey Killer had left the body of his third victim, Missy Lumax, under a tarp at the center of an abandoned warehouse. It too had been set for demolition. It too had been in the Fulton River District.
31
Diary