Page 92 of Blood Moon

“Too much of one. I think Patrick Dobbs is paying the penalty for some other man’s crime.”

“I’d lay money on it.”

“Okay, so where I’m going with all this… I got to thinking that if there are chat rooms on the internet, there must be equivalents on the dark web. The thing is, we saw no evidence that Crissy had anything like that on her computer, did we?”

“No.”

“I’ve got the detectives in the other cities checking to see if their women did, but if so, I think they would’ve remembered it as soon as I told them about the blood moon.” He stopped there, hesitant to divulge what was, at this stage, only a nebulous idea.

Mitch said, “Bro, I can hear you thinking loud and clear. Lay it on me, because at any second I’ll have to run.”

“You may laugh.”

“May, but may not.”

John shared his new insight. Mitch didn’t laugh. In fact, when John finished, Mitch said, “I like it. I like it a lot, John. Keep—Ah, shit. Gettin’ the call. Gotta run. I’ll have some of the dark web moles look into it. Be safe.”

And like that, Mitch was gone, but John was glad he’d had time to run this new brainstorm past him. He valued Mitch’s opinion and was gratified that he hadn’t laughed outright or tried to rationalize the idea to death.

He wanted to run it past Beth. He looked behind him toward the bedroom, from which he hadn’t heard a sound since she’d ordered him out. If she was crying, she was doing so silently, which was worse than if she’d been wailing. He hoped she’d been able to fall asleep.

In any case, he wasn’t going to be talking to her tonight. Which was just as well, because his brain felt like he had climbed Everest twice in one day without supplemental oxygen.

He began closing his files and was about to leave their computer table when Beth’s laptop chirped, signaling a new email. He didn’t intend to snoop but saw that it was from Victor Wallace.

The message read:I’ve discovered something that might be helpful to you. I’ll wait up for ten minutes. If you don’t call, then possibly tomorrow.He’d included his phone number.

John was bone tired. He closed his eyes and tried to talk himself out of it. But he called. When the professor answered, he said, “It’s John Bowie. Ms. Collins is unavailable.”

“I realize it’s late. This can wait until tomorrow.”

“No, now that I’ve got you, what have you got for me? Us,” he said, casting another look over his shoulder toward the bedroom.

“I’ve noticed something that had escaped me while we were checking the missing women’s names against my mailing list.”

If there was avoilà!in that statement, John was too tired for it to register. “Okay.”

“It’s regarding their names themselves.”

“What about them?”

“They all have double letters in them. Anna, Allison, Larissa, and Crissy. Crissy’s last name Mellin also has double letters. Had you never noticed?”

No, he hadn’t. Anna was the missing girl in Jackson, Allison in Shreveport. He’d never even heard of them until two days ago. Was that the common trait he’d been hoping to discover?

He asked, “Why would the double letters be meaningful?”

“They may not be at all except to a numerologist. They would certainly arouse his interest.”

“A numerologist?”

“How much do you know about numerology?”

“Zero.”

“Ha! Good one,” he said, and gave a short laugh. “Although zero rarely factors in. Only the numerals one through nine.”

John ground his palm against his forehead and wished he’d rethought making this call this late at night when he was already close to brain-dead. “Give me a numerology breakdown for dummies.”

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