Page 119 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“I said I’m careful.”

“I don’t mean that,” the schoolmarm snapped. She explains she wants me to steal some underwear and knives from the two victims.

Of course, to plant at the third crime scene, the one with the body or bodies.

“And I want everyone in the city to know about you right away. Post a picture of the newspaper in the apartment. Include her address. Reporters on the police beat’ll see it and take up the story from there. Can you post anonymously?”

“I’ll use one of the image board chans. It’ll go viral from there.”

“Good. And I’m going to get you some car keys too. An Audi. You can use that to drive around. Just remember to wear gloves when you do. Or wipe it down.”

She disappears into the bedroom. This time when she returns she’s holding a thick envelope. “Two hundred thousand. A down payment.”

The cash isn’t as heavy as I would have guessed. Where to go? Silicon Valley, possibly. Huge need for content moderators there. Or maybe Manila. I could live like a king, and I suspect the police there are less than diligent about break-ins and eviscerated bodies.

Joanna helps me up. She cuts the string binding my wrists, and I sit on the very nice couch. Then she steps away and grips the pistol.

I hardly blame her for being careful. I was going to knife her to death, after all.

“Any questions?”

“Can I have that?”

I’m looking at a small red and black plastic object sitting in a metal basket filled with iPhone chargers, earbuds, pens, pencils, aspirin packets.

“The keychain?”

“Yes.”

It depicts the Tower of London and seems to be a cheap souvenir. I love the Tower.

She lifts it from the basket and sets it next to my wallet.

“Oh, and one other thing. Don’t delete any more of Verum’s posts from ViewNow.”

“I won’t.”

“You can leave.”

I gather up my brass knife and other possessions. Then down the long hall and out, closing the door to apartment 2019 behind me.

SKELETON KEY

[MAY 28, PRESENT DAY, 11 A.M.]

62

Aclatter outside the door. Voices, but hushed.

In the den that served as his home office, Averell Whittaker glanced at the closed door. Perhaps Joanna had dropped by. She did that some. It wasn’t the maid’s day. Maybe his niece and the security guard, Alicia Roberts, were making tea or coffee.

His eyes returned to the sales contract he was reviewing. Eighty pages, plus addenda. And this was just one of a dozen contracts for disposition of the equipment, the vehicles, the computers … endless.

How hard it was to do the right thing. You couldn’t just push a button and turn the Whittaker Media empire into a do-gooding nonprofit foundation.

But he’d get it all done in his time left. He was so energized about the project. It would scrutinize print and broadcast stories in the U.S. and abroad and flag the ones it found inaccurate, after a rigorous review by fact-checkers. It would expose threats to reporters (which had multiplied exponentially in recent years). It would havea legal defense fund for reporters jailed or threatened. It would report ties between politicians and corporate interests and media companies. It would examine the FCC and other governmental entities to make sure that the regulations and laws did not limit First Amendment rights. And it would champion minority education in journalism.

But, as often, his mind soon wandered to his son.

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