Flash Point (22 page)

‘Kind of. He
had
a hand, it was just disfigured so bad he couldn't make it do what it needed to if he was to keep smithing the silver.'

‘Close enough,' Jenna said. ‘Dodd, go find Johnny Tremain.'

‘Still there, Saleda?' Jenna said.

‘Mm-hmm,' Saleda came back.

‘So you might be able to peg the Slender UNSUB?'

‘We have an idea, anyway,' Saleda said. ‘For starters, on the enhancement, that kitchen knife-looking blade she used to stab actually
appears
to be a letter opener.'

Jenna pictured the frames of the surveillance footage Saleda was talking about: the tall, slim female figure and her awkward physical movement, the way she charged her victims, arm raised high. That flimsy little blade, the frailish body type …

‘I'll buy that,' Jenna said. ‘Hardly narrows it down though, does it?'

‘That's the thing,' Saleda said. ‘It
wouldn't
, except for that while Teva and I were reviewing the footage for the umpteenth time, something clicked between what we were seeing and a random mention in the forensic team's on-site reports.'

Jenna and Porter shared an interested look. Jenna sat up straighter. ‘We're listening.'

‘After Slender UNSUB killed Rebekah Webb, she struggled with the banker, remember?

‘How could I forget it? The banker's torso busted like a can of biscuits after WASP boy pumped him full of almost thirty liters of CO
₂
. We're thinking now that he must be one of the two characters the poem claims are from
Moby Dick,
by the way,' Jenna said.

‘Well, before WASP UNSUB saved Slender's day, at a point in the scuffle, Slender's letter opener was still poised face-high as is the knife in her other hand, and she's just basically lashing and trying to stab anything she can. The banker gets hold of either wrist high over her head, and for a minute, they're locked like that, each angling for leverage. After a couple seconds, he whips her left arm downward across his body, practically bending her
into
the desk beside him. The momentum of the twisting motion made her drop one knife.'

Jenna nodded to herself. ‘I think I remember this.'

‘Well, once he has the upper hand, he bangs her arm and wrist into the desk, trying to get her to drop the weapon she still has hold of. She didn't, obviously, because big, bad WASP man showed up, but not for lack of trying. That arm
and
the knife took a handful of good hard whacks.'

‘And this helps identify her literary moniker
because …
'
Porter said.

‘I'm getting there. The forensic team had bagged a chip of some sort of iridescent material near that desk, which the initial report suggested was most likely table lacquer or ceramic, but was being sent for further tests. Well, by the time we were reviewing the footage again, trying to find connections to more of the UNSUB's monikers, we knew Slender's weapon was a letter opener. So, the blows the thing took against the desk during the fight with the banker took on new meaning, and we called over to check up on forensics.'

‘Please,' Jenna said, closing her eyes, ‘
tell me
the chipped-off-whatever had a book title engraved in it.'

‘Close,' Saleda said, a hint of pride in her voice. ‘The material was identified as a composite called nacre, which is made up of crystalline and organic substances that form from the inner lining of certain mollusk shells.'

‘What?' Jenna said, baffled, and beside her, Porter mouthed, ‘What the fu—'

‘Let me make this simple for you, Doc, since I don't have any crayons to color you a picture. You know how pearls can form inside certain mollusks, right?' Saleda asked.

‘Been looking for my lucky oyster for years,' Jenna said sarcastically.

‘Well, the mollusk shell secretes this nacre, and the substance forms a protective layer to shield the pearl from parasites. It's scientifically called nacre, but a lot of people know it as mother of pearl.'

Jenna's heart rate didn't so much as speed up a beat, and Porter threw his hands in the air as he shrugged. But beside the window, Grey gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth.

Jenna glared at her, then glanced at Porter, who only shook his head. She stared down at the phone lying on the table as if Saleda would be able to feel her scowl. ‘What are you, Teva, and Grey putting together that's lost on the rest of us?'

The phone's speaker crackled. ‘Obviously Slender's letter opener was made out of
mother of pearl
,' Saleda said, drawing out the last words so slowly it reminded Jenna of the way people sometimes thought they could make a foreigner understand a language they didn't speak.

Jenna forced herself to ignore Grey, who now had her hands clasped together in front of her and was bouncing in her chair like a child about to get her birthday presents.

‘You're apparently going to have to spell it out for me, Saleda, because unless there's a book called The Letter Opener that was written by Mother of Pearl—'

‘The references—'

But Grey let out an excited squeak, cutting Saleda off. ‘Pearl was her daughter! Hester Prynne. She's the mother of Pearl!'

‘The main character from
The Scarlet Letter,
eh? They don't seem to realize no matter what names they pick and what character personas they hide behind, they still show us things we can use,' Dodd said as he returned, laying
Johnny Tremain
on the table in front of Porter.

‘They've already shown us a lot more than they probably realize. For one thing, Slender – Hester, I mean – and WASP UNSUB probably don't have a clue they did anything in the bank to betray their connection, but we had them linked from the word go,' Jenna replied.

‘The Wasp Man? The
Moby Dick
Wasp Man you were talking about?' Grey asked, jumping into the conversation again, her voice softer this time. Curious. ‘He and Hester Prynne … eat dinner together?'

Jenna didn't bother explaining to the others that asking if they ate dinner was Grey's equivalent of asking if they were in a relationship, since if they were getting used to Grey at all, this one was fairly easy to follow. Jenna nodded. ‘We think they have some sort of relationship, yes. We don't know its extent, whether it's romantic or platonic. There's a chance they could even be old friends, husband and wife, or siblings. Or maybe they met in the group and just developed an emotional bond for whatever reason. No matter the type or depth, we always look for those sorts of links between people. In any of those cases, knowing about the connection could prove useful.'

Grey shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘You don't understand. It already has. This inks the deal that she's Hester Prynne. It's not just the
Scarlet ‘Letter'
opener or mother of Pearl now.'

Here we go.

‘What is it, Ms Hechinger?' Dodd asked.

‘Herman Melville was inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne! They met, I think, in 1950,' Grey said with authority.

‘And you know this because your pen pal Herman Melville wrote you a gushing letter about how he just couldn't put
The Scarlet Letter
down. Did he also write his name next to that of the author of his favorite book and enclose them in a heart with the words, “4-eva”?' Porter laughed.

Grey turned to Porter, her face cold as stone. She blinked rapidly as silence hung in the air.

‘I know this because Herman Melville
dedicated
Moby Dick
to Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read that.
In a book
,'
Grey said, standing in a huff after her last biting words and storming off toward the beanbag chairs.

‘Does it get you hard, Porter, antagonizing the mentally unstable?' Jenna snapped. ‘Normally, I wouldn't defend Grey, because I've been on her little trips through Wonderland, too, and while they're interesting and colorful at first, I know they can turn into bashing your head into any mirror you see on the off chance you'd locate an exit. But right now, she
is
actually helping us. We wouldn't even have found this library and this note if not for her—'

‘And what good has this little jaunt through the friendly halls of public books done for us? At this point, what it's done has taken up precious
minutes
we could've been pursuing other angles of the profiles. As I see it, we're still missing two books, and even if we somehow manage to pull them out of thin air, who's to say we won't show up at another location only to find
another
code?'

‘Simmer down, Undergrad,' Dodd cut in, his voice even and calm. ‘You have a very valid concern there, but arguing for more minutes and hours about whether or not we've taken the right steps up to now
definitely
won't get us closer to saving lives. I think the thing to do here is to see what we can do about getting those last two books and let this play out. See if this test of honor delivers on its promise.'

‘We're tapped out of ideas about those last two here,' Saleda cut in. ‘Any thoughts?'

Jenna's eyes fell to Porter's paper. The orange-tinged red of a ladybug flashed in.
Sequence.
Jenna reached for the list of barcodes and slid it toward her, a thought hitting her. She looked to Dodd.

‘Tell me again what the poem says about lining up the masks,' she said, deep in thought.

Dodd pulled the evidence bag containing the still-open note from his pocket. ‘Line up the masks in order – the only order we know them in is the order in which they entered the bank, and take one from each—'

‘One digit from the barcode of each. OK. Got that. But which number …'

Jenna reached for the evidence bag, and Dodd obliged. She reread the text:

O
UR FINAL PIECE OF ADVICE TO GIVE INVOLVES A DOUBLE DEBUT
. L
INE UP THE MASKS IN ORDER, TAKE ONE FROM EACH, AND YOU'LL GET A DOUBLE ON ONE OF TWO.

As Jenna read the first line, Air Force blue flashed in. One. The number one. Debut.
Debut.

They were supposed to take the first number from each of the barcodes. The debut number!

Jenna picked up Porter's pen from the table and went down the barcode list, noting the digit each began with, placing them in order from memory, leaving two blanks for the two attackers they weren't able to link a book to. When she was finished, she handed it to Dodd since her own phone was still on the table on speaker with Saleda.

‘Send these to Irv. With the two books' digits missing, there should be a hundred possible combinations of thirteen-digit numbers—'

‘Ten,' Grey piped up. ‘All thirteen-digit ISBN numbers begin with either a 978 or 979 prefix. Your first missing number is the second digit. That means it has to be a seven. Ten possibilities.'

Jenna took in the new information in stride, already going on. ‘You get that?'

‘Loud and clear,' Dodd replied.

‘We need a list of all ten of those possibilities in the form of books assigned those ISBN numbers.'

Jenna's phone vibrated for the first time since they'd hung up with Saleda so she could go help Irv. She opened it to read the text:

JUST FOR THE RECORD, I'D APPRECIATE IT IF ONE DAY, YOU JUST CALLED ME FOR SOMETHING LIKE A LIST OF THE CITY'S TAKEOUT RESTAURANTS OR A BREAKDOWN OF HOW MUCH YOU COULD SAVE IF YOU SWITCHED TO GEICO.

Jenna typed back:

I DON'T DO TAKEOUT. THAT WHOLE ‘NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO KNOW WHERE MY HOUSE IS' THING. AND DUCT-TAPE REPAIR DOESN'T INVOLVE A PREMIUM HIKE. GOT THE BOOKS?

Within ten seconds, the phone buzzed.

IN YOUR E-MAIL NOW. CONSIDER EASING UP ON THE TAKEOUT POLICY. I HEAR SOME OF THE GOOD PLACES HAVE CARRY-OUT.

Jenna's heart fluttered as she opened the e-mail. Now or never.

She passed her phone to Grey. ‘We're looking for the book on this list that could fit or be described as getting “a double on one of two,”' Jenna said.

After the longest minute of Jenna's life, Grey let out a single laugh.

‘What?' Porter said, popping up in his chair.

‘What is it, Ms Hechinger?'

Grey smiled. ‘This is an easy one. “
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness
…”'

Raspberry red flashed in as Jenna recognized the words.

‘All of them, opposing pairs. All on page one,' Grey finished, grinning.

Jenna already had her phone out, speed dial pressed for Irv. She'd congratulate, praise, and otherwise say things to Grey she never thought in a million years she would after she got Irv.

When he picked up, she didn't even let him speak.

‘Irv, I'll ask you for takeout menus and insurance quotes and any other boring things that will make your heart happy next week, but right now, I need you to scour the groups you've flagged online as possibly subversive with even a remote connection to classic literature and spit out the one that has a direct connection to
A Tale of Two Cities
.'

Jenna held her breath, letting the silence stand between them. This was the first time she'd ever made this kind of request and implied that she intended to wait on the phone for it. But just as she'd told him to locate
the
online group out of those he'd been culling since the attack, she stayed on the line with him now for the same reason. Ruby red, the hue a touch deeper than the pomegranate of confidence she associated with absolute certainty.

She knew it was there.

After a long minute, the typing and clicking stopped. For a second, Jenna thought she could feel her heart in her throat.

‘Yep. Got it. The site and the person who created it. Shall I dictate his address to you verbally, or would you like it sent to your phone, email, and personal subversive group address coordination butler?'