“Well, inThe Lonely Man, Rourke was poisoned. There was a letter seemingly written by him to his son.”
“Just like with my father’s murder.”
“But in the book, there was so much more. Ink under the victim’s fingernails, like he’d tried to claw something off a page. A faint chemical burn on his lips and ash in his lungs, suggesting he tried to burn something before he died.” I pause. “And the ink? It was this specific shade of red the son always used when forging his father’s signature. How ingenious is that? Symbolically, it’s—”
Noticing the hint of a smile playing on his lips, I swallow my words.
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, why stop at the poison and the letter to the son? The next murders they recreated were much more detailed.”
“Maybe the killer was testing their plan out. Or they were interrupted.” He clears his voice. “Maybe the first one was meant to be a secret.”
“Or maybe they had the opposite problem.” I keep reading. “The police ruled it accidental.”
He leans forward, intrigued, but I see the slight wince when his arms cross over the table. “While it’s obvious the killer craves attention. Recognition.”
Exactly. I close the folder. “Was it you?”
“Hmm?”
“Quentin ran into someone he thought was the killer, stabbed him.” I point at his arm. “I assume that was you.”
He pulls the sleeve up, revealing the bandage. “You might make a fine detective after all.”
I hiss through my teeth—that’s a pretty big bandage. Did he have to get stitches? “I can’t believe your cousin stabbed you.”
“You and me both.”
“It’s kind of hilarious. You thought he was the killer, he thought you were.”
“Yeah, hysterical,” he says flatly. “Six stitches.” Eyes rolling, he continues. “And I never thought he was the killer. Nobodythatstupid can be a serial killer.”
A laugh bubbles out. “Then why did you attack him?”
“Attack him? Is that what he’s saying?” He scoffs. “Idiot.I bet in his story, I’m seven feet tall and had a shotgun, but somehow he managed to overpower me, huh?”
“Well, there might have been some talk about roundhouse kicks. The two of you fighting for your knife—”
“Yeah, that was not my knife. Trust me, if I’d thought for a second he was the killer, he’d have been looking at the barrel of my gun.” He bites into a dumpling. “I was monitoring calls to the police, went to check out the house, andQuentinnearly pissed himself when he saw me in the building. Scaredy-cat had this tiny-ass pocketknife, and as hefell,” he says, pausing for effect, “he accidentally slashed my arm.”
This time I can’t help it: I burst into a heartfelt laugh. I knew Quentin was full of it, that there was something about his story that didn’t ring true, but I couldn’t have dreamed of something so good.
“Moron,” he says, still shaking his head.
With one last chuckle, I reach for the next paper in the pile. It details a series of large payments made to the Booked It account over the past few months—thousands of dollars, transferred at intervals.
“Rafael,” I say over the sound of the sitcom.
He glances over. “What?”
I hold up the papers. “These payments to the podcast account. What are they?”
He pauses, setting his plate down and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Donations.”
“Donations? Who’s donating that kind of money to podcasts about books?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to track it, but every lead I’ve followed has hit a dead end. Whoever’s making these transfers knows how to avoid being tracked.”
“So it must be connected to the murders.”
