Nerves bite deeper as Carter senses he’s treading into forbidden territory, crossing a line into another world, another realm, occupied by this old hunter of human monsters who has spent a lifetime in the dark interiors of killers and torturers, examining their sick desires. A place little golden-haired boys are not meant to go. Yet it’s also a place—Carter knows—where golden-haired boys and girls become easy victims.
“I know he’s on the boat. And that you followed him. And you dragged us with you because you chose Vincent over Disney and the Caribbean and family stuff.”
“And what makes you think Vincent is on the ship?”
Carter is even more scared now. But this is where he really needs to be brave. And a hero. Because if he wants the truth, he has to be honest and truthful also.
“Well, I still plan to be a detective,” he says very carefully, laying his groundwork. “And I do like solving puzzles, and ...” He chickens out a bit. He shouldn’t have been in the files. Or in the study in LA, looking at the crime board.
“Go on,” says Gramps. “You started, now you better finish.”
He swallows. “I saw some things on the wall in your study when I went to the bathroom. The door was open. I couldn’t not see it.”
Gramps’s brow furrows. “What did you see, Carter?”
“Your crime board—all the bits about Vincent Kapoor and Aline-Claire Lavoie.” He pauses. “And Sanjay Lohar. I saw the question mark with his photo—it looked like you were questioning whether he could still be alive. And then in your files I saw a photo of an older man. Written on the back wasVincent. Amsterdam. Dec. 15, 2018.”
“You went in my files?”
“You—you lied to me about him being in prison for life in Nepal.”
He sips his drink, thinking, then says, “Hewasimprisoned for life, Carter. You asked me if he escaped the Kathmandu jail. I said, no, he did not escape it. It wasn’t a lie.”
“But hewasreleased. You could have said that. You lied to me by omission.”
A shadow of a smile curves his grandfather’s mouth. He nods slowly. But his eyes remain fierce. Carter reckons any serial killer being interviewed by Gramps would be scared of him. If it was him being interrogated, he might wet his pants. Or cry. But he won’t. Not now. He just won’t. HeisTheseus. Hewillemerge from the darkness of the caves.
“I could have told you that,” says Gramps. “You’re right. Shall we sit?” He gestures with his drink toward the furniture next to the pool.
Before Carter can answer, Gramps goes to the outdoor sofa and crumples his large, heavy frame into the cushions. He gives a deep sigh, takes another long swallow from his drink, and exhales heavily.
Carter feels a niggle of worry. Gramps doesn’t look that well.
He goes to sit beside him. They both face the sea. On the horizon Turkey has faded to a soft purple shadow against the sunset gold. A seabird plays in wind currents off their balcony.
“I’m tired, Carter. When you reach my age, there are only so many seasons left in a life, you know? A few more winters, a handful of summers.”
Carter feels a little clutch in his chest.
Gramps pats Carter’s skinny knee. “That’s life. It comes with a one hundred percent fatality rate. It’s just how the world works. And as you get toward the end of a life, things start to happen to an old body. Like an old car. The parts start to give.” He watches the water a moment. “At my age, you’ve seen many of your friends and colleagues die. One just waiting out the other. All physically failing in some form or another. Diseases: limbs and joints that no longer work, organs that give up, bones that grow brittle and break, metabolic failures, cancers. For me—” He meets Carter’s eyes. “Now, I haven’t told your mom this. I was going to wait until after the trip, but you’re an excellent detective and you’re onto me. You have courage. And I owe you. For not being straight-up honest.” He sips, watches the horizon a moment longer.
“I got a diagnosis a few months ago. I have a disease that’s messing with my brain a bit.” He taps his head. “Cognitive decline. It’s not an easy diagnosis for an old mind hunter to digest. But I won’t be able to hide it from the world much longer. I really didn’t have time to both finish my final book as well as spend quality time on a Disney cruise with you and your mom. So I tried to do two at once. Two birds. One stone.”
“What’s messing with your brain?”
“Nasty little plaques and things. It’s been going on for a while already, and it’s going to make me forget more and more things—everything I learned. A lifetime of study. Everything I ever wrote.” He holds Carter’s gaze. “Even you. And your mom. I will forget who you are.”
Emotion surges into Carter’s eyes.
“This last case, my Vincent Kapoor case—it’s one that has consumed me for decades. It’s threaded through my entire adult life, and it left me with lingering questions that I have not been able to solve. Until now.” He pauses. “Maybe I should’ve let the questions go, and taken you on the Disney cruise instead. But let me ask you, Carter J. Frost—what would you have done? I know it’s a rough question to ask a very young sleuth, but what if you knew there were families out there who never got answers about loved ones: like how they died, where they died, who killed them, where their remains were buried, or dumped. And yousaw that the answer was almost within reach. And you had only a few months of brain left to grab them. But you also wanted to spend time with your own loved ones.”
Carter swallows. His gramps is right—it’s an adult question. And he doesn’t like how complicated life seems to get when one becomes an adult. It’s the same kind of question Gramps might have been asking Gran before she left him: How many murders should be solved, how many killers should be put in jail, versus how many days should be spent with your family?
“I don’t know,” Carter says honestly, his eyes filling with tears that spill down his face. He swipes them away. “Have—have you got the answers for those families now?”
Gramps nods. “Yes. I do. It was precipitated by Vincent’s release late last year. And when we learned he was going to be on theBlack Orchidcruise, I couldn’tnotfollow him. We felt he would lead us to missing links.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
