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“I’m gonna go take a shower,” she says.
“You want a drink first?” he asks, reaching for the bottle of Jack perched on top of the refrigerator.
“I’m good,” she says. But maybe she should have a drink. Her nerves are on fire, anxiety prickling her skin.
She heads down the hallway. She opens her bedroom door, then closes it loudly without going inside. She peers back to make sure Dash isn’t coming. She can hear him in the kitchen, a cupboard opening, glass placed on the counter. She steps quietly and turns the handle of his bedroom door.
It opens with a quiet click. She looks back again, then goes inside. She’s walking on her toes, trying not to make a sound. She moves around the bed and to the desk. She inspects the clutter until she sees it. The red shoebox.
Sitting softly on the bed, she bends over and retrieves the Jordans box, placing it on her lap. She turns to the door again, listens. Then she opens the box’s lid.
Inside is a T-shirt that’s been rolled up and several folded sheets of paper. Like notes you’d pass in elementary school before they all had phones. Poppy unfolds one of the notes and apprehension spreads through every part of her:
4–4–9; 44–7–2; 73–8–12.
Her mind flits to Chantelle from KBI, who brought her the note they found in Alison’s handbag. We think it’s a book cipher.
Poppy feels a tear run down her cheek at the realization that her brother and Alison were communicating in the same code.
But what causes bile to run up her throat is the shirt. She doesn’t want to look, but she has to. She slowly unrolls the black fabric.
It says: BON JOVI on the front. The shirt Alison was wearing the night she was abducted.
Poppy’s heart nearly explodes at the sound of Dash’s voice.
“It’s not what you think.”
39
LACKFORD, ENGLAND
Ryan studies the photo of the groundskeeper hanging on the wall in the side room of the church. He fishes his phone from his pocket and pulls up the sketch artist rendition of The Monster—Pinky Man, he reminds himself, adopting Nora’s rebranding of the man. The same man everyone thought was a figment of Ryan’s imagination. He holds a photo of the artist’s sketch on his phone next to the photo on the wall. If they don’t believe him now, it’s because they don’t want to. He takes a photo of the man.
He remembers that the church grounds have a small cottage with a sign for the groundskeeper. Could it be this easy? Will he find Pinky Man there?
Outside, the sky is darker now, threatening rain. He walks past an old crypt surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The place is starting to creep him out. Should he call the police? Is he in danger? Perhaps. But Pinky Man could’ve had his goons give Ryan a beatdown or toss him over the ledge of the Palazzo Comunale. And before he rushed out, Pinky Man seemed genuinely terrified. What was that about?
Ryan reaches the small bungalow. The front light is off. He walks to the door, knocks. And it’s then he notices the door is ajar. It pushes open with the rap of his knuckle.
In the entryway is a small table with mail. Ryan eyes one of the envelopes and it’s addressed to Peter Jones.
“Hello,” he calls out.
There’s nothing. It’s a small place. Right off the entryway is a television in front of a worn sofa covered by a colorful yarn blanket.
“Hello?” he says again. But there’s only the sound of the wind from outside. He looks back out the door. Then to the kitchen in the rear of the place. There are shoes on the kitchen floor.
Terror spouts up from his gut. He walks slowly to the kitchen and slaps on the light.
He nearly vomits when he sees them.
A woman is on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood. Her throat’s been slit. The man—The Monster—is slumped on a chair. He’s covered in blood. And not only his pinky fingers are missing. So are the rest of his fingers.
Fear seizes Ryan at the sound of a man’s voice from behind him.
“Oi, don’t you bloody move.”
40