CHAPTER NINE
It was Lesley’s idea to hold our briefing session at the nearest Dunkin’. It’s Grant’s fault that we agreed and are now sitting numbly among shocks of hot pink and neon orange, waiting for Lesley to finish slurping his entire iced latte in one go.
Back in the alley, we deliberated behind Jack’s broken-down car while Lesley and Lissa waited on the sidewalk.
“Trust them?” I hissed at Grant. “Did your brain fall out on the highway? What happened to the guy who would rather babysit his cat than actually face our problems?”
“Leave Arthur out of this. Also, it’s not babysitting if it’s my cat. And also, there’s a big difference between agreeing to a coffee meeting and becoming an international fugitive.”
To my chagrin, this was where he finally played the story-structure-expert card.
It was allegedly too soon for us to come face-to-face with the Big Bad Guy, but could be right about time for us to cross paths with a mentor or ally of some kind.
A zany private detective and his sunny assistant would fit the bill, even if they did spend the last half hour shooting at us.
So we came to an agreement: First we’ll do the part of the book where we hear these people out. Then I get to decide if it’s the part where I throat-punch them.
Lesley’s coffee slurping has me considering skipping to that part early.
I promised Grant I would at least listen to what he has to say, but I can’t shake my skepticism.
Between his expensive-looking clothing and his shaggy gray hair, this man looks more like a retired rock star than a private detective.
And his assistant, with her space buns and lime-green fur-trimmed jacket, looks like she’s running thirty years late for the Spice Girls open call.
It’s a lot, even for a romance author with a love of whimsy.
When there’s only ice left in Lesley’s cup, he sets it down, delicately licks his lips, and pronounces, “That tasted like piss.”
“Yep,” Grant says.
Lesley frowns. “I thought you Bostonians loved this place.”
“We do,” I say.
He gives a curt nod and retrieves his phone from his jacket’s inside pocket. “Right, then.” After a few taps on the screen, he holds it up toward me and Grant. “What do you see?”
We lean in to squint at the phone.
“A book club Facebook group,” I say. The West Brompton Book Club, specifically. I scroll through a few posts, all quoting lines from books complete with thorough citations—author, chapter, page number, even ISBN.
“Ah, but look closer.” Lesley swipes through the page. “Where are the literary discussions? The arguments over which book to read next? The my wine club has a reading problem memes?” He pockets his phone smugly. “This, my friends, is an international murder network.”
That might just make the top five most bizarre things I’ve ever been told in a Dunkin’.
“That’s … quite a conclusion to leap to,” says Grant.
Lesley clicks his tongue. “Oh, come now. It’s almost too obvious. There is no West Brompton Book Club. All those people are fake. The quotes are fake. They don’t match up with the books they’re allegedly from.”
“It’s code, you see.” Lissa leans forward, bright-eyed. “Lesley cracked it after infiltrating. The page numbers are dates, the chapters are times, and the ISBNs are coordinates. Locations, hidden in plain sight. And what do you suppose happens at these places, on these dates, at these times?”
Lesley slams his hands on the table. “MURDER,” he stage-whispers, peering over his black-framed glasses at us.
Neither Grant nor I issue a response right away. Lesley picks up a jelly donut and takes a bite, waiting patiently for us to process. After a minute he raises his brows at us.
“Really? Nothing? Okay. Thought you’d be more impressed by that.”
“Shhh. You’re botching this,” Lissa says, lightly elbowing him.
“We’re thinking this is some kind of serial killer support group.
A place for murderers to show off to their peers and cheer each other on.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Originally, these posts pointed to murders that had already happened—mostly in the UK.
But then, things changed: The posts started indicating future dates.
They were pinpointing the exact time and location of murders that hadn’t even happened yet. ”
“And they haven’t been popping up unprompted anymore,” Lesley says between bites of donut. “Group members are posting only after the administrator has tagged them.”
Lissa gestures impatiently for Lesley’s phone, then shows it to us and taps a fluorescent yellow fingernail on the screen for emphasis. There, right by her finger, is a tiny blue Admin label under a name: MR PAGE.
I have to be honest: if I were reading this book I’m trapped in, I imagine I’d be skimming this part. It’s not that I preferred being shot at in a speeding car. But at least that part wasn’t boring and giving me a headache.
I sit back in my stiff laminate chair, ready to move on. But Lissa scrolls a bit and wiggles the phone in my direction. “Notice anything familiar, by the way? That’s your post.”
My post?
Oh. Jack’s post.
It hits me like a frying pan to the head. With the catastrophes piling up over the last several hours, it’s been a minute since I’ve really thought about the attempted murder that started it all.
Just below Mr. Page’s tag, Jack Smith (accompanied by a stock-photo profile picture) has posted:
“Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.”—Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace; p. 228, ch. 22. ISBN: 423494-710783
I translate in my head. February 28. Ten p.m., military time.
What I can only assume are the precise coordinates of my former favorite place in the city.
And to top it all off, some literary bullshit to make him seem cool and deep, even among the most despicable company.
Somehow, this infuriates me even more than the fact that he tried to kill me.
“Unbefuckinglievable,” I mutter, the word like flames on my breath. “That absolute dickwad. That’s not even from Infinite Jest!”
Grant looks at me, surprised. “Have you read Infinite Jest?”
“No, but I’ve seen the AMC commercial that quote is from!” My voice rises on a crescendo of outrage that draws a few disapproving looks from fellow customers. I don’t know who I’m angrier at: Jack, for obvious reasons, or myself for falling for it all.
“Get it now?” Lesley asks. “Mr. Page is calling on murderers to share their next kill before it happens.”
“Now, we don’t know who Mr. Page is,” says Lissa. “Or why he seems to be ordering all these random murders. But we do know he’s doing it on a city-by-city basis. He’s been working in batches, geographically speaking: Amsterdam, Moscow, Nairobi, Hong Kong. Sweeping the globe, all the way to Boston.”
“Okay,” I say. “So, just to be clear: killing me would have been Jack’s contribution to the New England leg of this little murder world tour.”
“Correct,” says Lesley.
“Cool,” I say. “So I guess my question is: Why the fuck were you helping him?”
He cringes. “Ah. Thought that might come up. See, ever since the murder posts turned predictive, we’ve been chasing them around the world.”
Lissa jumps in. “The idea is, stop the crime, catch the would-be murderer and find out what they know so we can get right to the source and stop Mr. Page.” She hesitates. “So far, though … haven’t exactly had luck with the actual crime-stopping part.”
“It was looking good for intercepting the Dewey Decimal Demon,” Lesley says.
I must look baffled, because he rolls his eyes and adds a conciliatory “Or Jack, if you want to be boring about it. It was a stroke of luck, at first. As soon as his post went live, we went to the library disguised as employees to scope the place out, figure out how one might sneak in to kill someone late at night. Then who should tap on my shoulder, bashfully asking if I knew anything about after-hours library access?”
A shudder of revulsion rumbles through me, picturing that bashful smile. I’m furious that it worked on me. That I never once recognized it as the weapon it was.
Grant shakes his head. “So he had already committed to the murder before he worked out the logistics? Why would he do that?”
“Audacity,” I say bitterly.
He turns back to Lesley. “How did you get him late-night access if you don’t work there?”
Lesley waves a dismissive hand. “I bribed the security people. I’m a very rich man. You know Banksy?” He points to himself and whistles, a two-note little ditty like a birdcall.
“No,” I half gasp.
“No,” says Grant, more decisively. “That’s definitely not true.”
Lesley gives a little raised-brow shrug that neither confirms nor denies, and there’s a knowing glimmer in his eyes that reminds me of when we first met.
Which reminds me to be angry with him. “What I still don’t understand is why, after identifying the killer, you welcomed him to his crime scene and did exactly fuck all else. ”
Lesley steeples his hands over the grimy table.
“It was very much a case of keeping one’s friends close and enemies closer.
The idea was to intercede right at the crucial moment, nabbing Triple D and saving your life.
” He adjusts his glasses and clears his throat.
“Only … that crucial moment was, er, complicated by unseen factors of … location.”
I think back to that moment—right before one jab of a knife split the night in two. I think of the moonlight streaming into the room. The lingering kisses in the dark. The adrenaline rush before that, the searching, the mystery …
I laugh. It’s a humorless burst of surprise at first but soon builds into a whole-body shoulder-shaking cackle.