“Photographs,” she said. “Whoever the dead guy in the salt bath was, it’s a safe bet he’s another member of the Culper network. The Loom tracked him down just like it did to Arthur, and Leda dispatched her magic hit man to kill him.”
“He said he likes getting close to his targets,” Tyler said.
“Wearing the faces of people they know.” A cold ripple prickled the flesh on Seelie’s arms. “He didn’t get a chance to steal Arthur’s body. He knew I’d gotten away that night, and he couldn’t stick around in case the cops showed up. But having a Culper he could impersonate would make killing the rest a whole lot easier.”
Nell crouched at the edge of the futon and slapped the Polaroids down on the thin gray carpet like playing cards. She lined them up: Arthur’s bookshelves on the left, the new victim’s on the right. Seelie got closer, taking out her phone and pulling up the pictures from Arthur’s office.
“Okay,” Nell said. “Let’s make two lists. If we’re lucky, both men had the same copy of the same book. If we’re really lucky, Rime didn’t have time to compare notes before we grabbed his picture collection.”
While they worked, Tyler stewed. Seelie watched him from the corner of her eye. She couldn’t miss the tightness in his body, muscles like taut steel coils. She knew he’d hurt himself when he broke the door down and she chalked it up to pain at first, but it was more than that. He was restless, angry.
Nell lightly touched her shoulder. “Give me a second.”
She rose from the futon, drifted over to Tyler, and took his arm. They conversed in low whispers. Then they stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, muffling the rest of their conversation under the mechanical drone of the fan. Seelie didn’t eavesdrop. She focused on the pictures, going from cover to cover, name to name, hunting for a match.
The work kept her anxiety at bay. Her suspicion that Tyler was mad at her, that she’d done something wrong, said something stupid. They probably don’t even want you here, her brain told her. You’re a third wheel, like usual. You don’t belong here. Or anywhere else.
By the time Nell and Tyler emerged, Tyler looking a little less pinch-faced, Nell’s expression carefully neutral, Seelie had found something they could use. She held up the Polaroid by its white plastic frame, showing off a fat softcover that looked like the driest of college textbooks. An ivory chess knight over a decorative diagonal grid, beneath the title: Gabbard’s Fundamentals of Chess, Volume Two.
“Arthur’s copy was in his office,” Seelie said. “It was one of the books I snagged off his shelf and buried at the bottom of his filing cabinet. Good chance Rime didn’t even see it.”
“Did he play chess?” Nell asked.
“Never mentioned it to me, and he didn’t have a chessboard at his condo. One other thing tells me this could be the codebook.” Seelie pointed to the subtitle. “How many people buy part two of a series when they don’t own a copy of part one?”
Tyler took the Polaroid. Then he checked the time.
“Nice work,” he said. “Okay, it’s not too late. I know a good bookstore a couple of blocks from here and they should still be open. I’m going to run down there and try to scare up a copy for ourselves. We’re going to crack this code. And we need food. Nell? Chinese?”
“That place on Myrtle?”
“You call it in. I’ll pick it up on my way back. Seelie, you good with Chinese?”
Her stomach grumbled an answer. She was shaky in the aftermath of adrenaline, all of the excitement and terror draining away to leave a hungry, empty void behind.
“Yeah. Chinese is fine.”
“Careful,” Nell told him. “If I remember right, there’s an ATM one door down. Left-hand side.”
Cameras. Any time they showed their faces in public, they were running the risk of being tracked by the Loom. After what they’d done tonight, it would be hunting for them. And so would Dieter Rime.
“Trust me,” he said.
She winked. “That’s my line.”
He headed out. Nell pulled up a menu on her phone. Black letters on beige, lines of alphanumeric dishes mixed with stock photos of Chinese cuisine.
“It might not look like it, but this place is really good. The Great Wall has fueled many, many of our late-night research binges. That, and coffee. Shit. This place doesn’t even have a coffeemaker, does it?”