Dark Revelations Read Free Page B

unsub was asking a question. No—it was more than that. He was daring them.
    Figure this out before I strike again.

     
    “Did you pull anything from the note?” Dark asked Banner.
    “Not a thing. And the in-house handwriting analyst kind of just laughed when she saw it. Pretty much a textbook example of how to write in the most nondistinctive way possible. Right down to the ink, which came from the most common pen in the known universe.”
    “Hidden messages?” Dark asked. “Any microdots?”
    It was unusual but possible. Microdots were secret messages compressed into a minuscule piece of typography—a comma, a period, the dot in the letter i . Cold War–era spies were fond of using microdots to smuggle sensitive material out from behind the Iron Curtain.
    “Not a thing,” Banner said. “We ran it through every test we have.”
    “So our unsub’s being literal,” Dark said. “He wants us to answer the riddle.”
    A WOMAN SHOOTS HER HUSBAND. THEN SHE HOLDS HIM UNDER WATER FOR OVER 5 MINUTES. FINALLY, SHE HANGS HIM. BUT 5 MINUTES L ATER THEY BOTH GO OUT AND ENJOY A WONDERFUL DINNER TOGETHER . HOW CAN THIS BE?
     
    “She’s a photographer,” Banner said; a sheepish look washed over his face. “I, uh, Googled it.”
    “Right,” Dark said. “She shot her husband with her camera, then she drowned the film in chemicals to develop it for five minutes, then hung it—like, in a darkroom. Then they go out and have dinner while it’s drying.”
    “I would have gotten it eventually,” Banner said.
    “Yeah, but it’s too easy to be the real puzzle,” Dark said. “Like you said, you can easily look up the answer online. The question is, what’s this riddle doing on LAPD stationery, packaged along with the nude sketch and the clock? Why the art? Is he threatening Bethany Millar? Is this some crude way of saying that her time is running out?”
    Banner’s eyes lit up. “Okay, hang on . . . here’s a weird thing for you,” he said. “When one of the bomb techs looked it over, he noticed that the alarm clock was set to go off in a little less than five hours.” Banner glanced at his rubber digital wristwatch. “Well, uh . . . make that forty-five minutes now.”
    “Shit, Banner—why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    “We kind of got sidetracked on the whole nude sketch thing, remember?”
    The clock was the most obvious message of all.
    Figure this out before I strike again . . .
    . . . in forty-five minutes.
    There was one person who might be able to tie it all together.
    Not Herbert Loeb. The artist had been dead since 1988, having famously overdosed in his Tribeca apartment. Dark needed to find Loeb’s secret model.
    Before the alarm went off.

chapter 5
     
    DARK
     

Hollywood Hills, California
     
    D ark parked his Mustang on a downward slope in an illegal, instant tow-away, no-questions-asked, fuck you have a nice day zone. You could say this much about people who lived in the Hollywood Hills: When it came to protecting their parking spaces, they meant it.
    But nobody would touch Dark’s car. That’s because Lisa Graysmith had given him a plastic hangtag that would grant him the parking equivalent of diplomatic immunity anywhere in North America. Much as Dark hated to admit it, the thing came in handy, especially in a perpetual traffic nightmare like L.A.
    Especially when you might be racing to save an old woman’s life.
    Dark had quickly dug up Bethany Millar’s home address and number and called it as he raced up the 101 toward the Hollywood Hills. There had been no answer; a machine picked up instead, and the voice on the digital recording sounded frail and confused. Still, Dark recognized it. You see someone on a screen and it’s as if you know them; your brain learns to recognize the way they look, act, and speak.
    Now he hoped Millar was still alive.
    Dark darted uphill, hopped a wrought-iron fence, then ran toward the house.

     
    An elderly woman answered the chipped-paint