“Bishop?”
“Father taught me to approach every situation with a well-thought-out plan. By sixteen I had multiple fake IDs. It’s easy to get your hands on them when you’re in the foster care system. I met my share of criminals in training from the moment I set foot in my first group home. I stayed clean though; I avoided the fights and the drugs. I focused on one thing—I eventually got a job working for Talbot. I was patient. Started as an intern and worked my way up. I was always good with computers, a gift I guess. It didn’t take me long to work my way into the IT department. I traced Simon Carter’s steps. He made it easy. All the files he stole? He backed up copies on their own servers. Left it right under their noses under the names of bogus clients. Within two years, I had everything he had put together and more. Mr. Carter had amassed information on dozens of criminals throughout the city, dating back nearly twenty years. Not only did he have detailed records of their crimes, but he also had accounting records for nearly every dollar exchanging hands. These were bad people, Sam. Everything from gambling to sex slavery. All of them connected, all of them working together, this underground of evil breathing like a living being. I spent my days working for Talbot and my nights piecing all of this together.”
“You were living on your own at sixteen?”
“I lived in a vacant tenement on the West Side. I shared the apartment with five other kids I had gotten to know in the foster system. Anything was better than the group homes. Don’t interrupt me, Sam. It’s rude.”
“Sorry.”
Bishop continued. “All of those criminals tied together like a spider web, every one, and there was one man at the center, one man with his hand in all of it.”
“Talbot.”
“Kirby’s partner may have pulled the trigger on my father, but all of those people were standing behind that gun,” Bishop said solemnly. “Talbot most of all.”
“How many have you killed?” Porter asked, nearly out of breath as he rounded the corner on the ninth floor.
“I’m not so pure anymore, Sam. But I did what needed to be done.”
“You killed innocents.”
“Nobody is innocent.”
“Let me talk to Emory,” Porter asked again.
Tenth floor.
“Hey, you want to hear something funny?”
“Sure.”
A scream erupted from both above and the tiny speaker in Porter’s hand—a bloodcurdling scream of pain so jagged, he felt the ache under his own skin.
“Better hurry, Sam. Chop chop.”
89
Clair
Day 2 ? 5:34 p.m.
The door was locked.
Nash twisted the knob again as if expecting a different result, then turned in frustration.
Clair pressed her ear against the door.
Nothing.
Nash motioned for her to step back and leaned in, holding up three fingers.
Clair understood.
She knelt down and pointed her gun toward the door, elbows locked.
Nash lowered one finger, then the other. On three, he slammed the weight of his body into the door and nearly tumbled into the room as the frame gave way with a defiant crack.
Still crouched, Clair swept the space, gun at the ready.
A large four-poster bed stood at the back of the room, positioned under an elaborate tray ceiling. To the left she spotted a small sitting area with book-lined shelves and a desk with a large couch separating the space from the rest of the room. A fireplace sputtered in the corner of the sitting area. On the far end of the master, another hallway led around a corner.
Nash moved cautiously and Clair followed.
A woman lay on the floor beside the couch, bound and gagged like the housekeeper downstairs.
Nash went straight for the walk-in closet on the far right, swatting clothes, making sure it was empty. Clair went on and turned the corner. She found herself standing in a large bathroom of white marble. The elaborate space offered no place to hide; the shower was encased in glass and clearly empty. A linen closet stood on the left, lined with thick towels and enough bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and cleaning supplies to stock a small hotel. Nobody hid in there.
She returned to the bedroom to find Nash checking beneath the bed.
Clair knelt down beside the woman and removed her gag. “Is he still here?”
“I . . . I don’t think so,” the woman said, her voice shaky. “Oh God, I think he took Arty!” She thrashed frantically now, trying to force her body into a sitting position. Nash helped her up, untied her, and eased her into an overstuffed chair beside the bed.
“What about your daughter?” Nash said.
“Carnegie won’t be home until . . .” She craned her neck back toward the fireplace in the far corner where a small mantel clock ticked away the minutes. “What time is it? It’s dark. I can’t make it out.”
“About five thirty.”
“After five?”
A siren cried out in the distance.
Clair stepped over to the large window beside the bed and pulled back the curtain. She couldn’t see anything. “Ma’am, how long ago did he leave?”
Nash had untied her hands, and she rubbed at her temples. “Arty came home at a little after two to change for a meeting. He got here right after that. Ten minutes later at the most.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly—it all happened so fast. I was over there on the couch reading, and someone knocked at the bedroom door. I figured it was Miranda. Arty said he’d get it. I heard a loud bang a second later, and when I stood to figure out what was going on, this man came rushing in. He barreled into me and shoved me down onto the couch. I think I hit my head because I blacked out for a second. When I came to, my hands were tied and he was working at my feet. I screamed and he just smiled at me. He actually apologized for intruding on my afternoon, said that he simply must have a word or two with my husband. Then he tied the gag over my mouth. I saw Arty lying right over there”—she gestured toward the hallway—“he was moving but not very fast. I think he was trying to stand up. The man went back to him and stuck him with a needle in the neck, some kind of narcotic, because Arty was out after that. Then he came back to me, apologized again, and jabbed a needle in my arm. I blacked out again, and when I woke, most of the fire had burned down, so I must have been out for a while. Then the two of you got here.”
Clair loaded a photo of Bishop onto her phone and held it out to the woman. “Is this him?”
She nodded. “Is he going to hurt Arty?”
Nash located the light switch and flicked it on. He wished he hadn’t.
Scrawled across the bedroom wall in blood were the words DO NO EVIL.
90
Porter
Day 2 ? 5:40 p.m.
When Porter reached the eleventh floor, he tasted a sinking rot in his gullet. Scrawled across the door in fresh blood dripping down the faded green paint were the words SPEAK NO EVIL. Discarded in the dust at his feet were a human tongue and a pair of bloody pliers.