Page 33 of The Grave Artist

Inowcanadmittohopingthatyou, mygoddesses, caneverliveinpeace,amen.

Still nothing. Not words. But what about first letters of the indicated words? She jotted.

Fortunahygeia

She actually let out a whoop.

Fortuna and Hygeia were goddesses.

Theywere who he was referring to!

This had to be it.

Given the family tradition of his reading to the girls from the Greek and Roman pantheon, Roberto had found a way to leave a clue that only they would understand.

She felt a twist in her belly, of love and pain. It was as if her father were here in the room, smiling and offering the clues, seeing if she could figure them out.

I will, Dad, she thought.

And suddenly another emotion flooded through her.

Anger. Pure raw anger.

She turned to her computer and with a heavy touch on the keyboard began a search.

Chapter 18

According to the videos that Jake had hacked, Ms. Person of Interest was walking steadily north from the cemetery, head down, her features completely obscured by the hat, veil and sunglasses.

The red stripe on the heels was clear, though.

“Nice shoes,” Tandy offered.

The two men scrubbed through the tapes quickly. Ms. POI, captured on six of them, walked to the end of the block, then unfortunately vanished from view—no doorbell cams after that point and therefore no leads to cars she owned or Ubers she hailed.

But there might be other ways to find that information, of course, and they kept at it. The men started north in her direction, stopping passersby and asking if anyone had seen the woman in Jake’s video. Some individuals were helpful—eager, in fact. Others were: Oh sorry can’t help you good luck have a nice day.

But whatever category they fell into, none of the pedestrians could provide any information whatsoever about Ms. POI.

Still, they persisted. Police work, Jake had learned, was like writing computer code. Every line, everycharacterwas vital.

As the men walked along the street, continuing the canvass, Tandy asked, “You mentioned your specialty? You’re with I-squared, but not sworn law, right?”

“Have some past experience with LEOs,” Jake said, referring to the shorthand for law enforcement organization, or officer. He did not elaborate on what that experience was. Instead he mentioned his pen-testing business, then added that it was mostly to pay the bills. His real career involved the courses he taught and his public lectures about keeping safe from overreach.

“An ‘intrusionist,’” Tandy chuckled. “Is that a thing?”

“It is now.”

Jake added that you could analyze all of world history in terms of intrusion. “By my count, there’ve been five hundred and twelve major wars and twenty-two thousand significant battles. And each one is an intrusion. So is every criminal offense—either in its own right, like murder, or to facilitate another crime, say, breaking into a warehouse to steal TVs.”

“Pretty interesting. How’d you get into that line? If itisa line.”

“Just fell into it.”