Page 117 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

Hurt them?

Of course she couldn’t do it. Impossible.

And yet …

Hadn’t dear Uncle Averell stolen the company from her father? Hadn’t he destroyed her career as a journalist?

Hadn’t he himself killed that young intern because he bought and buried the Charlotte Miller story, and because of other fake stories, paralyzed one of the leaders of the Apollos and killed a teacher and student in the Virginia satanic cult disaster?

Those were reasons, of course,justificationsfor the death of her uncle.

The bigger question she had to confront was: Could she take a life?

That question sat, rocking slowly within her, like the moored yacht she was looking at now, rising and falling in the gentle current of the Hudson River.

And suddenly she realized she could. The idea of killing was not horrifying or exhilarating; it sparked no emotion whatsoever.

She was utterly numb to the idea.

What had made her that way? she wondered briefly. But the anesthesia within her apparently extended to the motivation to ask that question.

And so she discarded it.

She now wasn’t asking “if” but “how?”

Joanna now sipped more smoky liquor and studied Greg, as she told herself: You’ve been given a gift. What are you going to do with it exactly?

It was almost a sign. Alockpicker. Joanna remembered sitting withher father, drunk and tearfully muttering, “My own brother … he’s locked me out of my own company. Locked me out and thrown away the key.”

The idea now slowly emerged. She thought of it as a headline:

ESTRANGED, RECLUSIVESONKILLSFATHER ANDSELF

It could play …

Kitt, the story would go, was never the same after his mother’s death. In his search for some career, he’d learned lock picking and, recently, snapped. He’d break into apartments and leave a page from theDaily Herald. Then a moment of inspiration: it would be page 3 from the 2/17 edition; 3/2/17.

The day Mary Whittaker had died.

Joanna smiled.

He would leave several of these calling cards, and then, a grand finale, kill his father and himself.

Would it work?

What of Martin? That was a non-query. He’d do whatever he was told, even be a party to murder.

What of timing?

Kitt was flighty. He’d disappear for days, weeks sometimes. They’d need to make sure he stayed put. She and Martin Kemp could kidnap him and stash him on their boat until the climactic final act of the tragedy.

Joanna’s palms began to sweat and her heart beat in excitement.

For ten minutes, she thought of refinements, removing some elements, adding others. It was as much fun as creating a Verum post about some presidential conspiracy.

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Iwatch Joanna walk back into the room.