Page 118 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

It’s a very masculine stride.

She sits on the couch and looks down at me.

“Here’s what’s going to happen, Greg.”

And she spins quite the tale.

I’m supposed to play the role of enraged son, furious at my father. (Well, that’s hardly a stretch, though she’s speaking of someoneelse’sdad, of course.) I’m going to break into two more apartments and leave a particular newspaper page.

I ask, “You have anybody in mind for the break-in?”

“No.”

“And do I …” My eyes stray to the knife, and I feel a pleasing warmth in my gut.

She frowns and her voice is threatening. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t hurt a soul. The point is to send a message: that the newspaper you’re going to leave is full of lies and fucks with people.”

I nod.

Joanna looks at my latex gloves and hat and when she speaks she sounds like a stern schoolmarm once more, condescending. “How do you pick your victims?”

“From what they do online. Women, who live alone. I study their posts: locks, the doors, windows, alarms, that there’re no dogs, no weapons. It’s good if they drink—makes them sleep sounder. Even better if I can see a package of sleep aids or prescriptions.”

“So they’re random.” She seems pleased at my forethought. Then the stern façade returns: “You have to be very, very careful. Nothing you do can lead back to me.”

I nod. I’m beginning to see where this is headed. “So I stalk two.”

I think immediately of an influencer, Annabelle, whom I’ve had my eye on for some time. Who else? There’s a woman who sells toys from her Upper East Side apartment. Several others come to mind.

I ask Joanna, “And what do I do then?”

“That will be it. You’ll have finished your obligation. I’ll handle the rest.”

So she’ll kill the third victim herself, as if I did. I wonder who she’s planning to murder? A husband, a lover, a business rival, someone who insulted her prominent nose?

I think of Lady Macbeth.

And the other question: Who is she setting up to take the fall for that murder?

“I want you to generate press. I need a splash.” Joanna continues: “Come up with a name for yourself. Write it at the scene—no, I know, write it on the newspaper pages you’re going to leave.”

I think for a moment “What about ‘Key Man’?”

“No,” she mutters. “That’s a business term.”

Was it? I’d never heard of that.

“You’ll be the ‘Locksmith.’ It’ll mean something to my father.”

I don’t know what that’s in reference to but I like the name.

“And add the word ‘reckoning.’”

No reason for this is offered either, but since it’s her circus, I say, “Okay. Oh, how about if I write it in the victims’ lipstick?”

Thinking, as I just was, of influencers.

“Perfect. Now, evidence.”