“Unlike We Silenced Nick Foley. You were definitely looking for that . . . You may not have wanted to see it, but you were looking for it. But I’m not asking you to look. I’m asking you to see.”

Reluctantly I turn to the picture again. The features of the man in the suit and the old man are indistinct, giving them a rather anonymous quality that adds to the sinister nature of the drawing.

It’s not until I note the briefcase being held by the man in the suit that things start to click. I hadn’t noted that detail before. I mean, I saw the briefcase, I just didn’t pay any attention to it. I didn’t note that it was textured, as if it was made out of crocodile skin or something.

There aren’t many people who have briefcases made of crocodile skin.

But Travis does.

I reach forward and put my finger on the old man. “Is that meant to be Edmund?”

Lander nods and smiles.

Again I look at the title of the drawing. Bite, Torture, Ruin.

Lander leans forward and writes out the letters individually. B. I. T. E. T. O. and so on until they stop looking like words and start looking like the puzzle fragments they are. And then, just like that, I see it. Without really thinking about it I pull the pencil from him and write the solution to the puzzle.

TRUE RETRIBUTION.

Lander delicately takes the pencil from me as I continue to stare at the picture.

“I’ve had a sense about you from the moment we met,” he says quietly. “I knew that there was more to you than meets the eye. You’re always so mysterious and there’s something seductively devious about you. But it wasn’t until you mentioned the name Talebi that I knew for sure that you had an agenda.”

“That name again,” I say quietly, my eyes still on the picture.

“A name that Travis could never have known. Talebi was one of the people I was thinking about hiring to help me expose my brother for what he is. He’s not involved in insider trading and corporate espionage, Bell. Or if he is, it’s not my primary concern.” Lander takes a moment to pause, and I know he’s doing it for effect, to try to draw me onto his side. “He’s using HGVB to launder money for Mexican drug cartels and Iranian officials. I’m pretty sure about this, and I think Nick knew too. I think he was going to say something and that’s why my family decided he had to go. I even have reason to believe that my brother enlisted members of the Russian mafia to pull off the hit, although I can’t prove it.”