Rebekah delivered our sandwiches to our table, and once she’d left for the register again, I said, “Calvin, back to the Matchmaker. What do you know about him?”

“I can only tell you that you’ll need to be on your toes, my boy. The person you’re looking for is extremely dangerous. I’ve only heard rumors, but if they’re true, the Matchmaker operates out of the Bronx and coordinates what might be described as a suicide club.”

“Where did you hear these rumors, Calvin? I need to find him. He’s one of the cogs in this investigation, and I think if we locate him, we might be able to track down Blake.”

Calvin looked at me intensely, then said, “Let me do some digging this afternoon. I’ll see what I can find out for you. But you have to promise me, Patrick, that you will be sagacious as you move forward. From what I understand, this person has, in the past, convinced a blogger who located him to take his own life that very night. And that blogger was a good man.”

“You knew him?”

He was slow in replying. “We met shortly before his death.” Calvin checked the time and then stood brusquely. “I must go. I will be in touch with you soon. You have my word.”

He took his food to go and whisked out the door.

Calvin’s behavior left me scratching my head. Clearly, he knew more than he was saying, and I couldn’t guess why he hadn’t been more forthcoming about the Matchmaker, unless he was worried that what’d happened to that blogger might also happen to me.

I downed my coffee and finished my sandwich, and then, taking the copy of Vidocq with me, I returned to the Field Office to fill in the team on what I’d learned from my conversation with Calvin, which admittedly, wasn’t much.

I decided it might be prudent to look for recent suicides of bloggers, especially those who might’ve been posting stories on suicides, or on the Matchmaker himself.

45

Phoenix, Arizona

9:38 A.M. local time

The blast of air conditioning felt good on Jake Reese’s face as he entered through the front door of Plixon Pharmaceuticals’ office complex.

Not even ten o’clock yet, but the Phoenix day was already gearing up to be one for the record books.

Plixon’s parking lot had been full, forcing Jake to park on the street, which caused him to be even later getting into the building. And, of course, that meant he would need to feed the stupid meter within the next couple of hours or chance getting another ticket.

Just another thing to keep track of.

And right now, there were too many of those.

By the time he made it inside, he felt a ring of sweat soaking his collar just from hustling across the lot.