I went home to pick up the memory card, but I was too keyed up to stay in my dungeon room, and too exhausted to hit the dojo. I ended up at my neighborhood library. It looked like a middle school, three stories of beige-brown brick with a pair of fancy glass cubes some bougie architect dreamed up later. QUEENS LIBRARY was spelled out in shiny metal letters over the entrance. It was only when you got inside that the QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ELMHURST sign was visible. It always sounded funny to me, like Elmhurst was a destination. My working-class neighborhood was best known for its horrifically high death rate in the pandemic.

Technically, you weren’t allowed to eat, but I’d learned you could quietly scarf down a protein bar just about anywhere. I decided to work my Ben Northcutt search harder. Reading about his work on a sleepless night had made him seem like a badass. Encountering him in the flesh made it clear he was a jackass. I had questions about Caro and her taste in men. She’d teased me about my aversion to relationships, but none of my hookups had tried to kill me or called me a criminal.

All I found was more of the same. Ben was a Big Deal in journalism, and aside from his career there was nothing interesting about him. As far as I could tell, he’d never been married and had no kids. Maybe he was a cipher, but he was a boring one.

After the clock ran out on my half-hour slot, I moved to a table and put the memory card in my laptop. All 1,702 photographs came up. But I opened the card’s settings and realized it was set to only show images. I changed it to show all files, and suddenly there were 1,798.

A shiver went down my spine.

That intense feeling lasted ten seconds, until I realized all the unseen files were spreadsheets. I skimmed each one, figuring a clue would jump out at me any second. Nothing did.

There was exactly one person I knew who loved spreadsheets. I texted Reagan, asking how late she was working.

Eight, she texted back. But no dojo tonight. Want to come over for dinner?

As a matter of fact, I did.

I had no other messages, not even from Snapp. I’d sent a text to T-Rex about Aubrey pouncing on me like a jackal, but there had only been radio silence. I didn’t mind being yelled at, but the quiet was unnerving.

At twenty to eight, I headed over to Reagan’s, stopping on the way for a bodega bouquet. Reagan and her mom lived in a cozy two-story house with gingerbread trim. It looked like it had popped out of a storybook. Mrs. Chen hugged me when I came in, and I didn’t even mind. It felt like home.