At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(41)

That last almost made Evan smile. Almost. Although he’d read everything on the board from top to bottom, he wasn’t really processing any of it. Reading whatever was available—and determinedly flushing much of it before it cluttered up his short-term memory—was a habit going all the way back to a childhood spent waiting in spas and nail salons while his mother had her own natural beauty polished to a jewellike elegance. And later in private hospital rooms, when she decided that beauty could only take a woman so far and what she really needed was medication and a rest. For most of those visits, Evan had been left home with the nanny. But on those occasions when Anna was on vacation or had taken a rare sick day, his mother had no choice but to bundle up her misshapen son and parade him out into the world.

It had been miserable for both of them.

Evan’s eyes slid past the note about paying for coffee and turned his mind to Old English poetry and what he’d pulled up from memory earlier that day.

After Addie had dropped him back off at his car, he’d gone home to shower and change. Then he’d spent rather a long time standing in front of the immense window that overlooked the garden. There, with the clock ticking softly behind him and light falling on the floor at his feet, he’d opened the door to his memory palace. The imaginary residence where, years ago, he’d stored what he’d learned about the Old English poems in the hope of later recall. Memory palaces had been quite the thing among his fellow students at Oxford, and Evan had excelled.

That afternoon, as he’d wandered past mental images of iron breastplates and the battle spears of long-dead Vikings, he’d remembered the lines of poetry that feted old warriors and bemoaned lost travelers.

The killer knew about these things. Evan was sure.

He turned and blinked as Addie appeared in the doorway and plowed straight for him with long strides that made him forget all about Viking warriors and ancient rhymes.

She opened her mouth, and Evan held up a hand.

“Please don’t tell me that my performance in there was less than stellar,” he said.

She sighed. “It was definitely . . . nuanced.”

Patrick appeared behind her.

“So you really think Rhinehart is way off base?” she asked Evan. “Some of what he said made sense. That bit about the military. And the occult stuff.”

“They’re wonderful theories,” Evan said. “They might even be right. But they’re built on a house of cards.”

Patrick frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Merely that I’m lukewarm on Mr. Rhinehart’s interpretation of the runes. You have to go through multiple processes when converting runes to another alphabet. First transliteration, then transcription, and finally translation. It’s possible at any stage to unwittingly deviate from the author’s intention.”

Patrick seemed to be making a mighty struggle not to look confused. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

“You were not,” Addie said. She was riffling through her purse for something. “Evan is being deliberately difficult. You guys up for McLeary’s?”

Evan glanced at his watch. “Sure. We can discuss the case there, if you like. Just as long as I’m home before my student arrives for her music lesson.”

“Before we talk about runes and whatnot, I gotta get at least one beer in me,” Patrick said. “No offense, Professor, but you kind of give me a headache.”

“None taken. I don’t think.”

“My head feels like it’s been packed with more stuff than my wife takes on an overnight trip. Two suitcases, she says she needs. For one night. Plus a carry-on.”

Addie’s phone appeared in her hand. It was buzzing. “’Scuse me.”

She turned her back and walked away. Patrick and Evan stared at each other.

Patrick unknotted his tie and stuffed it in a pocket like a man reprieved of a hanging. “There goes our dinner.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s gotta be Clayton L. Hamden,” Patrick said, raising his voice to mimic a woman’s falsetto. “Famous attorney and pretty boy.” He lowered his voice to its normal register. “Anyone else, she’d ignore it or put it on speakerphone. Addie’s not much on filters. ’Cept when it comes to whoever her latest fling is.”

“True,” Evan agreed. He distracted himself from thoughts of the tall and manly Clayton by rereading the handwritten note on the board about the coffee. Now that he looked at it again, he saw that the writer had misspelled the word great, meaning wonderful, as grate, as in to reduce something to small shreds. Grate was of Germanic origin, related to the German kratzen, meaning to scratch.

Sometimes his mind would not shut up.

At the other end of the hallway, Addie laughed. It sounded like holiday bells.

To reduce something to small shreds, Evan thought. Like my ego.

“I wish she’d find a really good guy,” Patrick said. “Someone stable and calm. And smart.”

And tall. It hadn’t slipped past Evan that Addie liked them big. Out loud he said, “I’ve had the same thought.”

“Maybe there’s some university professor you could set her up with. I mean, she’ll listen to you, right? You two being so close.”

Evan gave Patrick a look, and Patrick spread his hands.

“Right,” he said. “When do women ever listen to us?”