Night Film(108)

Nora rushed forward, gently capturing the bird. He was alive but trembling violently.

“Was the oven on?” she asked Hopper.

“No.”

As she tended to the bird, Hopper looked meaningfully at me.

He was thinking what I was. This was no act of clemency. It was a threat. Sparing the bird sent a clear message: They were in control. They wanted to toy with the bird, play with it, petrify the fragile thing a little longer. But if they’d wanted to, they could have killed it.

And so the same was true for us.





76


We spent the next few hours cleaning up my office, while a locksmith replaced the bolt on the front door. Everything about Ashley and Cordova had been taken, with a few exceptions—my old Crowthorpe Falls notes, Iona’s Bachelor Party Entertainment business card. We found these items under the couch, which suggested that my study had been trashed first, then scoured for information on the Cordovas.

In another stroke of luck, they’d left behind Ashley’s coat—we found it still crammed into the Whole Foods bag behind the door, probably assumed to be garbage. We also found Sharon Falcone’s police file. Two days ago, Nora had taken it upstairs to review before bed. It was still on her bedside table—a sign the intruders had never made it upstairs.

I kept thinking about Olivia Endicott. It was certainly convenient that while we were uptown listening to her, the intruders had unmitigated access to my apartment. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d misread her. Had she been in on the whole thing from the start and tipped them off to the appointment? Why? What motivation did Olivia have to protect Cordova?

There was also an unsettling symmetry to what had happened. We were following Ashley’s footsteps; Theo Cordova had followed ours. Hopper broke into their home last night; today, they broke into mine. Searching for the man on the pier, I’d only encountered myself, my business card. Were they genuinely threatened by what we were doing? Or were they treating it as a game, mirroring our actions, boomeranging them back onto us, one violation of the Cordovas’ privacy resulting in one of mine, one invasion for another?

I didn’t know what any of it meant, but at least one thing Olivia had said seemed about right: The space around Cordova distorts … the speed of light slackens, information gets scrambled, rational minds grow illogical, hysterical.

I went upstairs and took a shower, gave Hopper some towels so he could, too. I was planning to order some Chinese food and then quiz him about the townhouse—he’d briefly mentioned he hadn’t seen very much before he was caught. I left Nora monitoring Septimus and retreated to my bedroom to clean out the old safe in my closet. I hadn’t used it in years, but going forward, all notes and evidence would have to be locked inside.

I was clearing out some old redacted files when there was a knock behind me.

Nora was in the doorway, her face ashen.

“What’s the matter? Is it Septimus?”

She shook her head, beckoning me to follow her.

She’d put on deafening music in the living room, the volume turned up so loud it drowned out our footsteps. She crept to the very end of the hallway, pointing at the bathroom door—open just a crack.

Hopper was inside, the faucet running. I wasn’t in the habit of spying on men in bathrooms, but she animatedly gestured that I take a look.

I leaned forward. Hopper was at the sink, brushing his teeth, a towel around his waist.

And then I saw it.





77


“What’s going on?” asked Hopper, stepping into the living room.

“Have a seat,” I said. “We’re going to have a little chat.”

“Right. The townhouse.”

“Not the townhouse,” said Nora crossly. “The tattoo on your foot.”

He froze, astonished. “What?”

“Ashley’s kirin,” she said. “You have the other half.”

He eyed the door.

“Hopper, we saw it. You lied to us.”

He glared at her, then suddenly darted for the doorway, but I was ready. I grabbed him by the back of his T-shirt and shoved him hard into a club chair.

“That tattoo on your f*cking ankle. Start talking.”

He appeared to be too shocked to speak, or else was trying to think up another excuse. After a minute, Nora rose and poured him a glass of scotch.

“Thanks,” he muttered sullenly. He took a sip, staring into the glass. “To know her and then not,” he said, his voice low, “is like serving a life sentence. You see everything at a distance, through thick glass and telephones and visiting hours. Nothing tastes like anything. Bars everywhere you look.” He smiled softly. “You can never get out.”

He raised his head, gazing at us intently, as if remembering we were there. He actually looked relieved.

And just like that, he began to tell us all about her as the rain beat the windows like an army trying to get in.





78


“I didn’t lie to you,” Hopper said. “Six Silver Lakes was how I met Ashley. And it was true, that bet we made. She did blow me off. And that incident with that kid everyone made fun of. Orlando. When he took the ecstasy and Ash took the blame for all of us. That happened, okay? What I didn’t tell you was I’d been planning to break the hell out.”