It’s not that I couldn’t live without Calvin.
I could.
Ihad. For thirty-three years.
It was only… after he fit into that odd shape missing from my heart… I didn’twantto live without him.
I set my bag on the counter and methodically removed the contents: glasses case, laptop, keys, magnifying glass, extra sweater, skull. I emptied my pockets next. Phone and wallet. I stared at the items while absently unbuttoning my coat. I waited for something to jump out as a tool MacGyver would have used to save the day.
But nothing happened. I had lost every goddamn spoon to my name. I frowned and checked the bag’s front pocket. Ah. The rapidly written note of details from my call with Calvin.
God….Calvin.
I brought the note closer and studied my shitty penmanship.
Machinery.
Five to seven stories.
Exposed brick and broken wooden floors.
Humming.
Bumpy road.
“Bumpy,” I murmured.
And like that, the most inconsequential clue flipped a switch in the deepest recesses of my brain.
If Calvin had been hauled from Midtown to north Brooklyn, he absolutely would have been incapacitated. Otherwise, whoever had tried to abduct him would be dead. Because good luck to anyone who single-handedly tried to take Calvin down in a physical fight. But what did that mean? Logically, whatever drug had Calvin so out of it on the phone probably would have been administered pretty quickly in the vehicle. And yet, the road had been bumpy enough that Calvin was able to acknowledgeandretain that fact when he said he could remember nothing else.
So a really bad road? Like… potholes?
Or cobblestone.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted. I grabbed my phone off the counter and dialed Neil. “He’s in Vinegar Hill,” I said before he had a chance to fully answer the call.
“What? How do you know?”
“Calvin said the road had been bumpy and he could hear humming.Neil. Vinegar Hill is a declared Historical District. The surviving roads are made out of Belgian block.”
“But humming?” Neil asked, wary but on high alert.
“ConEd’s power plant,” I answered.
He swore. “Where are you?”
“The Emporium.”
“I’ll be there soon,” he said, abruptly hanging up.
I shoved a few things into my pockets, grabbed Cope, and jumped off the steps. I ran along the aisles toward the door, only skidding to a stop when I saw the signed mystery novel Beth had brought me yesterday, left on a table. I set the skull on a nearby display case and picked up the Miss Butterwith title. The old gal always got the bad guy in the end, with the help of her feline companion, Mr. Pinkerton, as well as Inspector Appleby.
I felt a smile tug the corner of my mouth as I considered me, Neil, and Quinn to be a similar band of musketeers. If a geriatric sleuth could save the day, then one with bad eyesight and a quicksilver tongue should be capable too, right? Of course, Miss Butterwith was fictional and I was real, but still.
I opened the book and stared at the signature. It wasn’t worth what Beth’s account balance was, not by a long shot. But I knew I’d let it slide. Because Christopher Holmes’s signature was priceless to me, even when comparing it to the original editions of Max Brödel’s medical illustrations Beth had snagged from my shelves a few weeks ago.
I looked at Cope and dropped the mystery book back on the table. “Medical illustrations.”
