Page 58 of King’s Ransom

He opened the thick volume . . .

. . . to reveal that The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes had been hollowed out.

A rectangular void had been cut into its pages.

There were two things in that void.

A yellow Post-It note and a single pink pill.

Garrett extracted the Post-It and the pill.

‘What’s the note say?’ Hooper asked.

Garrett held it up for us all to see.

YOU WILL FIND MR KING

WITH MORE WORMS,

BETWEEN CARNEGIE AND CHRYSLER

‘Another riddle,’ Hooper growled. ‘He’s still fucking with us.’

I was staring at the pink pill.

‘Does that pill have any identifiers on it?’

Garrett handed it to me.

The pink pill had ‘5401’ imprinted on one side and ‘AMB5’ on the other.

‘It’s Ambien,’ Audrey said. ‘A sleeping pill.’

The Tech Detect checked online. ‘You’re right. The identifiers for a regular five-milligram pill of Ambien are: pink in colour, with “5401” on one side and “AMB5” on the other.’

‘So, what’s it mean?’ Director Longmuir asked. ‘Has he been using Ambien to knock out all his victims?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Ambien would take too long to take effect. And Winnie Tan said she was injected with something. No, he’s using something else. Some kind of drug that acts faster and which fully knocks out the victims.’

‘For the victims here, maybe,’ Hooper said. ‘But the kidnapper might’ve used Ambien on King, and right now, King is presum­ably at this location between Carnegie and Chrysler, whatever that is.’

‘“You’ll find him with more worms, between Carnegie and Chrysler” . . .’ Xiao read the Post-It aloud. ‘Carnegie Hall is only two blocks from here on 57th Street. And the Chrysler Building is down on 42nd. Is there somewhere in between the two of them that fits the reference to more worms . . .?’

A few of us brought up Google Maps on our phones.

Heidi said, ‘The Museum of Modern Art is between Carnegie Hall and the Chrysler Building. Maybe they’re having some kind of trendy art installation about worms . . .’

‘No! I think I got it!’ the Tech Detect said loudly. ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s also between Carnegie Hall and the Chrysler Building and right now, wait for it, it’s showing an exhibit of relics from Worms Cathedral in Germany.’

‘That’s it. Let’s hustle, people.’ Special Agent Hooper was already hurrying out of the bedroom.

Once again, I remained where I was, thinking.

Heidi and Bill, seeing me not move, remained at my side.

Audrey and Merritt Garrett had also started leaving with the others but when they saw me stay in the bedroom, they both paused in the short hallway leading out of it.

Up ahead of them, Special Agent Hooper saw us and stalked back.