They left their stained clothing on the floor for Amira, whom Jon texted about cleaning up the scene and gleaning any further evidence from it. He also asked her to check Gunther and Carter’s bank and credit accounts for anything suspicious, because he saw on his phone that Carter had sent him a text giving permission to do so.
While he was sending these instructions to Amira, another message came through, this time from Mallory. It said:
I got a new list from my GS contact, and took a picture of it like you said. You’ll have to come here to The Office to see it, though, I don’t want to send it. And come alone.
And then another one from her:
You won’t believe whose name is on it.
18
“You need to go back to the Flatiron,” Jon told Halladay when they were in the car. “Work with Amira on that map of the underground and any chaos crimes video she can get access to. Now that we know our witness was right about Shinsky knifing people in the crowd, and we also know he’s been moving around in the underground, we can piece together how many of the deaths could have been caused by him or his buddy from the office building.”
“Where will you be?” the older cop said.
“Drop me off at The Office, so I can talk to Mallory a little. I’ll walk to the Flatiron when I’m done.”
“Without me?” Halladay said with raised eyebrows. “Is there an apartment behind that bar or something?”
Jon let that ride, because Mallory hadn’t wanted Halladay to be there, so she probably didn’t want the big Scot to know why Jon himself was going.
“You wanna tell me finally,” Halladay said after a while, “why all the focus on Render and Gotham Security? I’m figuring you had some information you didn’t share with me, and that’s how you knew what direction you were going in from the start.”
“The Mayor told me something when she hired me,” Jon said, ready for Halladay to be all in—or mostly in, at least. “She told me that Render was behind the crimes, sowing panic so that he could win the referendum vote on Tuesday. She said she knew that the two professors at NYU were on his payroll, though she couldn’t prove it. She wanted me to get the evidence to expose Render before the vote, and stop the killings before Dayfall so that people could feel safe without him.”
“Ahhh,” Halladay said. “Why didn’t the King just give me the info she had? She knows I like her, and she knows I don’t like Darth Render.”
“That’s why. She needed an outsider who could be believed, not someone who owes something to either side.”
Halladay thought for a moment, then said, “But now you’re having second thoughts…”
“Why do you say that?”
“You called him ‘sir.’”
“I was surprised that Shinsky was still there, that Render didn’t warn him off. But I’m sure there’s an explanation for that—the evidence all still points to GS. The Mayor hadn’t even thought about the underground transportation angle, which I bet you’ll find is something that ties the Dayfall murders and the chaos crimes together.”
“Makes sense to me,” Halladay said, then both men sat in silence for the last few minutes of the ride, until Jon got out at The Office and the older cop continued toward MPD headquarters a couple of blocks away.
Jon felt a surge of adrenaline as he entered the bar, knowing he was about to get some new information for the case, but also because he was going to see Mallory again. He felt even more exhilarated when those ice-blue eyes looked up at him, her full lips smiling at him, the dark wisps of hair on her forehead moving as she gestured for him to meet her in the back room. She opened the door ahead of him, and pressed against him in an embrace once they were both inside. He kissed her tenderly, forgetting completely for a few moments about the case and the threat of a coming apocalypse.
As he hugged her tighter, he moved his face to the left to nuzzle her neck, and as he did his eye was caught by the top of her one small tattoo, peeking out from beneath her shirt collar just below her right shoulder. Jon moved the edge of the shirt down with his hand so he could see the small green-and-black figure of a four-leaf clover—except it was only half of one.
“I like your ink,” he said as he studied the unusual shape. “It’s… different.”
“I went to get it when I was a teenager,” she said. “Felt pressured by my friends, and then I didn’t like some of the stuff the guy was saying when he was working on me. So I got up and left in the middle.”
“Why didn’t you ever have it finished?”
“I don’t know,” she said pensively. “I guess I like that’s it unique, and kinda represents how broken and incomplete I’ve always felt.” She seemed on the verge of tears, but then a thin smile creased her lips. “Except for with Tom…. He said that when he looked at it he saw the whole thing.”
John looked harder at the two leaves of the green-and-black clover and tried to imagine it with four, but it remained half-finished to his eyes.
“I wish I could,” he said softly, and then into her ear: “But I like it.”
“I like your beauty spots, too,” she said, putting her hand up to the wound under his chin and gently touching it with her finger. It must have been visible to her because he had been craning his head to study the tattoo.
“So you really meant that?” he asked, snapping upright again and looking into her eyes. “When you said it before?”
“I did,” she said.
Jon pulled away from her slightly, smiling, and asked about the picture of the list. She pulled out her phone and found it, holding it out for him to see. He didn’t even have to expand the view, because there were only three items on the list. The second was “Bear,” the last was “Whoever you can at Dayfall,” and the first item on the list was “Detective Jon Phillips.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Did you pass this on?”
“Yes, the recipient usually comes in right after. But I took the picture first like you asked.” She smiled broadly, then added, “You’re in some kind of danger, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, but… you’re happy about that?”
“I’m happy that I can prove to you that Gotham is the good guys.” She pointed at the phone. “See, you’re on their protection list. You must have talked to Gar Render like you said you were going to, and he wants to keep you safe. Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah…” Jon said, thinking about how it did seem to fit together. Apparently this list arrived sometime after he had talked to Render about the perp using the underground, and maybe even after they’d been attacked by Shinsky.
Jon’s phone buzzed and he paused to read a text message from Amira. Her first perusal of the NYU professors’ accounts didn’t yield any connection with Gotham Security, but there was a recent $10,000 deposit in one of Dr. Carter’s accounts that she was able to trace back to the Mayor’s office. John texted back to her, “The Mayor? Are you sure?” and she answered “Yes, don’t know what that means, though.”
Jon was starting to think he knew what that meant, and he turned back to Mallory.
“So you said that they use these lists to do police work without the police knowing,” he said, and she nodded. “Do you think they also might be protecting some of these people from the police?”