“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod—”
Rebecca grabbed Adrienne by the shoulders, gazed intensely into her eyes. “Calm. Down.” Then, she glared at Darren. “What the fuck did you bring us into?”
Darren raised his head from inspecting the bloody portions of the man who once was, presumably, Mr. Muzzio. “I don’t know!” he whispered. “This was just about–”
“—about a book! Exactly! About a fucking—”
“Shh!”
Adrienne was shaking, her eyes darting, trying to find at least one thing that wasn’t slick with blood. The room didn’t have an answer for her. Even a drop, it was all over. Speckled against the curtain, pooling on one corner of the bedsheets, hardening against the fabric of Muzzio’s houndstooth blazer.
Darren drew a slip of paper from the blazer’s inside pocket, squinted at it, and held it up silently for Rebecca. When she wouldn’t take it, he turned to Kevin, who had his arms folded anxiously, pacing along one side of the room. “Will anyone take this fucking thing and look at it?”
Rebecca sighed, reaching across to grab it, unfolding it slowly into a long typewritten sheet. Dozens of lines of text starting from the top had been crossed out in neat black ruler-drawn lines of black and blue pen. Near the bottom of the list, between other blacked-out lines, were four untouched ones, made up of what looked like jumbles of numbers and letters separated by pilcrows in a way Rebecca imagined wasn’t random.
“What is it?” Adrienne’s voice choked. “What does it say?”
“Fuck if I know,” Rebecca replied, tossing it away. “Are you gonna be good?”
“No?!” She shook her head. “We’re in a crime scene in the middle of the night! Why would I be okay?”