Booker drank coffee, trying to sharpen his way through the painkiller-and-clonazepam fog. He squinted at his notebook. Robert Robertson Sr. had had a brother. Uncle Nick. (Why had he written ‘Uncle?’) In their teen years, Uncle Nick had gotten into trouble a few times. The charges and convictions, themselves, were sealed, but the arrest records remained. At some point in his twenties, Uncle Nick cooled off. Or seemed to.

Standing from the cluttered table, he walked into the kitchen and refilled the coffee mug. The floor and walls seemed to change dimension as he moved. Crossing a dizzy span of tile to the fridge, he fetched some creamer. Castellanos’ puzzle orb sat next to the murk-filled carafe. He studied it, its beads in tight orbit tracking narrow alleys carved along its surface.

clack-clack

“Do you think a person can practice something so much they become the thing itself?”

Castellanos racked columns and rows around a six-by-six puzzle cube.

“What are you talking about?” Booker asked, feeling all-at-once less dizzy.

“How many puzzles do you think I’ve solved? Hundreds? Thousands? I’ve put the hours in for sure. So at some point, do I become the Patron Saint of Puzzle Solving? The lwa of Rubick’s Cubes?”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” he answered.

She put her puzzle cube into an inside jacket pocket and no bulge appeared. “Maybe not. Anyway. What were you talking about?”

Booker crossed the short distance back to the table. “Looking back over all the case files, I was thinking…not long after Nick—”

“Uncle Nick,” Castellanos interrupted.

“Yeah. Not long after Uncle Nick cooled down, Robert Robertson Senior moved back to town and gave him a job. Whatever shit he got into before, he doesn’t seem into it, anymore.”

“Unless Bob-Bob was hiding it.”

Booker sipped from his mug. He didn’t remember pouring the creamer or stirring it, but he had. “Exactly. Oceanrest PD put Uncle Nick on the Slasher suspect list in 1980, not long before the whole series stopped. Aunt Dorothy—”

“Late-Aunt,” Castellanos chirped.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“So the late Aunt, she thought Uncle Nick was having an office affair. Bob Senior confirms this to the police and talks the late Aunt out of doing anything crazy. Then, not long after the killings stop, so does the alleged affair. Uncle Nick’s all very contrite and shit.”

“But Uncle Nick wasn’t having an affair, he was out murdering people,” Castellanos said.

“And I think Bob Senior knew that. Or at least suspected it.”

“But how did our guy get involved?”

“Bob-Bob’s-son?”

“Yeah.”

Booker sat across from Castellanos at the table. His handwriting swam on the opened page of his notebook. He squinted at it. Had more appeared while they’d been talking? He couldn’t tell; he couldn’t quite read it. “I don’t know, yet,” he admitted.

A faint disappointment plucked at the edges of Castellanos’ lips. “He was an object at rest. Something changed that.”

Booker snorted, half-amused. “Yeah. Gave him direction and ferocity.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Maybe something as stupid as some video Nick showed him, something he saw…like with Richard Ramirez and that shit cousin of his.”

clack-clack. Castellanos twisted the puzzle around in her hands. clack-clack.

Booker leaned over the documents, shuffling papers around. He remembered having read something pertinent at some point but had forgotten what. He sifted through background documents, reports, and scribbled notes. With breath held captured in his chest, he found what he sought. “Uncle Nick died not long before the lockdown. Our guy inherited.”

“Inherited what?” Castellanos asked.

“Everything, pretty much. House included.”

“Did we find anything antique when forensics went through his condo?”

“No.” Booker flipped through the slim report, finding Robert Robertson Junior’s known assets among the data collected. “He hasn’t sold the property, yet, either. He just doesn’t live in it.”

“Does he rent it out?”

“Dunno.” Booker scowled. Why would he keep the house?

“Why would he keep the house?” Castellanos wondered.

Another wave of dizziness crashed over Booker. His senses fogged, dulled by painkillers and anti-anxiety medication. He felt out of sorts. Standing from the table, he reached out for balance. “Al…”

“It’s okay, John,” she whispered in his ear, holding him. “You’re going to be—”

clack-clack. whrrr. clack.

Booker drifted awake, cheek-down on top of a spread of notes and reports. He’d fallen asleep at the kitchen table. Everything around him blurred. A faint but constant soreness roughed through him. Groaning, he reached out and fumbled for his glasses. Found them between empty coffee mugs. Put them on.

Castellanos’ puzzle orb rested between two boxes in front of him. Had it awoken him somehow? Had it made some kind of sound?

He stood with a grunt. Afternoon light hazed the living room behind him. In gym shorts and t-shirt, he stepped down into it. He retrieved his prescription painkillers from the coffee table and turned around to get a drink. Paused when he glanced his reflection in the flat void TV screen.

Did something move beneath that darkness?

He blinked, shivered. Stepped back into the dining room, the kitchen.

After taking the pills, he picked up his phone and called Virgil.