The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [156]
Undeterred, Nico searched the branches (so many crosses), the bushes, the trunks of each tree. God brought him here. The Lord would provide. He squatted down on his knees, peering under shrubs, swishing his free hand through shallow puddles. There were dog prints and footprints under a few overhanging branches, but most of the ground was already too muddy to read.
Crawling through the flooded grass, Nico felt the mud seeping through the knees of his jeans. His heart plummeted. He didn’t understand. God was . . . God was supposed to provide. But as Nico frantically searched . . . as he continued to crawl like a dog, pawing through the mud—the proof . . . where Wes went . . . all of it was gone.
“Please—please stop raining,” Nico pleaded to the now-dark sky.
The drizzle continued, falling like a mist from above.
“Please . . . stop raining!” Nico exploded, throwing a fistful of mud and wet grass in the air.
The drizzle continued.
Down on all fours, Nico lowered his head, watching the rosary beads swaying from his neck. How could . . . ? Why would God bring him this far? As the rain ran down his face, Nico climbed to his feet and walked deliberately between the lampposts, back to the parking lot.
His head was still down as he approached the Pontiac. He clutched the rosary, trying to say a prayer, but nothing came out. He tried closing his eyes, but all he could picture was the mess of mud and grass and sticks that covered all tracks. His fist tightened around the rosary, pulling tighter, ever tighter. God promised. He . . . He swore to me—swore!—that the devil’s door would remain shut—that avenging my mother’s death would bring redemption. And now to just abandon me like—
With a sharp crack, the rosary necklace snapped, spilling dozens of wooden beads like marbles down on the asphalt of the parking lot.
“No . . . God—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry!” Nico begged hysterically, scrambling to pick them all up as they bounced, rolled, and scattered in every direction. Diving sideways as he scooped them against his chest, Nico lurched for a stray wooden bead like a five-year-old trying to catch a cricket. But it wasn’t until he skidded down on his already-wet knees . . . until the bead hopped, hopped, hopped, and rolled beneath the Pontiac . . . that Nico saw the mushy wet pamphlet stuck to the ground. Just in front of the right front tire.
From the look of it—the top half perfectly flat, the bottom half swollen and soggy from the rain—the pamphlet had already been run over. But even in the moonlight, even with the top half of it flaking away and pancaked from tire treads, Nico could still read the big red-lettered restaurant name at the top of the Chinese menu. And more important, the handwritten note at the bottom.
You need to know what else he did. 7 p.m. at Woodlawn. —Ron
Ron.
Nico read the name again. And again. The Beast.
Ron.
The letters blurred in front of him. Gently peeling the menu from the asphalt, he could barely stop his hands from trembling . . . trembling just like his mom’s head. Half the menu ripped away as he tugged. He didn’t care. Clutching the soggy remains to his chest, Nico looked up at the sky and kissed the fistful of loose rosary beads in his other hand.
“I understand, God. Wes and Boyle—the traitors—together. One final test . . . one last chapter,” Nico whispered to the sky. He began to pray. “I won’t fail you, Mom.”
93
The scratched metal door to the old apartment yawned open, and the stale smell of pipe tobacco swirled across Lisbeth’s face.
“The reporter, right?” asked a stubby, sixty-year-old man with brown-tinted glasses, a short-sleeve white button-down, and a pointy, crescent-moon chin. He looked no different than the last time she saw