End of Secrets by Ryan Quinn Page A

nothing alike in medium or size, but they did possess an unmistakable singularity, a bold and fearless quality that went beyond what most graffiti artists did to texture the city. This case had challenged Ker a’s instincts almost constantly, but on this account they felt solid: the nine installations had been created by a single mind.
    “It,” she said, shaking her head.

    Kera left Jones in the Control Room and went back to her office, where she stood for a few minutes studying the note cards on the wall. The y’d been hanging there for a few days, and now when she looked at them, she realized that they had become too familiar. Sh e’d originally arranged them chronologically by date of disappearance, and that perspective had gone stale. She needed to look at them in a different way. She took down all the cards and thought about ways to reorder them. She started with age—Rowena Pete, at twenty-eight, was the youngest; Cole Emerson was the oldest at thirty-four. But what did that tell her? Next she thought about the ways they had disappeared. All could have been described as staged suicides, though Emerson, the filmmaker, and Shea, the novelist, could have been categorized as boating accidents. But she did n’t think there was anything accidental about any of their disappearances.
    The last criteria sh e’d written onto the cards referred to the subject s’ occupations or otherwise notable hobbies. This was the one area where there was a clear separation: three artists and a lawyer.

TEN
     
    The law offices of Milton & Booth sat in a cozy five-room suite on the seventh floor of an aging building on lower Broadway. Most of the walls were obscured by file cabinets, bookshelves, and other relics of the declining printed-word era. Any free wall space was jammed with framed plaques and law school diplomas.
    When Kera was led by a secretary into the corner office, Raymond Booth was behind his cherrywood desk, frowning at the file his paralegal had created for their appointment. Booth was a presence, a human backstop of broad shoulders topped off with a head that seemed a scale or two larger than the rest. The temples of his eyeglasses disappeared into bushy gray hair on their reach for his ears.
    “I understand you made an appointment with me, Ms. Mersal, but I do n’t see any of your paperwork. No matter, we can address that later.” He was kind, almost jovial. “What can I do for you?”
    Kera introduced herself as a journalist from the Global Report . Booth glanced again at the file, understanding now why it was empty. This did not dampen the warmth of his smile.
    “Unless yo u’r e here for legal advice, I’m afraid I wo n’t be of much help to you. I do n’t talk to the press about my clients. I’m sure you understand.”
    “ I’m not here about any of your clients. I wanted to ask you a few questions about Caroline Mullen.”
    “Caroline,” Booth said. His sadness was real, even touching, though appropriate for a colleague. “Yo u’r e doing a story about her?”
    “Perhaps. She was an associate here?”
    “Tha t’s right.”
    “What was she like?”
    “She was first-rate,” he said without hesitation. “We lucked out with her. She was a class above us, I’m not ashamed to say. We never get associates of her caliber.”
    “What did she do around here?”
    “Nearly everything. W e’r e a small firm, as you can see. She wore more hats than anyone, and if she complained, she did it the right way—behind my back.”
    “You specialize in estate law?”
    “Yes.”
    “Which means what?”
    “Families today are as unique as ever. We help couples, married and otherwise, structure their investments, their property, their taxes and wills so that they can grow and protect their wealth over the course of their lives and beyond.”
    “Do you remember what Caroline was working on when she disappeared?”
    “I remember exactly what it was because as soon as she was gone, it nearly ruined us trying