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“Is there a picture?” Cindy asked

There was But the dead-in-a-plane-crash scientist Connor Grant didn’t look like anything like our Connor Grant I stared at the photo of the chief mourner, Williaht he looked more like our Connor Grant than the dead man

I googled Tilley’s name and four thousand William Willy Bill Billy Tilleys popped up

So where e? We had a collection of articles citing the violent, fiery deaths of several people who didn’t actually link up What did these people mean to Connor Grant?

Why did he collect stories of this type of tragedy?

Were they his victims?

We weren’t going to be able to chase down all these deaths tonight After six hours of dedicated hard work, we’d crossed off every last box, found se and certainly not a dirty bomb to drop on my enemy

“Thanks for the really good try,” I said

The girls said that they were sorry, and we hugged all around before cleaning up and leaving for home

I thought about Grant on the drive back to Lake Street Had we been looking for so that didn’t exist? Was Connor Grant exactly who he said he was—a high school teacher with a deep and far-reachingthat he had sca aith mass murder? Was Grant a mystery that would never be solved?

He still had me in the stocks with his IAB complaint, but as for what I had on him?

I still didn’t have even a clue

CHAPTER 89

THE MAN WHO was spending his last twenty-four hours as Connor Grant counted out his cash He had forty-five dollars in fives, eight singles, and soot on the plane

He had been staying inside his suite at the middle-of-theroad businessmen’s Travelers’ Inn for the last two days No one knehere he was—not his lawyer, not the cops, not the school He had wanted this little cushion of alone ti farewell to the City by the Bay