Pages fall off the calendar, too slow even with twelve hours blocked from him. Daniel is looking into buying a house. Daniel is looking into Armand's financier's post address in Manhattan. The latter is easier than the former, in this economy.
The letter he leaves is short. He's careful about his handwriting, which has been accused of being barely-legible; he wants to be clear, while he's being deliberately obscure for the sake of just-in-case privacy.
I remember, and you know I remember. It can't start from there again.
Included is a small stapled-together booklet of poetry picked up from a Midwest university event he drove through on the scene route. Multicolored, photocopied badly, folded in half. College students of a campus of no particular prestige expressing flippancy and fear about the pandemic, about politics, about their families in Ukraine and Sudan and Yemen. They laugh at death. One writer details the last text messages she exchanged with a closeted lesbian waiting to be evacuated, lamenting she will never see the end of her favorite TV show, and probably not get into heaven.
There's no way it reaches Armand before the motel clerk meets her end. But who knows how long it will take after. Daniel hears about it, though certainly not as quickly as Armand hears about things— his sources, or his ability to sift precise information from the global spiderweb of minds, Daniel can't yet fathom. He gets emails from one of his researchers (they stuck with him when his editors bailed, but of course they did, he can pay even better now) about it, having sifted through deranged fanmail to find mentions of it. Just a few days ago. Vampire conspiracies abound already.
Well. It's a fucking motel. Can't hurt, right?
Incorrect.
If Armand is there, he has no idea, because the FBI is there. And a heavy-browed agent with shiny shoes and a band of pale skin that betrays a recent divorce is quicker than Daniel expects. They are so, so curious why a writer in a famous, public spiral into insanity over vampires is here lurking around the vampire murder scene in Connecticut. At least he can be almost honest, as he chats with two agents in a shitty diner near the motel, and has his assistant arrange for them to view the emails he received about the murder. He tells them he became worried it was related to people being 'incorrectly excited' about his book, given the volume of mail he receives.
Just an old man having a financially profitable breakdown, and feeling a little bad about some aspects. He is going to kill Armand, he decides. Not for all the murders. For this interaction. Oh my fucking god. He wants to extricate himself and tell them to talk to his lawyer, but he also really, really, really does not want to end up trailed by the fucking Feds.
no subject
The letter he leaves is short. He's careful about his handwriting, which has been accused of being barely-legible; he wants to be clear, while he's being deliberately obscure for the sake of just-in-case privacy.
There's no way it reaches Armand before the motel clerk meets her end. But who knows how long it will take after. Daniel hears about it, though certainly not as quickly as Armand hears about things— his sources, or his ability to sift precise information from the global spiderweb of minds, Daniel can't yet fathom. He gets emails from one of his researchers (they stuck with him when his editors bailed, but of course they did, he can pay even better now) about it, having sifted through deranged fanmail to find mentions of it. Just a few days ago. Vampire conspiracies abound already.
Well. It's a fucking motel. Can't hurt, right?
Incorrect.
If Armand is there, he has no idea, because the FBI is there. And a heavy-browed agent with shiny shoes and a band of pale skin that betrays a recent divorce is quicker than Daniel expects. They are so, so curious why a writer in a famous, public spiral into insanity over vampires is here lurking around the vampire murder scene in Connecticut. At least he can be almost honest, as he chats with two agents in a shitty diner near the motel, and has his assistant arrange for them to view the emails he received about the murder. He tells them he became worried it was related to people being 'incorrectly excited' about his book, given the volume of mail he receives.
Just an old man having a financially profitable breakdown, and feeling a little bad about some aspects. He is going to kill Armand, he decides. Not for all the murders. For this interaction. Oh my fucking god. He wants to extricate himself and tell them to talk to his lawyer, but he also really, really, really does not want to end up trailed by the fucking Feds.