by Tina Folsom
“Probably helps their stats too. Another murder case solved and off their desks.”
Fury rose in Kim. “Now there’ll never be justice.” Tears started welling up in her eyes. “I have to do something. I have to prove that the police are corrupt and that my mother’s murderer is still out there.”
“I agree. You can’t let them get away with that. Call Todd. He’ll know what to do.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Because of what you said to him this morning? Pfff!” Jennifer made a dismissive hand movement. “This is bigger than your pride. Or his. This is police corruption. Just sell it to him that this will be his big break-out case. Something that’ll make him attorney general of Maryland one day. He’s ambitious. He’ll go for it.”
Kim shook her head once more. “That’s not it. I can’t trust him. What if he’s in on it? What if he’s part of the corruption? Don’t you think it’s kind of convenient that he showed up at my place the day after Detective Emmerson presented me with news about my mother’s murderer?”
“You said yourself he’s got all these contacts in the police department, and that’s how he knew.”
“Yes, but what if he’s the one who set all this up?”
“What’s in it for him?” Jennifer asked skeptically.
“He wants to get back together. And what was standing between us was my mother’s unsolved murder. Or so he thought until this morning. He must have thought that once it’s all behind me, and I give up believing in a paranormal explanation of it, I’ll take him back.”
Jennifer dropped on the edge of the bed. “Oh my God, what a sleazebag!” She sighed deeply. “You can’t let him get away with that. You have to do something. Tell somebody.”
Kim ran both hands through her hair. “But whom? I can’t go to the police. I can’t go to the district attorney’s office. I doubt a reputable newspaper is going to go for the story unless I have concrete proof, more sources and—”
“The PI!” Jennifer shot up from the bed. “You have to call Manus. He’s a private investigator. He’ll check into it for you. He’ll find evidence that Todd conspired with his friends at the police department to trick you into believing that this poor dead guy was your mother’s murderer. He’ll help you.”
Kim cringed. “Manus? I’m not sure. I think it’ll be awkward.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Awkward? Do you want to get justice or not? Don’t let a little awkwardness stop you.”
“But what if he doesn’t want to help me?”
Jennifer reached for the phone on the nightstand. “There’s only one way to find out.”
9
Manus didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, so he answered his phone amidst the ruckus in the compound’s kitchen, were Leila, Aiden’s wife, was cooking dinner, and her twins, five-year-old Julia and Xander, were playing chase with their father. In the attached living area, Logan and Hamish were watching sports on the oversized TV that hung on the wall, and Enya, the only female Stealth Guardian in their compound, was wearing headphones while trying to read.
“Yes?”
Manus couldn’t hear the other person’s reply, so he said, “Hold on, can’t hear you.” He walked to the door and opened it. In the corridor, where it was quieter, he said, “Hello?”
“Manus. This is Kim Britton.”
She wouldn’t have had to say her name. He’d recognized her voice immediately. He hadn’t expected her to call him. Not after the way he’d left things the night before. He’d kissed her as if he’d wanted to devour her—because he did—and then discarded her like a used toy he didn’t want to play with anymore. What woman in her right mind would call a man who’d treated her like that?
“Manus, can you hear me? Do you need me to speak up?”
“No, yes, yes, I can hear you now. Sorry, bad reception and lots of background noise.” Stalling, that’s what he was doing.
“Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about…”
There it went. She wanted to know why he’d left so abruptly, why he hadn’t taken her up on her offer of sex. Shit! He hated conversations like that. And she probably knew that he wouldn’t have answered his phone had she called from her cell phone, a number he would have recognized. He had to hand it to her: she was smart to use a different phone. Now he was on the hook.
“Uh, Kim, I’m not sure… What happened last night…” How could he make it clear to her that there couldn’t be anything between them, that despite the initial spark, whatever they tried would fail miserably? So why even go through it? Why start something that he knew was doomed to failure?
“Last night?” Kim’s voice sounded as if she didn’t know what he was referring to. “This isn’t about last night. This is about the bracelet. My mom’s bracelet.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t want to talk on the phone. Can you come by my mother’s house? I need your help.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. But why don’t you want to tell me on the phone?”
“I can’t be sure that the phone isn’t being tapped.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Okay. What’s the address?” he asked even though he knew it already.
After Kim gave him the street name and number, he said, “I’ll be there in about an hour.”
He disconnected the phone and shoved it in his front pocket. “Fuck!” Something was wrong.
From the other end of the corridor, Pearce approached. “Problem?”
“Hmm.”
“Not in the sharing mood?”
Manus tilted his head to the side. “Nothing to share. Yet.” He turned on his heel. “I’ve gotta go out for a few hours. Tell Leila to keep some food in the fridge for me.”
“Will do, but I can’t guarantee there’ll be any leftovers. We have a full house tonight.”
Manus was already at the end of the corridor. “Whatever.” Depending on what issues Kim had about her mother’s bracelet, he wasn’t even sure he’d come back with an appetite.
Less than an hour later, Manus reached Nancy Britton’s house and parked in front of it. Kim greeted him at the door, looked to the right and left, then waved him into the house and closed the entrance door behind him.
“So, what’s going on?” Manus asked immediately.
“I told you that the police showed me a bracelet they found on that dead guy. Only, it’s not my mother’s bracelet. It’s a fake.”
Fuck!
This was the last thing he’d expected her to say.
Crap!
How had she found out? He’d covered his tracks expertly. Nobody apart from the two hybrids knew that he’d been the one planting the fake bracelet on the dead guy. It was impossible that she knew.
“A fake?” Manus echoed. “How would you—”
“I found the real one while I was cleaning out the house.” She motioned him to follow her into the living room and pointed to a cupboard along the wall. “It had slipped underneath it. Maybe she lost it during the struggle. Or maybe she lost it even earlier. I don’t know. But I’m telling you that the bracelet the police showed me wasn’t my mother’s.”
Shit! After all the work he’d done on this case, the problem was still not taken care of. “So, the one the police have didn’t look like your mother’s after all?” he hedged.
“No, no, it did. It was an exact replica.”
She walked to a sideboard and picked something up, then turned back to him and showed it to him. Manus recognized it immediately: the bracelet. “I was fooled, Manus. Completely fooled. The police lied to me. They planted an identical bracelet on that dead guy to make me believe that he killed my mother.”
She was right about one thing: the bracelet had been planted, just not by the police. “Are you sure it’s not just some mistake?”
“Mistake?” She tossed him a skeptical look.
“Yes. Maybe the guy had an identical bracelet to your mother’s, and the police thought it was the same. Doesn’t mean the
y planted it on him.”
Kim shook her head. “It’s a custom piece, a one-of-a-kind. They went through a whole lot of trouble to make me believe that my mother’s murder is solved. And that tells me that there’s something else behind it. I have my suspicions. I think my ex-fiancé is behind this.”
“Your ex? Are you saying you believe he killed your mother?”
“No, of course not. But we broke up after Mom’s death. He didn’t believe my supernatural theory, and as a result, we fought all the time. I think he thought if my mother’s murder was finally solved, we would get back together.”
Clearly, Kim had quite an imagination. But he didn’t like to send her down a path that only made things worse and more confusing. “But how would he even have done it?”
“He works at the district attorney’s office. He’s got lots of connections in the police force. It wouldn’t have been too hard for him to stage this.”
“Hmm.”
For a moment, Manus wondered whether he could use Kim’s new theory to his advantage, but he knew it wouldn’t help for long. Even if he could finagle it so it looked like her fiancé had been the one planting the bracelet to close the case, it meant the case was in fact still open, and justice hadn’t been served. Kim would continue to pursue her own investigations and probably return to her supernatural theory. They would be back at square one.
No, he couldn’t let her do this. He had to be the one directing where she kept digging for information. And the only way he could do that was if he pretended to help her.
“So, you want me to help you figure out what’s really going on?” Manus asked.
Kim nodded, a ray of hope illuminating her face now. “Yes. I need your help. I can’t go to the police. They are obviously corrupt, and Todd has his own agenda. My mother’s murderer is still out there.”
“I understand.”
Unexpectedly, she clutched his arm. “Oh my God, I was just thinking: what if the air conditioning expert and the meteorologist you talked to about the vortex were corrupt too? What if they were in bed with the police and made up that story so that you wouldn’t investigate any further in that case you told me about?”
Ah shit! He had his work cut out for himself. “I don’t know, Kim. They were pretty credible people. Besides, the murderer in that case was found. I’m inclined to believe the explanation of how that vortex came to be.”
Kim slowly shook her head. “I think we were both fooled. Please keep an open mind. There is more to this than we both think. Something about my mother’s murder is off. I mean, she had no enemies, and nothing was stolen. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Manus remembered something from the police report. “You’re sure nothing was stolen? But was anything disturbed?” He waited for the answer he already knew.
“Well, disturbed, yes. A few drawers were open and had been rifled through, but nothing was missing.”
“Nothing that you know of,” Manus qualified, suddenly having a thought.
After all, why would a demon come to an emissarius’s house, rifle through her stuff, and then kill her when he was disturbed? What if he’d been looking for something? Had he found what he’d been looking for?
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if somebody was looking for something in your mother’s possession? Didn’t she work in a museum and was handling pretty expensive things? Did she ever take anything home?”
Kim immediately shook her head. “Never. It wasn’t safe. Besides, all employees are searched before they leave the museum, so they can’t smuggle anything out.”
But what if she’d managed to do just that? What if Nancy Britton had found something in the museum that was of interest to the demons? It wasn’t an angle the Stealth Guardians had thoroughly investigated yet, partially because they lacked manpower, partially because the chances of Nancy not having brought anything of interest to the Stealth Guardians’ attention immediately were slim. She’d been a dependable informant.
10
Kim noticed that Manus had gone silent. His impenetrable expression didn’t give her any clues as to what he was thinking. Seconds ticked by, and she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“Will you help me find out what really happened?”
She pinned him with her eyes and didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
He nodded. “I can’t promise you that we’ll ever find out what all this is about, but I’m willing to try.”
“I understand that. Now, to the money.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your fee. I can—”
He lifted his hand, stopping her. “This will be pro bono.”
“But I can’t accept that.”
“You’ll have to.”
“But you have to make a living. We all do. And that’s your job: investigating things.”
“Let me worry about that. This case intrigues me. And if the police really covered this up and there’s something to your supernatural theory, then it’s possible that they did the same in my previous case. In which case, my former clients will want me to look into this anyway.”
Though she wasn’t comfortable with Manus working for her for free, she said, “If you insist…”
“I do.” He let out a breath. “I should probably talk to some people at the museum. Maybe they can tell me what your mother was working on before her death. It might give us some leads.”
Kim nodded. “I can introduce you to her colleagues. They’ll talk to you if I come with you.” She looked at the clock to see if the staff at the museum would still be working when there was a loud knock at the door.
Surprised, she looked toward the door. Had Jennifer forgotten something when she’d left just before Manus had arrived? “Excuse me for a moment.”
She walked to the door and opened it. Mrs. Fogarty, one of her mother’s neighbors, stood on the stoop, holding a few letters in her hand.
“Oh, Mrs. Fogarty, is something the matter?” Her mother had always been on friendly terms with the older lady, and they had on occasion watered each other’s plants when the other was out of town.
“Good afternoon, Kim. I thought I saw you arrive earlier, so I figured I’d quickly come over and bring you these.” She pressed the envelopes into Kim’s hand. “That new mailman keeps mixing your mother’s mail in with mine. I meant to bring it over last week, but then my gout was playing up, and I couldn’t get out of my chair. And you haven’t been here much.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fogarty. No, I’ve not been here much. But I’ve just started clearing out the house to get it ready to sell.”
The woman gave a sad smile. “Such a shame. Your mother was such a good neighbor. Why don’t you move in yourself?”
Kim shrugged, not really in the mood to continue the conversation, but she didn’t want to be rude to Mrs. Fogarty. The woman had always been nice to her mother. “Too many memories.” In particular the one of finding her mother dead on the floor. There was no way she could ever live here again.
To her surprise, Mrs. Fogarty put her hand on Kim’s forearm. “I understand.” Then she looked past Kim into the house. “Well, at least you’ve got a young man here to help you with the task. Is that your fiancé?”
Kim looked over her shoulder and saw that Manus had followed her and stood in the archway to the living room. “No, no, just a friend.”
“Well, I won’t keep you any longer then,” Mrs. Fogarty said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fogarty.” Kim lifted her hand as a goodbye and waited until the older lady had turned and was walking away before closing the door.
As she turned, she looked down at the two letters Mrs. Fogarty had given her. One was a solicitation to take out life insurance and clearly of no use anymore. The other letter didn’t look like a mass mailing. Kim read the sender’s name.
“ABC Storage Facility,” she murmured.
“What’s that?” Manus asked.
Kim pointed to the letter. “Something from a storage
facility on the outskirts of town. It says overdue here.” Possibly a clever ploy by a business to get somebody to sign up for something.
“A storage facility?” Manus stepped closer. “Did your mother use one?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Open it.”
Kim ripped the envelope open and pulled out the single sheet. “It’s an account statement. Annual fee overdue,” she read the heading. “If we don’t receive your payment within thirty days of the date of this letter, the contents of your rented storage unit #136 will be auctioned off.”
Manus reached for the letter and scanned it. “That letter is four weeks old.” Their eyes met. “We’d better check this out before whatever your mother stored there is gone forever.”
“I agree,” Kim said and reached for her handbag. Then she stopped herself. “How are we gonna get a look inside? I mean, I haven’t found a key for it.”
“Don’t worry. Just take this letter, a copy of your mother’s death certificate, and your ID with you, and the staff there will have to unlock for us.”
“Smart thinking.” She was glad she had somebody by her side who did this for a living and kept a cool head. “I’m just surprised that Mom never mentioned a storage unit to me. I can’t imagine what she would be storing there.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Manus said confidently. “We’ll take my car. I’m parked right outside.”
“Great. Give me a minute to grab what we need.”
~ ~ ~
Moments later, Manus was pulling away from the curb with Kim sitting in the passenger seat of his car. He’d punched the coordinates for the storage facility into the navigation system and followed the directions. It meant he could concentrate on Kim. He didn’t want to accidentally say something he didn’t want her to know, so he had to keep his guard up. Forty-five minutes in the car together was a long time. A lot of things could slip out if he wasn’t careful.
“So, you started packing up your mother’s house, I noticed,” Manus started, wanting to keep the conversation away from the investigation itself. “You told your neighbor you’re planning on selling it. It’s a shame. It’s got a lot of character.”