“He’d never know,” I murmured to myself, staring longingly at the exit ahead.
Just then a horn honked behind me. Traffic had begun to move. I gave my head a quick shake and accelerated past the exit and turned up the volume on the self-help book.
Before long I was on 520 crossing Lake Washington into the area of Bellevue. When I stopped for gas, I entered the address I’d found for Sid Klein into my GPS. I asked myself what I’d do if I saw Garrett’s sedan parked in the driveway. I had to admit that I’d probably accelerate right on by because this was beginning to feel a lot like I was checking up on my boyfriend. Even though it was from a place of anxiety and worry for his well-being, it still felt wrong.
The neighborhood had older traditional homes on large lots with long front drives. Anyone who knew anything about Seattle real estate wasn’t fooled into thinking the pale yellow two-story with the green shutters was for the working middle class. Homes anywhere around here would start at two million. My research into Sid Klein had told me he held a management position with Flash Imports, but he’d been there less than a couple years. Long enough to afford this house?
“Maybe he won the lottery.”
Obviously, this brother-in-law who lived with Garrett and his wife ten or so years ago and needed help getting a job at the time had done well for himself. Or else he was in debt up to his eyeballs. Who was I to judge?
I drove by a couple times, slowing a little in front of the house. There were no cars in the driveway, but it had a double garage, so someone could still be home.
I turned around at the end of the street while I thought about what to do.
“To hell with being discreet.”
I pulled right into the driveway and parked my Jeep on the far side of the garage. If someone was home maybe I should consider trying to pull myself off as a friend of Garrett’s dead wife, but she was close to Garrett’s age so that made it ridiculous. I would’ve been in my teens when she died.
I walked up the sidewalk to the front door, past blossoming cherry trees humming with happy bees. The air was saccharine with the scent of the blooms. It was getting warm and my T-shirt clung to my back as I broke out in a nervous sweat. My finger hesitated only briefly before I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. I listened hard but couldn’t hear any sounds on the other side of the door. No footsteps as they padded to see who was here and no sound of breathing on the other side of the thick double doors. Just in case, I offered a friendly smile to the peephole, but nobody answered even after a second ring.
“Damn.”
Turning around, I headed back toward my car but then changed my mind and walked past the Jeep and around the corner, where I entered the gate on the side of the garage that opened into the backyard. The yard was vast—an acre of grass that needed mowing and cherry trees pink with blossoms. In the far corner of the yard a large garden shed had been built to resemble a gingerbread cottage.
Staying firmly against the house, I kept my body close to the cool brick. When I got to the first window I stood on tiptoe and peeked inside. Through the slats in the blinds I could make out an office area that was in complete disarray. Paperwork was strewn everywhere, an old pizza box sat in the middle of the desk with congealed cheese the only remnants. Sid Klein was obviously a slob. I kept walking. French doors at the back of the house were off a large cedar deck.
As I approached the deck, the doors suddenly burst open and a young woman flew out the door and took off like her ass was on fire. Without even thinking, I raced after her. She struggled with the latch at the gate on the far side of the house, and I reached her before she could open it. She whipped around, her hands slapping and scratching at me like a cornered animal.
We were about the same age and size, but I was stronger and had more experience at fighting for my life. I ducked as she went for my face, grabbed her by the waist and butted my forehead hard against her face. Her nose exploded and when her hands went to her nose, I grabbed her by the knees and took her down. Her body hit the aggregate walkway hard and I straddled her body, pinning her arms with my knees and sitting on her chest. The cloying aroma of an expensive floral perfume wafted up to me.
She started to scream, and I covered her mouth with my hands.
“Relax! I’m just looking for someone.”
She was maybe mid-twenties with waist-length blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes that were wild with fury.
“If you promise not to scream, I’ll take my hands off your mouth,” I told her.
She didn’t move. She didn’t even blink.
“Nod if you understand,” I told her.
She gave a sharp nod and I took my hands off her mouth but kept my position pinning her to the ground.
“You friggin’ broke my nose!” she hissed. “Sid’s not here. I came looking for him too. Place has been trashed. He’s gone.”
“Trashed?” I wasn’t expecting that. “Did someone break in?”
“Yes.” She attempted to wiggle out from under me. “Get off me.”
I hesitated and then rolled off her and helped her to her feet.
“Show me.” I nodded toward the house.
She whipped her hair over a shoulder to expose a tiny dragonfly tattoo on her collarbone. As we walked into the house, she pinched her nose to stop the gushing blood.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She grabbed a stack of fast-food napkins off the kitchen counter and held them to her face.
“I could ask you the same question.” When I didn’t reply she said, “I’m Meg.” I looked at her questioningly and she rolled her eyes. “Sid’s girlfriend. Duh.”
“Oh.”
“Well, who the hell are you? Have you ever even met Sid?”
“No, I—”
“You’re just sneaking around the house, peeking in windows at the butt-crack of eleven in the friggin’ morning and then assaulting me?” she sneered. “I should call the cops.”
“If there was a break-in then, yes, you should.” I took a look around the place and let out a low whistle as I followed Meg through the house. Kitchen drawers were emptied onto the floor, furniture had been overturned, sofa cushions had been slashed. “Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Why haven’t you called the police?”
Meg snorted as she picked up a slashed sofa cushion, tossed it on the couch and sat on it. “Yeah, right. I’ll do that. I’ll just call the police.” Again, with the eye roll.
“Well, yeah. That’s what you do when people break into your house,” I said slowly as if speaking to a small child.
She reached for a purse on the end table, pulled out a pack of smokes and lit a cigarette.
“Who are you? And what do you want?” she asked, her voice nasally as she’d rolled up tissue and stuffed it into her nostrils. She tossed her thick long mane over a shoulder. “Wait a second, are you Sid’s side chick?”
She looked amused, rather than jealous at the thought.
“I’m Julie Hall. My boyfriend is Sid’s brother-in-law.”
“His dead sister’s husband? The FBI guy? Wow. He’s like a hundred years old.”
“No, he’s not.” I blew out a raspberry and blushed at my childishness.
“Are you a fed too?” She narrowed her gaze and looked me over with renewed interest.
“Of course not.” As I glanced around the finely furnished sitting room that now looked like a flop house, I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. “Seriously. Did you call the police already? Do you want me to do it?”
“No police.” She angrily wagged a finger at me. “Don’t even think about it. You want to screw over both Sid and Garrett? You think whoever did this is going to be scared away because the popo show up here and dust for fingerprints? Give your head a shake.”
“You obviously believe Garrett and Sid are together. Where do you think they c
ould be?”
“Who cares?” Her gaze was suddenly hard. “I’m sure they’re tucked away somewhere they can be useful.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Look, all I know is you and I are both here and they’re not.” She winced as she picked a small stone out of a scrape on her knee that she’d received when we tussled in the yard. “Yesterday was my birthday. You wanna know how I spent my day? Alone.” She blew out a puff of smoke then added sadly, “I ordered a friggin’ pizza and ate it by myself.”
“Happy birthday.” I grabbed a seat in a recliner that had a crisscross pattern of slash marks in the cushion.
“Thanks.” She smiled sweetly at me, then looked around for an ashtray and, when she couldn’t find one, picked up a beer bottle from the floor and flicked her ash into it. “You worry too much. I’m sure Sid and your guy are going to be just fine. Go home and do...” She waved a hand at me. “Do whatever it is you do? I bet you’re a bookkeeper. You’ve got that kind of look about you.”
“A bookkeeper, huh?” I changed the subject away from me. “What’s really going on? Is it drugs? Is Sid mixed up with that cartel?”
“What do you know about a cartel?” Her eyebrows went up as a smile played on her lips.
“I read about it in online,” I admitted. “Is that why you don’t want the police called?”
“What Sid does is his own business. I’m not in charge of him. Sure, I have a key for his place and can come and go because we’ve been together a while, but I’m not his mom or something.”
“I call bullshit. If you’re not wanting to call the cops it’s because you know Sid is up to no good and that’s why he’d be angrier about the police being here than about the place being tossed.”
She shrugged, dragged deep on the cigarette, then dropped it in the beer bottle where it made a wet sizzle in the remaining dregs of beer at the bottom.
“What if they didn’t find what they were looking for?” I asked. “What’s to stop these people from coming back and grabbing you just to get Sid’s attention?”
She seemed unconcerned. “Well then...” She got to her feet and flicked her long hair. “Guess I better get the hell outta here.”
“Tell the truth, is Sid working for that Mexican cartel?” I demanded.
“You know what?” She planted hands on her hips. “You’ve got a pretty big mouth for some FBI agent’s young piece of tail. You should watch yourself. That kind of talk is liable to get you killed.”
I called after her as she walked away, “You might be happy to just leave here, but I want to find Garrett and I’m not stopping until I do.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go back home and wait for your man like a good girl. It would be much safer.”
“This house is worth what? A couple million minimum, right? And that rock on your finger has at least a two-carat diamond.”
“Two-point-five.” She turned around to hold her hand up so that the ring sparkled in my face. “And it’s not even an engagement ring. Only a promise ring and that’s why I’m wearing it on my right hand.”
“Right. Sid is some low-level executive at an import-export firm. I guess we know where the real money is coming from.”
She just kept walking.
“I know you’re scared but—”
“If you’re smart, you’d be scared one.”
“I just want to find Garrett and make sure he’s safe!” I followed her as she walked toward the door that entered the garage, but she just shook her head. Finally, I stopped her as she was almost out the door by putting a hand on her shoulder. “At least give me your number so if I find them I can let you know.”
She thought about that for a second and then shrugged. “Why not.”
We exchanged cell numbers and I had her text me while she stood there to make sure she didn’t give me a fake number. In the garage there was a black Lamborghini and a newer pale yellow VW bug convertible. I made a mental note of her license plate as she climbed into the VW, backed it down the driveway and drove off.
As soon as Meg was out of there, I started going through the house. I took pictures of the destruction in every room. It takes a considerable amount of time and energy to diligently toss and slash a house that’s about five thousand square feet. Either one guy spent a helluva long time here, or, more likely, an entire gang of guys tossed it. At first, I thought maybe someone was looking for something here but as I went from room to room I got the impression that this was a scare tactic. They wanted to send a clear message to Sid that they could get to his house and get to him too. That also meant they could get to Garrett. I shuddered.
A guest bedroom upstairs remained pristine except for a slight tussle of the bedding. The room smelled distinctly of Meg’s flowery perfume. In the guest bathroom I was struck by the stark contrast to the bathroom counter.
“Holy crap.”
I kicked over a drugstore bag on the floor, and hair stuff spilled onto the floor. One end of the marble counter held a tidy array of expensive makeup palettes and brushes. The other end was littered with balls of tinfoil, a pipe, spoon and discarded needles.
“That’s why she didn’t want to call the cops.” I frowned and shook my head. “Meg’s armpit deep in heroin herself and she’s definitely been staying here.”
But why would she be in the spare room instead of sleeping in his bed? A visit to the master bedroom gave me the answer. The king-sized mattress was shredded, a large armoire was toppled over, and a wall mirror had been shattered.
There was only one reason Meg would’ve stayed here. She was pretty sure that whoever tossed the place was not coming back but she was confident that Sid would find his way home. If Sid could make it back here, then so could my guy. I wondered if Garrett had squirrelled Sid away somewhere until all this blew over. That sounded exactly like something he’d do. That way he wouldn’t be involved in the case but would still be loyal to his dead wife’s memory.
I headed back downstairs and walked through to the den off the living room. There were power cords where a laptop probably normally sat. Flash Imports Inc. letterhead was scattered over the floor and crumpled notes rolled out of the overturned trash. I unfolded a few of the notes with chicken scratch in what was I assumed was Sid’s own handwriting.
One of the crumpled sheets had Garrett’s old telephone number scratched onto it. I swallowed nervously as I looked through the rest of the balled-up pages but there were so many it would take too long. I didn’t want to be standing here when whoever trashed this house came back to see if Sid had returned. I walked back to the kitchen and found a discarded grocery sack and used it to collect all the notes. I’d take them back to the motel and read through them to see if they offered any clues.
A cordless landline phone was on the floor next to the desk. I picked it up and took down the time and day of every call that had come in for the past week, storing them on my phone. Then I checked the outgoing calls and there was Garrett’s number again. Twice in the past week.
“Damn, Garrett, what did you step into?”
Before I left the den, I gave the room a quick look to see if I’d missed anything. A door in the corner was slightly ajar. I stepped around an overturned bookcase to get to the door.
It opened into a small two-piece bathroom. On the tile floor was a sticky puddle of blood.
I found myself praying that the blood didn’t belong to Garrett.
Chapter Nine
The sight of the blood motivated me to call in reinforcements. I texted Agent Karla Powel that I was at Sid’s house. I gave her an update about the girlfriend, Meg, and the state of the house. I fired off every picture I’d taken of the house. The last one I sent was a close-up of the bloody mess in the den.
She called me immediately.
“Shit!” she exclaimed when I answered. “I didn’t even know
Sid had a girlfriend. Is this Meg person still there?”
I told her Meg had gone and gave a description of the VW she drove away in and the license plate.
“That crazy bitch,” she said. “I’ll take care of it. Get the hell out of there.”
I had no idea how long it would take before the guys in suits descended on the house, so I ran out to my car, dropped the grocery bag filled with papers onto the passenger seat and took off.
I was half a block away when Agent Powel’s own gray Lexus whizzed by me, coming from the opposite direction. She’d obviously been very close by.
My anxiety was ratcheting up every time I thought of the puddle of blood in the bathroom and Garrett’s involvement with Sid. It wasn’t just the fact that he was dealing with a dangerous drug cartel. That was his usual job and he was careful as well as highly intelligent. Sure, the job came with an element of risk, but I’d never seen Garrett take any chances. Now I was worried all clear thinking was going out the window since he was in rescue mode. He was hot on this case because he needed to save Sid in the name of his dead wife. I was anxious that Garrett would take unnecessary risks to help this guy and I hoped with all that was inside me that the blood at Sid’s house wasn’t his.
My stomach was growling with need so I pulled into a drive-thru and got a burger and a Coke. Then I drove to a corner of the lot and, while I ate, I carefully smoothed out every wrinkled piece of paper in the grocery sack and tried to make out each scrawled word and doodle that Sid had taken the time to scratch out.
After I had all the sheets of paper sitting in a pile in my lap I went over them again. Most of the notes were phone numbers and doodles. Tracey called me as I was holding a sheet that only said 4-26 Burke, circled half a dozen times as if those numbers and that name were super important.
“I’m just finishing up my shift,” she said. “Got time to grab lunch?”
“Still in Seattle.” I picked up the next sheet and held it up in the same way.
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