A Reason to Believe

by Diana Copland

  Kiernan immediately moved over to a huge set of shelves that held as many DVDs as Matt had ever seen outside of a video store. “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything that seems out of place.”

  “For instance, Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.” Kiernan looked over his shoulder, a brow raised. “Are you sure this guy is straight?”

  Matt snorted softly and turned to the bar. Aside from the fact the alcohol was all the best money could buy and appeared to be alphabetized, Matt couldn’t find anything out of place in the cupboard under the black granite counter. Another small candy dish held even more of the butterscotch candies, and he picked one up, sniffing it to be sure. The sweet, buttery aroma was unmistakable. He briefly scanned a row of pinball machines.

  Kiernan called out to him quietly. “Matt, this guy has crazy OCD.”

  “What do you mean?” Matt went to him.

  “Look at the DVD’s.” It was an eclectic selection, with all nine seasons of Cheers buttressed against the first five seasons of Dexter. Immediately after were several full seasons of Doctor Who and Entourage. “They’re alphabetized,” Kiernan said. “Man, this guy watches a lot of television.”

  “I don’t think he watches any television,” Matt countered.

  Kiernan gestured. “He has all of this.”

  “Look closer. None of it is open. It’s all still in the shrink-wrap.” Every single DVD on the shelf was still in its original clear plastic. “He’s a collector,” Matt said. “They’re worth more unopened.”

  “And it’s not just movies and television shows. Books, too.”

  A bookcase full of hundreds of books, all apparently new, stretched along an entire wall.

  “I wonder what else he collects? Let’s check the master bedroom.” Matt walked to a set of double doors in the far wall, Kiernan on his heels.

  The doors opened silently on well-oiled hinges to an expansive sitting room lit softly by a small lamp in the far corner. Butter-soft camel leather furniture sat before yet another fireplace and there was a thick Oriental carpet on the floor. A lithograph of a Phalaenopsis orchid bloom, at least six feet wide and equally as tall, hung above an elegant side table on which sat a crystal vase, full of the trailing stems of the same white blooms. The room was beautiful but seemed oddly feminine when compared to the rest of the house.

  “Is it just me…” Kiernan mused.

  Matt shook his head. “No.” He headed for another door. “Bedroom.”

  The bed was king-sized and covered in a silk duvet, also in a soft cream color. A stack of assorted pillows was piled in front of the headboard, all in shades of peach and soft green, and the lamps on the two bedside stands were crystal. The room was beautiful, but Matt couldn’t connect the Preston he knew with the almost fussy décor.

  “Matt.”

  Something in Kiernan’s voice alerted him. Matt turned to find him studying an elaborate collage on the far wall. He’d noticed it in passing, but hadn’t stopped to study it. It was fashioned of metal, one long pipe upon which dozens of frames had been attached, all shapes and sizes. It looked like a high-end version of something doting grandparents would display photos of their grandchildren on. Matt took a step closer.

  The dozens of photographs showed only one subject.

  Karen Reynolds.

  Karen’s high school graduation photo was centrally placed. She looked young and fresh-faced, smiling into the camera. Another showed Karen standing in front of a stately building, dressed in a heavy overcoat and wearing a hat and gloves, The University of Colorado etched into snow-covered brick behind her. And another, of her sitting next to a handsome older woman on a chintz sofa, both of them smiling and holding glasses of wine.

  “That’s Samantha Mitchell,” Matt said, remembering her face from the dozens of photographs in the society pages.

  Kiernan made a sound and stepped closer to the pictures. “Look. Isn’t that…?”

  Pictured was a lovely young Karen Reynolds, held tenderly in the arms of a tall, dark-haired boy with a winning smile. Garrett Preston.

  “Holy shit,” Kiernan said. “They must have had a thing.”

  “Yeah.” The skin between Matt’s shoulder blades began to crawl. There were dozens of photos of the two young people together, holding hands, arm in arm, kissing. “Looks like college. I don’t see any more recent…”

  “Those are.” Kiernan pointed.

  Beneath the collage was a table with more pictures in elegant wooden frames, all of Karen. And clearly, other people had been meticulously cut out of every image. Her husband was missing in one that showed her in her wedding dress, another adult in one of her appearing very pregnant, and in the one on the end…

  The small white shape sitting close to Karen’s side on a settee could only have been Abby.

  “The son of a bitch,” Kiernan muttered. “He’s trying to cut them out of her life.”

  “He has cut them out of her life.”

  White candles were grouped around the pictures. All had been lighted and burned, wax pooling to dry on coasters beneath. It was the first thing they’d seen in the entire place that didn’t look new and somehow staged. Lying across the top of the table were also four scarves. All silk, all elegant. Matt remembered seeing the one on the end around Karen’s throat when she’d come to the police station with Mitchell. It was black with a subtle gray stripe, and she’d still been wearing it at Abby’s funeral.

  Kiernan touched it, fingering the fabric. “This is Karen’s. Doesn’t this look like an altar to you?”

  Matt felt unease slink through his stomach. “It does. This is the kind of guy who collects trophies. He stole her scarves. I’ll bet we’ll find other things he’s stolen as well.” He searched the walls and saw a large section of paneling that was hinged. “Closet, there.”

  Matt carefully examined the wall for a way to open it, but couldn’t see anything. There was no handle. He growled in frustration.

  Kiernan stepped in front of him, carefully studied the seams and then pressed the paneling near an upper corner. It swung open silently.

  “How the hell did you know that?” Matt asked.

  “Clue.”

  “What?”

  “You know, Colonel Mustard in the study with a hammer. Homicide and vanishing corpses and doors secreted in paneling.”

  “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Kiernan grinned. “Boy, did you have a sheltered childhood.”

  Floor and ceiling lights illuminated as Matt opened the door wider, and both men stepped inside.

  “Christ, this is the size of my entire living room,” Matt said.

  The rows of suits, shirts and ties were all arranged according to color, all perfectly pressed and hung with military precision. Open shelves on the wall contained dozens of pairs of shoes, from sneakers to shiny patent leather dress shoes. Shelves above held sweaters, at least a hundred of them, folded and stacked, also according to color.

  “I feel like I’m in a Barney’s,” Kiernan said. “This is just wrong. No one needs this many clothes.”

  “Says the man with more T-shirts than a Walmart.”

  “But I guarantee they aren’t arranged according to color and knit content.”

  “Good to know.” Matt leaned down to study the wall under the boxes.

  “What am I looking for?” Kiernan asked.

  “Anything that doesn’t look right, any irregularity or anything that might be loose…” Matt felt along the wall and found a row of drawers, nearly invisible under the shelves.

  “Kiernan. Drawers.” He opened the top one. “Okay, socks, rolled and stacked according to color.”

  Kiernan came to his elbow. “Even I�
��m not that gay.”

  Matt pushed the drawer closed and opened the one beneath it and made a sound of discovery. A row of LCD lights inside the drawer flickered on.

  It was lined with navy blue velvet, and placed in niches were at least two dozen watches, all of them Rolexes.

  “Bingo,” Matt murmured. “He could retire off of the contents of this drawer alone. And what do you suppose goes right there?”

  There was an empty space near the bottom. “The Daytona Oyster,” Kiernan said. “It isn’t there.”

  “Nope. But this is…” Matt picked up a teardrop earring from which tiny diamonds dangled on delicate strands of platinum, glittering in the soft light. “Care to bet who this belongs to?” He handed it to Kiernan.

  “I wonder if she’s missed it?”

  “And what’s this…?” Matt lifted out a tray of cuff links and discovered a lumpy manila envelope beneath. He picked it up and dropped the tray back into place.

  He had just begun to open the metal brads when from another part of the large house came the distinct sound of a door closing.

  They froze, staring at one another. Another door slammed and, dimly, they heard the sound of pounding and the garage door slowly closing.

  “Son of a bitch,” Matt muttered under his breath. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  They paused inside the massive media room, backs pressed against the wall leading to the hallway and, by extension, the kitchen.

  There were voices. A man and a woman, and Matt turned his head, one hand clenched into a fist and the other holding his gun. This had been stupid. If Kiernan was injured because of him…

  The voices were clearer now, and it sounded like they’d come in from the garage and were standing in the kitchen. But they weren’t speaking English. He was pretty sure it was Spanish. He leaned toward Kiernan.

  “Wha…” he started, but Kiernan grabbed his elbow and squeezed hard, lifting his index finger in front of his lips. He had a look of intense concentration on his face, clearly listening to what was being said.

  The sound of cupboards slamming came from the kitchen, accompanied by the staccato sound of the rapid-fire conversation. Gradually, the voices faded into the distance. They heard another door open and close.

  “She works for him,” Kiernan said, his voice hushed and hurried. “She’s his housekeeper. The man is her boyfriend. She has no idea where Preston is, other than he said he’d be out for the evening.” He grinned. “She hates him. Says he’s a cheap bastard, and he should die in a fire.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Her room,” Kiernan answered, his expression amused. “I could tell you what they plan to do, but that would require an entire Spanish vocabulary lesson, and we don’t have the time.”

  “I think I can figure that part out on my own. Let’s just get out of here.”

  Matt started to move, but Kiernan caught his arm. “They reactivated the alarm in the garage. She thought he’d left the door open, and she was cursing up a storm about it, but then her boyfriend saw the molding hanging and fixed it. That was the pounding. The doors are all hot now, including the garage.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Matt clenched his teeth, his mind racing. “I have an idea. But we’ll have to be quick.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just…come on.”

  They moved stealthily down the long hallway toward the kitchen, but their caution wasn’t likely to be necessary. A stereo had come on, at a volume that made the floor vibrate.

  “Excellent. Come on!” Matt moved swiftly to the door that led to the garage, Kiernan on his heels. When they arrived, he holstered his gun and put his hand on the knob. “Okay, when I open this door, I’ll hit the button to open the garage door, and you roll under as it goes up. Jump to the left behind those big bushes. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Won’t the alarm go off?” Kiernan asked.

  “Yeah, it will.”

  “And you’ll be behind me? What if the housekeeper is armed?”

  Matt snorted. “I doubt she has a derringer in her bra.” He reached for the knob, but Kiernan caught his arm.

  “Matthew…”

  Matt stared at him, jaw set. “We had a deal, Kiernan.”

  Kiernan grimaced, but he finally nodded.

  “Okay, then. When I open this door, you run as fast as you can and slide under.”

  “I will. Just…” Kiernan grabbed the front of Matt’s jacket and went up on his toes, pressing a kiss to Matt’s mouth, shocking him. “For luck,” he said.

  “You’re out of your goddamned mind,” Matt muttered.

  Kiernan gave him a cheeky grin. “Stating facts already in evidence.”

  Matt took a deep breath, and threw open the door to the garage.

  It sounded like every banshee in hell was screaming.

  They burst through the door, and Matt punched the button inside the garage. The heavy door began to rise and Kiernan slid under when it was about a foot from the ground. Matt ran to where the molding had been detached before and yanked it, hard. It came loose in his hand and he left it hanging, then rolled beneath the door.

  He scrabbled across the driveway and leaped behind the bushes just as the door inside the garage slammed against the interior wall and a male voice shouted rapidly in Spanish.

  He landed on top of Kiernan and heard him grunt.

  “Did he see…?” Kiernan gasped.

  “Shh!” Matt hissed, and went completely still, lying on Kiernan’s back.

  The alarm abruptly cut off. Matt heard both the man and his female companion coming closer to where they lay, just outside the rectangle of light thrown by the open door. He could feel thorns brushing his face, and Kiernan’s rapid breathing beneath his chest. Snow slipped from the roof and landed on him with a wet splat and slid under his collar, but he lay perfectly still as the accented voices moved nearer.

  After what felt like an agonizingly long time, Matt heard more pounding, and then the garage door slowly rumbled closed.

  “Christ,” he finally exhaled, pressing his forehead into Kiernan’s dark hair. “That was close.”

  He pushed to his knees, offering his hand. Kiernan sat up and brushed dried holly leaves from the front of his jacket.

  “Well done, Officer,” he whispered with a wry grin. “They thought the molding had come loose again and that was why the door opened.”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Lucky for us they don’t know how garage doors work.”

  Matt allowed himself a small, answering smile. “Very. Come on. We need to get out of here.”

  Sticking to the shadows as much as possible, they followed the fence line until they reached the Bronco. The garage door remained down, the house dark and silent, and the silver Mercedes did not reappear, but Matt wasn’t willing to take any more chances. He drove them quickly down the hill and into a small, secluded neighborhood where the snow was still deep and the houses dark.

  He parked the car, letting the motor run. “I’m soaked,” he said. “Snow fell off of the house and landed right on me. What about you? I’ve got some workout clothes in a bag in the back.”

  “Think you might have a dry shirt?”

  “Probably.” Matt climbed through over the gear shift and knelt on the back seat. “I won’t make any promises for how clean it is. Some of this stuff has been back here since I painted my mom’s garage in August.” He unhooked a cloth cover that hid the storage space and reached for a black vinyl bag.

  “Has anyone ever told you there’s something sinister about a person who has such a neat car?” Kiernan teased. “Did you just vacuum back there?”

  “Before Christmas. I helped Bill and Sheila and Kyle get a tree, and there were
pine needles all over the place.” He unzipped the bag and rummaged around inside.

  “I noticed there’s no tree at your place,” Kiernan said softly.

  Matt’s hands stilled, just for a moment, before he pulled out a hooded sweatshirt. “There didn’t seem much point,” he answered, not looking up. “I knew I’d either be with Bill and Sheil, or at my mom’s.” He pulled sweatpants, socks and tennis shoes from the bag, and continued to rummage in the dark depths. Finally he stopped, aware of the eyes calmly studying him. “I haven’t had a tree for the last two years,” he admitted quietly. “I haven’t wanted one. I haven’t wanted Christmas.”

  “I know. Maybe next year you’ll be ready.”

  Matt studied the handsome face and felt something in his chest begin to yearn. He could picture it—his living room, a massive tree in the corner, and a dark-haired man in flannel pajama bottoms sitting cross-legged next to it, wrapping a small mountain of presents. The vision was unexpected, but warmed him. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  He returned to searching the bag, and his fingers closed on the soft fabric of a worn T-shirt. He exhaled on a laugh when he remembered it.

  “Here.” He tossed it to Kiernan. “It seems almost providential.”

  Kiernan shook out the faded green T-shirt. Pictured was a cartoonish giraffe that had huge eyes and ridiculously long eyelashes, with a dialog bubble that read Moo. I’m a Goat.

  Kiernan’s burst of laughter made Matt’s smile widen.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “My nephew picked that out for my birthday when he was three years old.” Matt turned to sit on the back seat and pulled off his boots. “He liked the giraffe.”

  “I like the giraffe.” Kiernan’s smile lingered.

  Matt took off his jacket and unbuckled his gun harness.

  “So, I discovered something about myself tonight,” Kiernan said conversationally, unbuttoning his coat.

  “Oh, yeah?” Matt pulled his shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor. “What’s that?”

  “I find breaking and entering extremely sexy.” Kiernan’s eyes moved fondly over Matt’s bare torso. “Or maybe I just find breaking and entering with you extremely sexy.”