Her hands froze in place, on the card and on the knob. She rose slowly to her feet and turned with both hands out, in case she was wrong about the voice. “Breaking and entering, what does it look like?”
Nigel put his flashlight away with a frown. “You know, I stopped by the store to see how you and Nico were doing, and I ran into Mags. Imagine my surprise to find her behind the counter instead of you, and then, she tells me you’re here.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his dress pants and gave her his most disappointed look. “No phone call? Nothing?”
Nahia looked him over and then knelt on ground and started working on the door again. “Hush. This is a clandestine mission, hence the secrecy part. Hold the light up, would you?”
His sigh was much aggrieved, and the beam of light reappeared on the brushed steel knob. “Fine. So why are you here? And what about McManus?”
“There’s something in here that I gotta see, I don’t know what yet. And so far he’s stayed at the house. If he’s smart, he’ll stay there and let me poke around. He doesn’t want what I’ve brought with me.” She tapped her pocket absently and continued her diligent working of the lock.
“I thought coming back here was too dangerous.” He toed the ground next to him, the beam from his flashlight bobbing with every move.
“Someone bought the house and plans to renovate it.” She paused to give her fingers a moment to rest so they didn’t cramp, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the heel of her hand. Looking up from where she knelt, she saw her friend, in his white dress shirt and sedately striped tie, looking closer to GQ than Ghostbusters and sighed before she laid it out for him. “I can’t think of anything more dangerous than unsuspecting people going into that house with McManus and some power tools, can you?”
Nigel rolled his head around his shoulders and cleared his throat a couple times before sighing in resignation. He nodded, and she turned back to the lock with renewed purpose. A couple more nudges, and the lock on the doorknob gave, the handle turning with ease. “Hell yeah.”
“You know, when you get like this, you scare the hell out of me.”
Nahia stood with her pack and slung it over her shoulder. “Like this?” She held the door for him and gestured for him to precede her into the stale darkness of the garage. Her flashlight was out, as was the pouch in which she kept her salt. As soon as the door was closed behind them, she knelt and poured a thin strip along the threshold. Nobody and nothing was getting in, or leaving, without her say so.
Nigel hummed, in either disapproval or concern, she didn’t know. “Like the world better move ‘cause you’re coming through, and God help whomever stands in front of you.”
The corner of her mouth kicked up into a grin, yeah, that sounded about right. “I love that you know how to use the accusative case in English.” She hit the button on her flashlight and illuminated the path in front of her. They were in the first bay. Empty, oil-stained concrete, work benches along the wall with empty rusted former toolboxes and mounted clamps. Her beam fell on the wall, and they both gasped. It was a mural, full color and beautifully hand rendered, of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, complete with people and foliage. It was breathtaking, and so out of place she didn’t know where to start.
“What in the hell are we doing here, Nye?” Nigel’s voice was full of apprehension. His flashlight bounced over the picture, left to right like he was reading it. When he finished his examination, they both saw the signature at the same time. “Who the hell is Aurelio?”
She thought back to the stuff Nico had brought her from the department, and while the name sounded familiar, the heat made her brain slow. “Sounds familiar but I can’t place it. We’ll keep looking.” She rubbed her forehead with the inside of her wrist, feeling grimy and sticky already, though they’d only been there a short time. It was hot as all Hades in there, and her back underneath her pack was already drenched.
There was nothing else in the room to hold their interest, so they walked through an open door into the next bay. Another bank of workbenches and another unbelievably beautiful mural. This one was a rooftop view of Rome. Hand colored, perfectly shaded for late afternoon sun, it bore the same artist signature. “Why have murals in a garage?”
“As a display, maybe? French cars over there, Italian in here, German in the next?” She turned to face him, her flashlight beam in his face making him throw up a hand. “What? It’s just a suggestion.”
She hummed in irritation, the incongruity of the beautiful art inside a damn garage. The duo continued to the next room, finding, instead of the Brandenburg Gate as she expected, it was building she couldn’t quite recognize. Still lovingly rendered in extreme detail, all she could tell was that the Union flag flew atop it. “Which one is this?”
Her best friend snorted derisively. “And you call yourself an Anglophile.”
Nahia looked at him sharply, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Save the sarcasm. What’s the building?” She was close enough to the wall to see detail of the people in trench coats, toting umbrellas, their reflections on the street and the passing lorries.
“Windsor Castle. Why?”
She looked around the room, stepping over to shine her light through the other doorways. “It just strikes me as strange to see that much loving detail, almost a personal level of detail, in a garage. Around all this grime and muck and whatnot. It’s a waste, it’s a tragedy, it’s—” Her musings were interrupted by a cold blast of air that rushed past the both of them, freezing her words on her lips. Her eyes darted to Nigel, who looked stupefied.
He’d been around her long enough and on enough hunts to know where this was headed, and after shaking off the shock, he unzipped the pouch she kept her recorder in and fired it up. At her look, he grinned sheepishly. “I figure it can’t hurt, right?”
They turned toward the last doorway, darkened and leading upstairs, like the stairs outside. All her instincts on high alert, she hazarded a look at her friend, who had the recorder in one hand and his pistol out and by his side in the other. “You ready?”
“Would it matter if I said no?” His voice shook slightly, even though the words were laced with humor.
“Not in the slightest. Let’s go.”
Even in her late 50s, his mother was a beautiful woman, Nico mused from about five people down the table from her. Five foot eight; she was a statuesque woman with a fall of silver streaked black. His whole life, she’d been the image of beauty by which all were judged, though it wasn’t simply reserved to her looks. Her kindness and compassion, her sharp wit and intelligence, and her capacity to love were all things he relied on without question.
She had come with his dad, his Nonna and her boytoy, a distinguished looking Irishman of a young 75, and his younger sister Jules, though probably just to get away from his other two sisters and their meddling in her personal life. They all sat in the main dining room with the extended Ianucci/Scarpino/Luchese family. With so many people packed into the place, they’d had to open up the upstairs dining room as well, just to appease the fire marshal who’d shown up to pay his respects, too.
He looked at his watch, knowing Nahia was still at the store for another couple hours, but he didn’t mind, since that meant he got to catch up with the people who knew him best.
Peter raised his glass in a toast to his mother that had everyone in the room sniffling, and more than one person stepped outside for fresh air and a smoke. The sadness of the occasion was going to make quite a dent in the bar stock, but no one really cared right now.
“You got somewhere to be?” The accent was as familiar as it was almost foreign to his ears now, sounded out of context with his surroundings. His mother stood over him with her hand on her hip and a longneck bottle dangling loosely from her fingertips.
Nico stood immediately and stepped aside to offer her his spot. “No, why?”
She smiled and slid onto the bench, scooting over to make room for him as well. “You keep looking at your watch. A
re we keeping you from something?” His mother’s dark eyes were piercing in their directness, and she had a way of sensing when he had things on his mind. Even from several hundred miles away.
Not knowing how to answer truthfully without igniting a firestorm of inquiries, he shrugged, and gave her only half the truth. “No, I’m good. I’ve missed you.” He took her hand from her lap and kissed it before laying it on the table. That part hadn’t been a lie; he loved his mother deeply, and enjoyed the close relationship they shared regardless of the distance, and quite probably because of the distance. He knew he’d have to tell her about the shift in his life eventually, especially since Nahia was coming to the funeral with him, but for the moment, he wanted to keep the joy to himself a little longer, keep it private and special.
“What’s her name?” his mother asked, finishing her beer and turning slightly to face him more directly.
Nico blinked nervously. “Her?” He wasn’t sure what else to do, since getting up and fleeing for the front door would attract a lot of undue attention. Simon passed behind him with a tray heavily laden with beers, and he grabbed one smoothly, drinking half of it in one go.
“Dominic. I’m your mother. I gave birth to you. I know you better than you do. Do we get to meet her?” Plucking the beer from his suddenly numb fingertips, she set it just out of reach, a tacit form of carrot and stick. He could tell her and get it back, or he could keep silent and go thirsty. It suddenly occurred to him that his mother was the reason he was such a good negotiator, because she was the queen of unrefusable offers. Damn.
Realizing that she essentially had him trapped, he hung his head in defeat. “Her name is Nahia Nizhoni Wellington,” he paused to take a deep breath before continuing his thought, “and she’s kinda spectacular.”
His mother’s grin brightened immediately as she pulled him in an awkward hug. “Wonderful!” He took advantage of her distraction to rescue his beer, figuring he might need the extra help. “So what kind of name is Nizhoni?”
The upstairs was even hotter than the ground floor, though she wasn’t surprised. With all the dust and filth stirred up on their tour, she was going to need a shower before she met up with Nico anyway, so it didn’t matter that she was melting like a snowman in July in the Mojave.
The doorway at the top of the stairs gave way to a single room, obviously a living space in its former life. It was like a photograph, part of the world frozen in time, apparently not sold off by the bank. A large bed on the east side of the room, a kitchen table on the west, a couple of mismatched upholstered armchairs nearby the door positioned around an old TV. The walls were nicotine yellow and devoid of pictures, dust covered every surface.
“It’s like a tomb,” Nigel whispered from just over her shoulder. His closeness was unnerving, if understandable.
“Great choice of words there, boss.” She swung her flashlight around, reaching out with all her sense for some sort of guidance. “Can you tell me what it is you want me to see?” she asked into the emptiness.
Nigel turned around, the recorder clutched in his hand like a magic wand. “Are you the painter of the murals downstairs?” He waited a beat, “We loved them. They are stunning.”
The silence answered them, much to their disappointment. “Did you live here?” Nahia asked as she walked over and checked out the bedside table. Gingerly, she pulled open the sole drawer, let down to find it empty. “Did you die here?”
“I painted the pictures.” The voice was accompanied by the bracingly cold breeze from earlier. It was faint, but clear, slightly accented, and surprisingly answering her friend’s questions.
She looked to Nigel, who nodded. Apparently it did happen outside her head. “You have something you want to say?” While she waited out the silence, she moved from the bed to a credenza along the wall farthest from the door they’d entered, but nearest to the door to the outside. It had six drawers, three shallow on top, and three deep on the bottom. “What the hell am I supposed to find and where the hell am I supposed to find it?”
“I don’t know, but I hope you find it soon, because I’m dyin’ over here,” Nigel responded. He’d removed his suit jacket and still looked ready to wilt in the sweltering heat.
“Not helping, bro.” She began to pull on the ancient handles of the drawers that used to be brass. The top three were locked and the bottom ones were empty. “You wanna bring that light over here so I can do my thing?”
Her best friend hesitated before crossing the room. “I don’t know, Nye… Is this a good idea?”
She didn’t have an answer for him. She disliked the idea of grave robbing, but she felt in her soul that what she needed to know was in one of the drawers. “I don’t know, honestly. Aurelio, you wanna help me out here? You know I can hear you, talk to me. Why am I here? What do you need from me?”
“Justice. For my wife.” The words came from nowhere, and she could only hope the recorder picked them up, and she shivered at the unexpected cold enveloping her.
“Okay. And how do we do that?” She sat back on her heels, looking around the sparsely furnished room. If it wasn’t in here, she had no idea where else to search.
The loud knock on the credenza’s top startled her, and she toppled over sideways. “Box.” Whatever the hell that meant. As happy as she was to have established contact with the spirit, it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.
“I don’t suppose you can just pick that up at the store,” Nigel wondered aloud. Nahia gave him a look and felt Aurelio was probably giving him the same look.
She struggled back to her knees under the weight of the backpack and the oppressive heat. “Nigel,” she snarled and he jumped. “The light?” When he didn’t move, she supplied, “Please?” She felt good about not saying ‘now, goddammit!’ Even though she had somewhere to be soon, this wasn’t the time for impatience.
Nigel growled and then trudged across the room. “You get so damn bossy, I swear to God.”
From across the room something fell, drawing both their attentions. “I don’t think this is the place for that, Ni. Hurry up with the light so we can get out of here.”
After pulling her multi-tool from her bag, she patiently unfolded the screwdriver portion, and slid it between the drawer and the top. It took a quick slide and a twist of the wrist to get the lock to acquiesce, but as soon as she opened the drawer, she jumped back with a squeal. “Mother pus-buckets!” The beam from the flashlight above her revealed a massive brown spider, and she slammed the drawer shut immediately. “Fuck me,” she breathed, smoothing the curling tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid behind her ears. She shuddered in revulsion and eyed the next drawer warily. “I didn’t want nothing in there, anyway.”
For all her bravado, though, she was a little slower in attacking the second lock. “Man.” She paused to take a deep breath, and then another.
Nigel laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, squeezing it in a show of support. Or an extreme desire to end this adventure, she didn’t know, and chose to think the best of him. “Think of it this way: it can’t get any worse.”
She licked her lips and looked at her friend with all the irritated disbelief she could muster. “Jesus, you’re optimistic. Let’s just hope you haven’t cursed us.”
After a rudimentary debrief with his mother, Nico ducked outside for some air. He hadn’t realized how complicated his relationship with Nahia was until he’d tried to explain her beyond spectacular. How they met, what she did for a living, hell, even her name, it was all very hard to be entirely truthful to a woman raised in the Church and wasn’t really as…understanding as he was. To his mother, his girlfriend— and he’d given her the title as a Freudian slip— was a small business owner, a bit of a free spirit, and amazing. That much he hadn’t had to equivocate.
Another glance at his watch said she’d be there in a little over an hour, and he smiled. He loved his family, but would definitely appreciate the brief respite she would offer. As it was, his mind was occupie
d with accommodations. He’d have his parents in his room, his Nonna and her boytoy in his guest room, which left the couch for his sister. He kinda hoped that Nahia would let him bunk with her for a few days, and was definitely prepared to make it worth her while.
“I know that look.” Nonna came around the corner from the back of the building, a cigarette in one hand and two fingers of scotch in the other. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“Nope. I got no desire to die today.” Nico gave her an indulgent smile and kissed her cheeks, both of them knowing nothing good would come from telling his mother about his grandmother’s vices. “Which look is that, Nonna?”
“The look of a man who has someone special on his mind. Your father had that look when he met your mother in the tenth grade.” She smiled kindly at him and gestured that they sit out on the terrace at one of the empty tables. The growing evening and lengthening shadows of the century-old buildings across the street provided a much-needed respite for the heat. “Tell me about her.”
Nico blushed at her accurate read of him, even though they hadn’t seen each other in far too long. He took her free hand in his, loving its diminutive size and softly wrinkled skin. “She’s wonderful, Nonna. You’ll like her.”
She flicked her ash off to the side and flashed him a mischievous grin. “I’m sure I will.” They sat quietly, enjoying the evening and the sounds of the city, much lighter, he was sure, than what she was used to. “You haven’t been home in awhile.”
He ducked his head at the lightly reproving tone, lifting her fingers to his lips as an apology. “I know, Nonna. Work gets busy. I’m sorry you lost Mrs. I.”
She cupped his cheek, her warm palm just as soothing now as it had been when he was little. “Thank you. You lost her, too, though.”
“I took care of her, just like you said to.” Right before he’d left for college, she’d pulled him aside and told him to look after her cugina like he would look after her. He liked to think he’d taken the request to heart and done everything for her, her last day notwithstanding.
Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) Page 14