by H. P. Bayne
Eva had her phone out and a glance over her shoulder told Dez she was doing an internet search on the artist in question.
“He seems to have had a thing for dancers and women taking baths,” Eva said. “And I hate to tell you this, but he dabbled in sculpture too.”
“Damn.”
Eva kept scrolling through pages until she found one showing the artist’s work. “Okay, I’m thinking all we can do is go through here slow and look for anything that resembles these. Take my phone. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on it.”
“You always had a better eye for this stuff.”
They split up, Dez moving to the study on the right while Eva went into what looked to be a formal sitting room on the left. The study contained a large oak desk, and it was clear the police had indeed been here, papers and files stacked on the surface a little haphazardly. No way Lachlan, obsessive compulsive as he was known to be, would leave anything in that manner, particularly in his own house. It appeared investigators had given some thought to the artwork, too, a couple of larger works a little off-kilter. Dez was grateful to see this room had fewer paintings—until he got a good look at Lachlan’s monstrous book collection: two walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves, revealing numerous books on art. Lachlan hadn’t specifically said the Degas he’d referenced was a physical piece, after all.
Dez blew out a breath, and reached down to pet Pax, sitting next to him with tongue out and eyes fixed on him. “You wanna take the bottom shelves, buddy?”
Pax sauntered away.
With no help to be had there, Dez went it alone, determining none of the handful of small paintings or sculptures were created by the man he wanted. He then turned his attention to the bookshelves, scanning the titles and hoping for the best.
It looked like investigators had entertained the same thought, the otherwise-organized shelves a little messier around the large books. Dez assumed searchers had been hoping to find a file or scattered papers concealed inside them. If there had been anything to find, it might be long gone, but Dez took some comfort in the fact Forbes was still in the dark. It was just possible something remained hidden, something police didn’t spot or didn’t recognize as significant. Whether Dez would see it and recognize it remained the question.
His breath caught as he spotted a large book on Degas’s work. He pulled it out and flipped through the pages, but nothing fell out as he’d hoped. He continued the search, frustration mounting; Lachlan had his books organized by size rather than alphabet or artist. The larger books, like the one he’d just skimmed, sat on the lower shelves, with the smaller ones—biographies and the like—on the top. And Lachlan had taken it a step further, arranging his books to fit some sort of aesthetic only he would think to achieve. Where there weren’t enough books of the same size to fill a shelf, he stacked others on either side to provide balance.
This meant, of course, no search would be simple; books on Degas could be anywhere on the shelves in front of him.
Directing his attention to the task by running a finger along the spines in a way that made him feel like a grade school student, Dez looked through the collection book by book and shelf by shelf, working his way upward. So far, he’d found three books about Degas, but none contained anything of note. Now up to the biographies, Dez followed the same process, locating one on the second-from-top shelf. This one was a small hardcover, still wrapped in its no-longer-glossy jacket cover. Dez flipped through it and, finding nothing, pulled the jacket away on one side.
There, on the outside back cover, just beneath the jacket, a key had been taped.
“We need to get to 1232 Landon Drive,” Dez said once the two of them were back in the car. He’d been careful to lock up before they left. Everyone knew Lachlan was anal about security, and leaving the place open to intruders was bound to be a life-changing mistake for Dez once the retired cop got through with him.
“You got some directions for me?” Eva asked as Dez keyed the address into the search bar on his phone and waited for something to pop up.
The results had him grinning, recognizing the whole thing as pure Lachlan. “Jed’s Storage. East side of the city on the north side of the river. Edgewater Road is probably the easiest, and it’s the other side of Lockwood.”
“That’s a long way out,” Eva said. “I’d better call your mom and ask if Kayleigh can spend the night.”
Dez had been enjoying this, investigating with Eva, spending time with her in a way he hadn’t since their separation. But she was clearly torn, so he did what he could to lighten the load.
“Drop me at my place, and I’ll pick up my vehicle. Go home. I’ve got this from here.”
“No.”
“Eva, seriously, I’ve got this.”
“Got what? Lachlan was almost killed, and his office was torn apart. It doesn’t look like they hit his house, but that’s hardly surprising given about five people actually know where he lives.”
“Listen, I appreciate you wanting to watch my back here. You have no idea how much. But I can look after myself, okay?”
“And I’m sure you said the same thing before you were buried alive last night, right?”
It was dark out, the only illumination coming from the glow of the streetlights outside. But it was enough for him to make out the worry on Eva’s face.
“Dez, I don’t know what we’re in the middle of here, but it’s not good. You were attacked and nearly killed. Sully’s apparently alive but might not stay that way. Lachlan’s been seriously assaulted and his office ransacked. Sorry, but I don’t want you handling anything on your own right now, not until we get to the bottom of this.”
“We don’t know everything’s connected. Not for sure.”
“Pretty crazy coincidence if it’s not, wouldn’t you say?”
There was no point arguing. Eva had dug in deep, and Dez knew her well enough to know her mind would not be changed. In truth, her concern for his safety warmed him in a way he hadn’t felt for some time. Convincing himself he didn’t really matter was easy when he allowed himself to slip deeply into the depression and self-pity that had framed his world for the past couple of years. But once in a while, when he really listened to voices besides his own, he was reminded other people counted on his presence in the world.
“Drive,” Dez said. “I’ll call my mom.”
Dez and Eva chatted most of the way, about Kayleigh mostly, but also about Eva’s job and how things were going for her at home.
He’d not-so-subtly asked whether she’d tried dating, to which—to his immense relief—he’d received a resounding no. He noticed she didn’t ask the same about him, but then realized the answer was blatantly obvious to anyone with a functioning brain. He was as hung up on her now as ever, perhaps more because he couldn’t have her.
And she knew it. Why wouldn’t she? She’d always been the smartest woman Dez had ever known.
As they approached the road to Lockwood, he stopped talking, felt his own silence as keenly as Eva must have.
Streetlights revealed the tall iron fence surrounding the expansive treed property. The intricate gate had the audacity to look graceful and welcoming rather than what it should have resembled in Dez’s view: an electrified sliding gate of a super-max prison.
“You okay?” Eva asked.
The sound of her voice prevented a deeper slide into the dark, and he rewarded it with an answer. Such as it was. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“He could be here now for all I know. He could be right here. And there’s not a damn thing I can do.”
“He might not be,” Eva said. “We don’t know anything yet. But I promise you, I will do everything I can to help you find him.”
Eva was an experienced police officer and had worded her answer like one. Like Dez, she knew better than to make promises she might not be able to keep. As it stood, the one she’d given was good enough for the time being, her assurance he wasn’t alone in this.
Dez didn’
t respond, didn’t trust his voice to hold. Emotion sat close to the surface with him, often rendering him helpless in the moment.
If Dez’s biggest perceived weakness was emotion, Eva had quickly become his greatest strength. She’d always provided him the power to rise above his own guilt, grief and anger. As she so often had in the past, she stepped into his silence.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” she said. “What happened to Sully.” Her words offered redemption if only he could hold on to them.
Dez drew his lips together and stared out the passenger side window. They’d passed the Lockwood property, but a part of him had been dropped off at the gate. In his mind, he could see the inside of the building. The entryway where faux-friendly nursing staff greeted guests and newcomers while rough-and-ready orderlies hovered nearby, not half-hoping for some action. The sunroom that acted both as extra programming space and visiting area, providing family and friends with a false reality that enabled them to go home guilt-free.
“It’s not your fault!” Eva’s all-but-shouted words, cutting into memory and a silent car, were thunder, and yanked Dez back with such ferocity he physically jumped. “Whatever happened then, whatever is happening now, whatever happens in the future, it’s not your fault. You hear me? You need to stop blaming yourself for everything. Hell, maybe you should be blaming your uncle.”
“Part of me does,” he said. “Part of me will hate him forever. But he thought he was doing the right thing, Eva. Sully was caught up in way more than he could handle, with Dad and Betty and the ghosts and everything. Forcing him into Lockwood was the wrong thing, but no one knew exactly how wrong back then. What I did know was we’d already prevented two suicide attempts. There’s an expression: three times lucky. I wasn’t taking the chance, not with him. So I didn’t fight it like I should have. I ran from it instead.”
“I know. I remember. But I also remember you weren’t far from tailspinning right behind him. You never were far behind him in anything. I sometimes felt like he was our kid, not your brother, the way you were with him. And I’m not faulting you. I loved you for that. I knew where it came from, why it was so important to you to keep your brother safe. We all have our childhood crosses to bear. Yours was heavier than a lot of people’s.”
Exhaustion hit him, like he could just crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But there was far too much riding on him.
“If he’s there, I can’t let this go again, Eva. I won’t. I don’t care what it takes. I won’t let him down again.”
“If he’s there, we’ll find a way to get him out. Okay?” She saved him further, shining a light into the darkness with what he knew to be a joke. “If all else fails, we can all go on the run together, you, me, Kayleigh and Sully. I’m sure she’d love that. She used to want to be a gypsy, remember?”
“That was after the archeologist phase.”
“Before archaeologist, after cowgirl.”
“Right.” Dez looked at Eva, watched the smile playing around her lips as she thought about their daughter, and he felt his own forming right alongside. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Everything. Just being here. Kicking my ass. Pulling me out of the gutter time and again. I’ve never deserved you. I sure as hell never deserved Kayleigh.”
Eva met his eye before returning attention to the road. The brief second was enough to reveal her amusement. “We both know you never deserved me. But Kayleigh’s every inch her father’s daughter.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. The only problem with the two of you is that you’re too hard on yourselves over things it’s not in your power to change.”
“There are some things I can change.”
“So when are you going to start?” Eva asked. “I’m getting tired of waiting for you, Snowman. We’ll find Sully, all right? But since Sully proved the tipping point in your going off the rails two years ago, I need you to promise me you’ll let him be your reason to get back on again.”
“Eva, I love Sully, and getting him back will help me a lot with getting back on track. But you and Kayleigh are my reason. You always were. Don’t you ever think otherwise.”
Eva said nothing, and Dez smiled as he watched her swallow hard.
He hadn’t expected the touch of her hand closing over his, a feeling both of forgotten warmth and of coming home. Afraid of bringing a premature end to this moment, of breaking whatever spell they were under, Dez didn’t move.
Neither did she.
18
Jed’s Storage wasn’t far off Edgewater Road, marked by a beaming neon sign, a lit office and a locked compound containing several rows of large storage containers.
“Did you check their hours?” Eva asked as she pulled up to the office.
“No, but—” Dez pointed to a sign just under the main one, reading twenty-four hours, “—that looks promising.”
“That’s probably why Lachlan picked this one,” Eva said. “He seems like the kind of guy who’d do most of his business in the wee hours.”
Dez scanned the area and came up with something new to worry about. “Stay in the car and keep out of view. There’s a camera above the gate over there, and no doubt there’s one in the office too. Last thing I want is you getting made on this if someone comes at me for interfering in an investigation.”
“Just play it cool. We aren’t interfering in anything. We’re just checking something out for a friend.”
“Right,” Dez said.
She answered his smile, but only just.
Dez headed inside where he found a young man behind a counter tall enough to keep most of his body hidden from view. The guy regarded Dez with the narrowed eyes of someone used to working alone at night, where everyone who came in was a potential threat to life and limb.
And, sure enough, there was a security camera mounted high behind the desk, leaving Dez recorded here for posterity, should Forbes ever come calling. Dez couldn’t imagine Lachlan was too fond of being recorded each time he came and went—Dez sure wasn’t happy about it, particularly given he and Eva were potentially obstructing a police investigation—but you took what you got with a twenty-four-hour business.
“I help you?” the clerk asked, voice low and questioning, a hint of a Slavic accent mixed in.
“I need to access a storage container,” Dez said. One of Lachlan’s other numbers clicked into place. “Number 63.”
“You’re not the usual guy,” the man behind the desk said. His hands weren’t in view, and Dez imagined he was fingering a firearm or some other potentially devastating weapon. Anyone worth their salt these days kept some sort of weapon while working a night job.
Dez didn’t provide Lachlan’s name, certain there was no way in hell the ex-cop had purchased a container under his true identity.
“He’s a friend. He’s been hurt, and he asked me to get something from his container.”
“You have a key?”
Dez held up the item, receiving a hint of a nod from the clerk.
“And the code to access the compound?”
This was a test, it seemed. Thankfully, Lachlan had provided crib notes.
“5901,” Dez said.
This time the clerk smiled. It was barely there, but it counted as a win for Dez nonetheless.
“Second row to your left, about halfway down,” man said. “Keypad is to the left of the gate. Drive through, and it will close behind you.”
Dez nodded at the man and left the office. He hadn’t noticed the keypad in the dark, and he kicked himself mentally for providing the unneeded footage of himself in the office. Sure, that camera mounted above the gate would record his comings and goings just the same, but he could have put his hood up to make recognition more difficult.
Then again, there weren’t exactly a lot of people with his size and build in KR. Add in vehicle recognition and Forbes’s job wouldn’t exactly be a tough one.
Dez opened Eva’s door. “Slide over
. The camera over there is on the driver’s side. I don’t want it picking you up.”
“What about you?”
“I was probably screwed a while ago.”
Eva did as asked, nimbly shifting herself over the centre console and into the passenger side while Dez moved the seat back and took up her vacated position. He steered toward the gate and reached out to key in Lachlan’s code, pleased when he got the right response. As he watched the tall steel gate slide open, it occurred to him this was entirely more befitting Lockwood.
He turned left and followed the clerk’s directions to the second row, the two of them watching for cameras en route and thankfully finding none.
Having located the right container, Dez got out. He turned the key on a lockbox next to the big, blue roll-up door and located a button inside to work it. The inside of the container, as made clear by the light of the car’s headlights, provided room to park, and Eva climbed back over and drove in. Meanwhile, Dez searched for and found a light switch.
A second button for the door was inside, this one unguarded, and Dez hit that one next, closing them in and granting them extra privacy should the clerk or anyone else come snooping.
Hoping Pax wouldn’t take a leak on any of Lachlan’s personal possessions, Dez let the dog out of the vehicle, and turned around for a better look at Lachlan’s hidden world.
A few pieces of old furniture, covered in reams of heavy plastic, were hard to make out beyond their shapes. A handful of paintings—prints of famous artwork Dez couldn’t identify but remembered seeing somewhere—were propped against various surfaces while a large area rug gave that portion of floor a surprisingly luxuriant feel. On top of the rug was a plush armchair, the kind Eva liked to curl up in to read. And it looked like it would be getting plenty of use as the most obvious features in the unit were several tall stacks of bankers’ boxes and a long row of metal filing cabinets lining the back wall.