by Sidney Bell
“Huh.” Sullivan was giving him a mildly unfriendly look now.
Tobias pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He wasn’t sure why Sullivan’s opinion should burn, not when Sullivan didn’t know him and couldn’t understand, but it did. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh?”
“Poor little rich boy whining about how hard his life is. But I’m not.”
“Says the man who can afford to live in a hotel.”
“It’s not exactly the Bel-Air,” Tobias said, trying not to sound snide or juvenile, “and I meant that I’m not whining. Besides, I’m paying for the motel out of my savings.”
“Not the money you use to go to ‘functions,’ I’m guessing.”
Tobias gritted his teeth. “I’ve been working since I was fifteen, and I’ve been living at home to save for school, so no, it’s not ‘function’ money. It wasn’t handed to me.”
“Okay.”
“My parents put themselves through undergrad and medical school while working full-time. They’re not spending weekends at someone’s hunting estate, for crying out loud.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t talk about my family.”
“Okay,” Sullivan said, and this time, instead of doubting and bland, it sounded gentle. Not apologetic exactly, but calming. “Okay.”
“Fine.” Tobias heaved a breath. “What’s next?”
“That’s a very good question.” Sullivan started the car. “Let’s get sandwiches and brainstorm. You’re paying.”
Chapter Ten
The house Sullivan drove them to after picking up food was located a few blocks from the cutoff between nice Denver and crappy Denver, although if he’d been pressed, Tobias wasn’t sure which side he’d say it was on, because the place was a nightmare. For a good ten seconds, all he could do was sit in the car and marvel. The clapboard had been painted a sickly pastel orange and the little bit of trim that hadn’t rotted away was a dingy, faded purple. The portico was half collapsed over the front door, several of the big windows were cracked or boarded up and the rest were filthy. The yard was bare dirt, the privacy fence sun-bleached almost white and sagging so low as to be useless, and the driveway was so pitted as to be a long stretch of rubble.
“Why?” Tobias wondered out loud before deciding that he sounded kind of snobby and should probably shut his mouth. If someone wanted to live in that...thing...they should be able to. But God, it was awful, especially compared to the neat, pretty houses with blossoming rose bushes and white porch swings that lined the rest of the street.
“You mean why are we here?” Sullivan asked. “Because that motel is claustrophobic and depressing and it’s killing my soul to work there. Plus I want to save my updated notes on my external drive while I’m thinking about it or I’ll forget.”
“I mean why is it like this?”
Sullivan glanced at the house as if trying to figure out what the problem was. “You don’t like it?”
“You’re joking, right? I can’t tell. Please be joking. I can’t believe you live here.”
Sullivan sighed. “You rich boys and your unreasonable standards.”
“Knock it off with the rich boy thing. Not wanting to get rabies is not unreasonable.” Tobias followed Sullivan across the street reluctantly.
“You’re far more likely to get tetanus than rabies. Let’s not be silly.”
Tobias was taken aback by the urge to smile.
Instead of leading him up the sidewalk, Sullivan headed for the edge of the property and the open gate to the backyard. They waded through a mass of weeds on the other side. “Why are we going this way?”
“Front door deadbolt died this morning, so I’ve got a cement block keeping it closed from inside,” Sullivan said over his shoulder.
“Doesn’t that violate the fire code?” Tobias asked, and Sullivan laughed, which was not at all reassuring.
There were white-painted cement stairs to the left leading up to a sun porch with a screen door clinging halfheartedly to its hinges, and a bright red sign—the only intact thing on the whole property so far—taped to it. Danger, Fumigation Chemicals Present. Do Not Enter. May Cause Death.
Tobias stopped short. “Did you bring me here to kill me?”
Sullivan laughed again as he tugged on the doorknob, and the door swung open easily because there was no spring to resist. “That’s meant to scare off invaders until I get a new door installed.”
The inside of the sun porch had been stripped clean so that the stanchions stood exposed, as if someone had been putting work into the structure of the thing. Sullivan led him through a pair of tidy French doors.
With the weak sunshine that leaked through the filthy screens, Tobias could see that the family room, at least, was in pretty good shape. The hardwood floors shone and the crown molding over the doorways was lovely, and the mismatched but lived-in decor gave the space a cozy sort of atmosphere. The sofa and armchair were the overstuffed, comfy kind that begged to be napped on, an old, beat-up trunk served as a coffee table, the surface watermarked and scarred, and a painting hung on one wall.
It was a painting of a seagull wearing yellow rubber rain boots, but still. It was art.
And there were books everywhere.
Two wide bookshelves were stuffed to overflowing, paperbacks jammed horizontally above double-stacked rows, and leaning towers of hardcovers rose to knee height everywhere except where a narrow bare path wound through the room and led deeper into the house.
Standing in front of the nearest shelf, Tobias turned his head sideways to read the titles. The Logic of Alice by Bernard M. Patten, The Book of Divination by Ann Fiery, Cookie Dough Delights by Camilla V. Saulsbury, How to Build and Modify GM LS-Series Engines by Joseph Potak and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
Sullivan owned Twilight. This time the threatening smile made it to Tobias’s face. “You have eclectic taste.”
“Yeah, a bit.” Sullivan had gone through the alcove into the dining room, which was still mid-renovation; a card table and two folding chairs took up most the space, a hole gaped in the ceiling where a chandelier was probably meant to go, and the baseboards had been ripped up.
Tobias wandered over to the painting, charmed by the whimsy of the seagull. All told, it was not the kind of place he’d have expected a guy with a mohawk and tattoos to live.
“Do you feel bad about judging me now?” Sullivan asked, although his tone didn’t reflect insult at all. He sounded almost amused. When Tobias winced, he added, “You can say it. You thought I lived in a crack den.”
“Yeah. Sorry,” Tobias admitted grudgingly.
“Nah, I’m not offended. One of my sisters and her husband flip houses for a living. I like moving around, so every few months when they get a new place, they cut me a serious break on rent in exchange for some manual labor and running off the occasional would-be squatter.” He patted the table and Tobias realized he was standing there staring around like a yokel, with his arms full of food.
“Lot of books to move every few months.” Tobias dumped everything on the table.
“I don’t take most of them. Most of my favorites are on my Kindle, and anything else goes to libraries or used bookstores on moving day. When I’m settled in a new place, the whole accrual cycle starts again.”
While they ate, they talked—Sullivan with his mouth full occasionally, Tobias with far more civility because he had manners.
“Okay, so let’s lay out what we know,” Sullivan said, one foot bouncing under the table. “Back in, what, ’87, ’88? We’ve got Larry the crime lord wannabe with his young Russian pregnant girlfriend who eventually turned into Mama, the legit crime lord.”
“Lady,” Tobias interjected.
Sullivan rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Roughly five years later, in February of ’92, he’s dead, along with a bunch of his bodyguards
and his housekeeper, while the girlfriend-slash-crime lady and the ten-year-old girl are nowhere to be seen. Six years ago, someone bought a condo in that dead housekeeper’s name. And that same someone has been, of late, housing a prostitute in that condo in partial payment for a ‘favor.’ That prostitute accepted a ride thirteen days ago from a stranger in a vehicle that we have not yet identified.” Sullivan dipped a chip in ketchup and jabbed it in the air toward Tobias. “Stop making that face.”
“Come on. You’re thinking it too. Nathalie’s with Mama.”
“We don’t know that. Mama-the-girlfriend could’ve left years before the murders.”
“But it makes sense.”
“No, it makes coincidence. We need to find out when the girlfriend left before we start jumping to conclusions.”
“You’re excited about it.” Tobias glanced pointedly at Sullivan’s bouncing foot.
“I always fidget,” Sullivan said defensively, going still. “My mother called me the patron saint of perpetual motion. And if I am excited—which I’m not—it’s only because I like outlandish theories. But since I have more than five brain cells, I’m aware that the outlandish theories often turn out to be bull. It’s Occam’s razor. ‘When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions—’”
Tobias finished with him, “‘—the simpler one is the better.’”
Sullivan stared at him.
“You’re not the only person on the planet who reads, you know.”
“Sometimes I wonder. But okay. Good. It’s good. That you read, I mean.”
Tobias shrugged that off. If Sullivan wanted to be weird, let him. “But you know what’s really strange? That the wannabe crime lord’s description of Lena didn’t match what she really looked like.”
“It’s hard to mix up voluptuous sexpot and skinny waif,” Sullivan agreed.
“It’s almost like he didn’t get what he was expecting.” Tobias nodded when Sullivan gestured to the remains of his sandwich, sliding his plate over so Sullivan could finish it. “You know what that sounds like, right?”
“That’s gotta be a movie cliché or something, though.” Sullivan opened his laptop and entered the password, then paused, looking back and forth between Tobias’s leftover sandwich and his laptop before pushing the computer toward Tobias. “No one really gets a Russian mail-order bride.”
“Of course not.” Tobias handed Sullivan a napkin, then opened a browser window for a new search. “That’s not a thing people do.”
After half an hour of badly translated sleazy websites advertising hot foreign brides and another half hour on sites working to end human trafficking, it was clear that yes, mail-order brides were very much something that people did, and in far more messed-up ways than Tobias had expected.
“Some of these scenarios are basically sex slavery. This girl was rescued from a basement where she was kept chained up for months.” Tobias’s sandwich sat heavy as stone in his stomach. Some of these girls were younger than Mirlande. His fingers jerked toward his phone instinctively before he reminded himself not to be ridiculous—his sisters, at least, were safe.
“Ugh, don’t read that next case study.” Sullivan closed his eyes and put his head down on the table so that his words were muffled partly by the wood. “I’m going to take a moment to be disgusted by both my gender and my species.”
Tobias couldn’t look at the pictures anymore. He got up, swallowing hard against the urge to be sick and collecting their lunch trash. “I’ll take care of this,” he muttered, and headed in the likely direction of the kitchen.
He had to pick his way through a hallway filled with debris and paint cans and a haphazard stack of half-rotted boards, but Sullivan’s kitchen, like the family room, was farther along. He was greeted by bright yellow and white tile, a wall of gutted cabinetry, expensive stainless-steel appliances, and a big six-burner stove that his mother would kill for, but no visible trash can. As he searched in all the reasonable places, he tried to focus on the case. He called, “You think that’s how Lena came to this country? Made a deal for a husband and a fresh start and ended up a prisoner in some monster’s house?”
“Seems like a pretty common situation.” Sullivan appeared in the doorway, his gaze thoughtful on Tobias, his soda cup dangling from one hand. “No wonder becoming a crime lady looked like a viable option. Most of these women aren’t here legally, and even if they are, they’re told horrible things about the police to keep them from trying to get help—and coming from a place like Russia, you’re probably inclined to believe the stories. Most of the men they’re given to never marry them or arrange for green cards like they claim they will, so deportation is another threat that can be used. It’s not like you can learn the language or get job skills if you’re tied up in a bedroom for months. You know, I read this thing a while back about how education in foreign countries doesn’t always transfer to the States because we have this attitude here that our learning institutions are better than the ones in other countries even though it’s frequently the other way around, especially in K-12—”
Tobias had run out of cabinets to search now, and he kicked the one under the sink closed. “Where on earth is your trash can?”
“—so that immigrants have to... Hmm?” Sullivan blinked. “Oh, it’s in the bathroom.”
Tobias aimed an exasperated look at him but didn’t say anything, only picking his way back through boards and debris to find the bathroom. Sullivan pointed him toward a secluded hallway, at the end of which was a closed door which, when Tobias pushed it open, fell off its hinges and crashed into him, knocking him to the floor and startling the hell out of him in the process.
“What the—” Tobias cried, shoving the door away as Sullivan burst into laughter at the mouth of the corridor. “Why did you let me do that?”
Sullivan only laughed harder.
Tobias climbed to his feet, telling himself to calm down. He wasn’t hurt, and it wasn’t rational to expect Sullivan to be nice. Tobias was blackmailing him—Sullivan’s little rebellions were almost predictable, given the context, and as far as pranks went, this was downright harmless. But his breath was strangling in his throat, much as it had the other day back at home. He was so tired and his eyes had been scraped with sandpaper and he was surrounded by a chaotic mess and the reins holding his temper in check were slipping through his fingers. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but do you seriously not have a kitchen trash can?”
Sullivan’s laughter trailed off and he hitched a hip against the table, so that he leaned inelegantly like some insolent hick, only lacking a stalk of wheat to chew on. “Well, now, I don’t know how y’all do things up in that fancy neighborhood you live in, but down here in our neck of the woods, we just throw that shit right on the floor.”
Tobias flushed. He’d meant that because of the state of the house, it was understandable if the garbage can hung out in whichever room Sullivan or his sister had been working in last. “That’s not what I meant,” he said stiffly. “I meant I can see that you wouldn’t always have the inclination to drag it from room to room—”
“That’s very kind of you,” Sullivan continued, a saccharine simper on his lips. “We don’t all have maids to serve our entitled asses with whatever our hearts could want in any given moment, regardless of how it might affect the little people—”
“Buy another trash can!” Tobias yelled, and threw the bag of crumpled sandwich wrappers at him.
Sullivan batted it out of the air easily, his dark eyes flashing with equal parts anger and that’s the best you can do? and that was it. Tobias wanted out of this damned house and away from this ass, who was determined to interpret every word out of his mouth in the worst possible way. He headed back toward the family room and freedom, picking up steam as he went, but Sullivan didn’t move. He braced his feet like a colonist protecting his square of uncharted land—I claim
this disgusting hallway in the name of juvenile hair and too many tattoos. He clearly meant to force Tobias to squeeze around him, and probably break an ankle on the pile of wood, at which point he would smirk—
“Move,” Tobias gritted out, stopping directly in front of him.
“Giving me orders in my own home, now?” Sullivan snorted. “It suits your social class, I suppose.”
“I swear to God—”
“Have we gotten to the threats already? Please do tell me what you intend to do to me for standing in my own fucking hallway.”
Tobias was moving before the idea registered in his thoughts. He had Sullivan by the upper arms and was shoving him aside, and Sullivan stumbled over the loose boards. Tobias had caught him so much by surprise that he’d have fallen if Tobias hadn’t used the wall and his own body to keep him on his feet, Sullivan’s breath exploding from him in a huffed uh, and Tobias felt a thrill of victory that had his heart thumping wildly in his chest.
You didn’t think I had it in me, he wanted to shout. He hadn’t thought he had it in him, either, actually, because Tobias didn’t fight. He’d never put his hands on someone in anger before in his life, and—God, what had he done?
Tobias lost the wild spree of fury that’d left him reacting so blindly. His fingers loosened, his mind spitting out oh, God, did I hurt him, he’s going to be livid, I just wanted to leave, wanted him to get out of my way, how did this go so wrong—
Sullivan’s eyes—wide and startled—narrowed and hardened, and he shoved back, harder and with far more determination, his body twisting in a way that took Tobias not only into the other wall, but with enough force that it hurt. Tobias struggled, shoving back, trying to get free rather than cause pain, rapidly becoming aware that while he might outweigh Sullivan slightly, he was slow and clumsy in comparison, so he finally went still. He wasn’t—he wasn’t sure what to do, how to get out of this, but he knew he didn’t want to fight, not like this, and he was angry but not angry enough to hurt someone, so he prepared himself to lose his first fistfight, and then abruptly he realized that they weren’t fighting at all.