by Tina Whittle
Trey ignored the implication. “What did you do next?”
“I ran back inside, what do you think I did?”
Trey knew the rest of the story from Finn. Nick’s brother had searched for the bullet, found nothing. Trey didn’t have any further questions, but I sure did, and I couldn’t keep them inside any longer.
“If you don’t live there anymore, why were you there Friday night?” I said.
“I told you. Paperwork.”
“You can do paperwork anywhere. Why do it at the house where your wife was murdered?”
He reached for his lukewarm tea. “Because I haven’t been there since she died. It had become a monster, in my mind anyway. On Monday, it will be a different place. The staging crew will have it stuffed with carefully curated art and knickknacks.” He shrugged. “I wanted to prove to myself that it had no more power over me.”
“Is that why you wanted Trey to come? To prove he had no power over you either?”
Nick gave me a hard look, defensive and accusing at the same time. “Look, I can’t move forward until I deal with the past. I thought I’d done that, but apparently my past is not done with me because it showed up the other night and tried to put a bullet in my head. I want it to be over. Over and done and finally, for the love of God, past. That’s why I went out there.”
Trey raised an eyebrow. “And did that work for you?”
“It did not.” Nick looked Trey up and down. He wore the same expression Trey did when he was evaluating the veracity of a statement—gaze focused on the lips, eyes narrowed. “You know what? Go see for yourself.”
“See what?”
“The house. You’re a premises liability expert—I know, because I looked you up. Quint’s probably there. I’ll tell him you’re on your way.” He leaned over and pulled a key ring from the makeup table drawer. “But here. Just in case.”
He tossed the key to Trey, who caught it one-handed. He examined it carefully, as if it were a trap, but Nick waved him toward the door.
“Go on. Investigate the scene. Only this time do it on your own terms and not some dirty cop’s.”
Trey hesitated for only one second before closing his fingers around the key.
Chapter Eighteen
Once we were out of the trailer, Trey made straight for the parking lot like some well-dressed homing pigeon. I had to hustle to keep up. “What are you doing?”
“Going to the Talbot house.”
“I know that. I mean, why?”
“Nick Talbot didn’t kill his wife. And now someone may be trying to kill him.”
“Yes, but why does that mean you have to go over there?”
Trey didn’t answer. Which didn’t matter because I knew why he was doing it. It was the same reason why at least once a week, he drove past the concrete embankment he’d plowed into almost four years ago. Why I kept that envelope in the cash register right where I could see it. Keep your enemies close, and your demons closer.
I inserted myself between him and the Ferrari. His eyes were dark in the late light, his hair tipped with sunset flame, and I could feel the metal door behind me, hot through my jeans.
“I don’t think you should go,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And I know what you’re going to say next.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” I licked my lips. “I will admit, I do not always make the most cautious decisions. But you do. And your argument has always been that complicated criminal matters are best left to professionals.”
His eyes flashed. “Yes. And then you ignore me, or lie to me, or distract me, or involve me without my knowledge, or—”
“Your point?”
He took a deep calming breath. “My point is that it would be…problematic for you to ask me to cease and desist now.”
“Problematic? You know what’s problematic?” I flung a finger back toward Nick’s trailer. “Thirty minutes ago, you were two seconds away from a hyperventilating panic attack—”
“I was not.”
“—and now you wanna go barge into—”
“Not barge.”
“—the same damn house where you had such a traumatic emotional reaction that you broke protocol, you, the crown prince of procedure.” I examined him closely. “Except that you aren’t, are you? Not anymore. Maybe not then, either.”
He slipped his hand into his pocket, and the door unlocked with an obedient snick. “Maybe not. That’s something I intend to find out.”
I didn’t budge. “Fine. But there’s no way in hell you’re going without me.”
He reached behind me and opened the door, the inside of his wrist brushing my hip. “I never expected that I would.”
Sometimes I missed the old Buckhead, the one Rico had introduced to me back when it had been the last of the great American bar crawls. Dozens of clubs with pulsing lights and bass-heavy dance music so rich and deep you could practically ride it. That Buckhead had vanished, zoned into oblivion. Now it was upscale again, all the clubs genteel and leather-chaired, with craft cocktails and lithographs. More Rodeo Drive than Bourbon Street. Of course, a lot fewer people got stabbed or shot or run over or beaten about the head and face. But I missed its wilder, more raucous vibe.
The Talbot estate lay west of the North Fulton Golf Course. The undulating Bermuda grass fairway was mostly empty this late in the day, but Powers Ferry was heavy with traffic. Downrange I heard the metallic thwack of a golf ball taking flight, and I could see why Nick had chosen this place as the cover for his lover’s tryst. It was close and casual. Nobody would have noticed or missed him, which also made it a fine place to flee a murder.
Trey parked at the clubhouse so that we could walk across the street, following in reverse the burglar/killer’s alleged escape route. He slowed his normally brisk pace so that he could take in details, construct a map in his head. The houses in this neighborhood secluded themselves behind landscaped islands and security system warning signs. Trey stopped at the mouth of a river slate driveway. He didn’t need to double-check the directions.
“Here,” he said.
I followed him up the driveway. Eventually the house materialized like a three-story iceberg on the horizon—white bricks, white roof tiles, silvery-white shutters. The shrubs and trees had once been well-groomed, but were now blowsy and overgrown, and there were ruts on the lawn from a large truck. Moving van, I decided. The Buckwild production team clearing out.
“How much are the Talbots asking?”
“Two point four million.”
I whistled. “Wow. Damn proud of this place, those Talbots.”
We walked under a trellised rosebush to the front door, but Trey didn’t knock. This was familiar territory for him, rolling up in some civilian’s yard with a list of pointed questions and a suspicious eye.
I leaned closer. “What are we—?”
“Shhh.”
I heard it then, from inside. Footsteps. Trey adjusted his posture into a neutral stance, ready to react should the door open and some unexpected assailant take a swing at us. Luckily, that didn’t happen. The man who opened up was dressed for business. Despite his chiseled chin and expertly highlighted chestnut hair, he was too rough to be handsome—what might have been good looks were dampened by the downturned frown lines at the corner of his mouth. I could see his resemblance to Nick in his build and profile, but nowhere else. Whatever softness Nick possessed had turned hard in his brother.
He examined Trey with a sharp, reductive gaze. “It really is you.”
Trey didn’t say anything. He didn’t even open his mouth, just stared, the words stuck in his throat.
I took the lead. “Quint Talbot?”
“Of course. Who else would I be?” He didn’t ask my name, just walked back into the house, waving us in. “Let’s get thi
s over with, I have things to do.”
Inside the house smelled stale and cold. It was empty of furniture—no drapes, no rugs, no art on the white walls—and Trey’s footsteps echoed against cool marble tile. The metal staircase curved upward like a double helix to the second floor, its blond oak steps the only color in the room.
Trey stood at the foot of it. Quint stood opposite him, impatiently buttoning his cuffs.
“You look different,” he said.
Trey thought about that. “I am different.”
Quint’s eyes flashed with surprise, then he laughed. “Touché.” He pulled on a suit jacket. “You got questions, you better ask them. I—”
His phone rang. He glanced at it, narrowed his eyes, then silenced it with a tap of his finger, obviously annoyed. I wondered if it was Nick he was ignoring, or perhaps Portia, or perhaps the trio of investors he’d dodged. I’d spent five minutes with Quint Talbot, and I already knew he trailed pissed-off people like a wake.
He switched his gaze back to Trey. “You have five minutes.”
Trey’s hesitation vanished. “Your brother said you were here the night of the alleged shooting.”
“Alleged?” Quint snorted. “Try imaginary.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“I was in here, going over the staging paperwork. I—”
“Where exactly?”
“Right here.” He moved his hands to indicate a rectangle. “There used to be a table, but the Buckwild people took it. Nicky was outside sucking down a cigarette. I’d told him I could bring the paperwork to his place, but he insisted on coming out here. Had some idea that it would help him process the trauma.”
“Where was he standing?”
Quint pointed toward the bank of glass doors. “Over by the diving board. I took a call. Suddenly I hear this earsplitting scream, and I run to the door, but Nicky’s already running back inside.” He shrugged. “That’s it. You want more detail than that, talk to Nicky.”
I could see the backyard through the windows along the rear wall, terraced grasses and bedraggled flower beds surrounding a stamped concrete patio. A kidney-shaped pool shimmered with water as blue as a South Seas lagoon—unlike the landscaping, it was pristine. Freshly serviced, I decided. Thick stands of trees created a privacy screen between the backyard and the surrounding properties. Had I not just walked across one of the busiest streets in Atlanta, I would have sworn we were at the edge of a great wilderness.
Quint’s phone rang again. He stuck his hand in his pocket and silenced it again, this time without even glancing at the screen.
“Who called you that night?” Trey said.
“The Buckwild showrunner, making arrangements to pick up the last of their crap. Which they did last night, only they also took my security cameras, every damn one. What good is a system without cameras?”
“None at all.”
“Exactly right.” He shot his sleeves, adjusted his tie. “Look, I told Finn I’d cooperate with Nicky’s…whatever this is. But the situation’s cut and dried. Nicky imagined everything. It never happened.”
“How do you know?”
“I didn’t hear a gun, for starters. But I searched for a bullet the next morning, just in case. Didn’t find a thing. Nothing. Zippo.” He fixed us with a look. “You do know about my brother’s mental instability, right? Paranoid delusions. He’s supposedly fine now, but I’m not so sure. He’s been more unstable than usual.”
“How?”
“His routine has gone to hell, for starters. He’s insisting on being a part of the house sale, so he’s meeting realtors etcetera etcetera etcetera. He’s insisting on being at the press party this weekend, when I’ve told him over and over I have it under control. I blame Addison—that’s his fiancée. She’s currently petitioning to be his sole conservator, which makes her as crazy as he is, but is anybody listening to me? No. Nicky may be nuts, but he can be very persuasive when he’s trying to make you think he’s not. People don’t understand that.”
He said this as an accusation. As if we were also trapped in one of Nick Talbot’s delusional webs.
Trey kept his expression professionally bland. “Does Ms. Canright agree with your assessment?”
“Addison makes sure he takes his meds, that’s her contribution. Tracks his cholesterol, feeds him vitamins. Homeopathic bullshit. But she has no clue how seriously fucked up he is.”
Trey had been watching Quint this entire time without registering a single lie. I could tell when he spotted one of those. It was like a hawk spying a squirrel. But he’d betrayed nothing.
“Am I understanding correctly,” he said, “that you don’t believe there was an attempt on your brother’s life Friday night?”
“You understand perfectly.” Quint buttoned his jacket. “The staging crew will be here in an hour. I want you two cleared out as soon as they arrive.”
Trey nodded. “Of course.”
“Good. The sooner we get this monster off our books, the better.”
He left without a good-bye, trailing a wave of aftershave. But I noticed he’d used the same word Nick had to describe the house.
Monster.
Chapter Nineteen
Trey studied Quint Talbot as the door slammed shut, doubly loud in the cavernous space.
“Well?” I said. “Was he lying?”
Trey didn’t look away from the door. “No. But he wasn’t telling the truth either.”
“Technically true but deliberately evasive?”
“No. There was no pretense. It seems as if…as if he knew the truth, but knew even more about not knowing the truth. Does that make any sense?”
“Not really.”
He blew out a breath. “I was afraid of that.”
He stood at the base of the stairs, the exact spot where he’d found the body of Jessica Talbot. Where he’d broken his training. Where he now stood making a concerted effort to not look at the floor.
I came up beside him. “Don’t get trapped back there.”
“Back where?”
“In the past. That’s not why you’re here.”
He faced me, his expression a mix of annoyance and frustration. “I know. I made mistakes then. And I’m still making mistakes.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the beginning. I couldn’t ask him…I was trying, but…”
I felt a pang of sympathy. Most of the time Trey handled his brain trauma as disinterestedly as he handled the other artifacts of the accident—the titanium rods in his spine and knee, the scar tissue, the migraines. But now he looked like somebody had pulled the rug out from under him.
“You couldn’t think of what to say?”
“Yes, but more than that. I was trying so hard not to say the wrong things—like anything from the files—that I couldn’t say the right things.”
“You got there eventually.”
He shook his head. “Eventually is not good enough.”
“Of course it is. You’re in virgin territory. You didn’t do investigations when you were a cop, and yet here you are in this crazy complex situation full of triggers and flashbacks and surprises. Maybe you weren’t as quick with the words as you wanted to be this time. So you prepare differently for the next time.”
“The next time?”
“Hypothetically speaking.”
He took a deep breath, released it slowly. His gaze was fixed on the staircase. It curved upward, a graceful spiral of white iron and golden hardwood. I tried to picture that awful morning—the blood and confusion, the barking of orders and crackle of the radio. Normally Trey was brisk, precise, procedural. But today he stood where he’d once knelt beside the body of Jessica Talbot.
“So here you are now,” I said. “Trey Seaver, premises liability and security agent. What do you do?”
He
gave a start, as if I’d pulled him from a daydream. “Oh. You mean right now?”
“I do. Because if you’re gonna give this place a going-over, you’d best get on it. The staging team will be here soon.”
“Right. Of course.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out the mechanical pencil and notepad he kept in there. He flipped open to a clean page, clicked the pencil to get fresh lead, and started sketching. This was always his first step in any premises assessment. First, he stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle, like a human compass. Then he walked the perimeter, viewing the scene in different lights and from different perspectives.
I stood to the side, out of his way. The room was disturbing in its emptiness, like a socket where a tooth should have been. Looking more closely, I could see the holes in the plaster where cameras had once been mounted, tangled wires still dangling. There were gouges in the floor where equipment had been dragged, scuff marks on the baseboards. The room’s past permeated the walls and gave off something like a subconscious smell. It was nothing compared to Trey’s memories, however. I was sure those burned so bright he could practically touch them.
Engrossed now in his sketch, he had regained his former efficiency, quick with the lines and angles as the living area took two-dimensional form on his notepad. I tried to imagine it as the set of Buckwild, crammed with bodies and noise and glare. Here the lights, there the cameras…
The cameras.
“Trey?”
He continued sketching. “Yes?”
“This place wasn’t empty Friday night. When Quint and Nick were here. Quint said the production team cleared things out last night.”
“Correct.”
“Which means the reality show cameras were still here on Friday. You can see the marks where they were mounted. Like right there. And there.” I pointed to the corners of the room. “Maybe not operational, but…what are you doing?”
He had his phone out before I could finish. “I’m texting Finn. She needs to find that equipment. If there’s footage, she needs to preserve it.” He looked up from his phone. “Thank you. That was an excellent point.”