Fatal Hearts

by Norah Wilson

  “I’m so sorry about your brother,” the receptionist said when he’d introduced himself. “He was very popular here. The departments don’t mix much, but he always had a cheerful word for us.”

  Boyd smiled. “That sounds like Josh.” He glanced around. “Where would I find Dave Bradley? I’m a few minutes early, but he should be expecting me.”

  She gestured to the glass-walled cubicles to the left, where people worked in plain view of everyone else. “There. Far side, front end.”

  “Tan shirt and glasses, on the phone?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Thank you.” He pushed away from the counter and strode purposefully toward the cubicles. The closer he got, the louder the voices got, as individuals tried to make themselves heard over other conversations and the pervasive background racket of some type of machine.

  Bradley looked up and spotted him. He concluded his phone conversation and met Boyd just outside the entrance to his cubicle.

  “Dave Bradley,” he said, extending his hand. “And you, Detective McBride, don’t need an introduction. Not in this building.”

  Boyd shook the man’s hand, sizing him up. His grip was firm, but his hands were soft, as the rest of him appeared to be. Not overweight, but not gym material either. Curly dark hair, worn in a longish style that he probably hadn’t changed since university, even though it was starting to recede on the sides. With his pale skin and dark-rimmed glasses, he definitely looked the part of the intellectual. More Geek Squad than sensitive artist, he’d wager.

  “Sorry,” Boyd said, releasing his grip. “I seem to be scaring the hell out of a lot of folks lately.”

  At Boyd’s words, the conversation around them died abruptly, leaving just the noise of the unseen machine. A quick glance around confirmed they were all looking at him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Bradley said, his eyes meeting Boyd’s for just a second before skating away. “I should have warned people. I guess I forgot the detail that you two were identical.” He turned to address the other reporters, all of whom were frozen in place. “Josh’s brother,” he called.

  Like someone had thrown a switch, they went back to their conversations or keyboards. It was almost comical. Nothing like a deadline to bring focus, he supposed.

  That’s how Josh used to be. Boyd’s chest tightened with the memory.

  “There’s an empty office we can use if you’d like a little privacy.” Bradley gestured to a room almost directly opposite the reporters’ station. While it had a window for a front wall, it was enclosed and had a door. “It’s hard to have a conversation out here and not be overheard.”

  Interesting. Bradley was being friendly, but he seemed uncomfortable. His tone and his facial expression didn’t match the message entirely. And he sure wasn’t much for eye contact. In fact, he looked as though the last thing he wanted was a sit-down discussion. Was he just too busy? But if so, why had he agreed to the meeting?

  Maybe it just freaked the guy out that he looked so much like Josh.

  Or maybe he was nervous about something.

  “This doesn’t require privacy,” Boyd said, watching for Bradley’s reaction. “I just wanted to come by and collect any of Josh’s personal belongings he might have left here.”

  Bradley’s expression lightened. “Of course. I boxed up his things. His cubicle is still empty at the moment, but we’ve got interns coming and will have to shoehorn a couple of them in there soon.”

  “Can I see his space?”

  “Certainly.”

  Boyd followed him around the corner to an empty cubicle. A banker’s box sat on top of the desk. Boyd flipped the lid and looked inside. “This all there was?”

  “There were some files on his desk, but they were all works in progress. They’ve since been handed off to other reporters.”

  “Nothing personal?”

  “His laptop.”

  “Which the cops have.” When Bradley’s eyes slid away, Boyd added, “I turned it over to them for a forensic analysis. You never know, right? Best to make sure there wasn’t anything sketchy on there, nothing that might lead someone to want to hurt Josh.”

  Bradley swallowed. “Right.” His gaze met Boyd’s again finally.

  “No desktop unit?”

  Boyd already knew the answer. He’d been the one who’d collected the laptop, not the cops, since they didn’t have a warrant. The paper’s editor had handed it over personally, noting Josh had been the only reporter to use his personal laptop as his work computer. Josh had maintained that his life as a journalist was on that computer, from bookmarks to browser history to contacts, not to mention reams and reams of research, and he’d argued he would be more effective using it than the desktop computer they’d provided. The editor had been more than happy to make that concession, especially since it freed up a computer for another intern.

  “No. He preferred to use his own computer. Said he had a lot of shortcuts or something, and it would be quicker and easier.”

  “No personal files?”

  “Nope, nothing like that.” Bradley glanced away again.

  Boyd wasn’t certain if that was evasive behavior or whether his eyes were distracted by motion in the other cubicles. Damned glass walls. Boyd turned his attention to the box.

  “I’ll get out of here, give you some privacy,” Bradley said.

  “No need. This will just take a second.”

  Boyd quickly removed the larger items so he could see what was in the box. A pack of notebooks, all empty. Some dog-eared reference books, a digital photo frame, one of those tension-relieving foam balls for squishing, a digital camera. He got a little excited when he spotted the mini–digital recorder, but when he hit “Play,” he heard nothing. He rewound and got the same. Fast-forward, still nothing. He’d give the whole thing a listen, but he was pretty sure there was nothing on it. He poked the remaining stuff around. A handful of expensive pens—Josh had loved a good pen. Some AAA batteries for the minirecorder, three energy bars, a pouch of trail mix, and some other odds and ends. Sighing, he put the cover back on the box.

  “Didn’t find what you were looking for?” Bradley asked.

  Boyd glanced up. “Did the cops take anything when they were here?”

  “No.” He rubbed his temple. “Our editor let the detective have a look at the work space, but it was real quick, like he knew what he was looking for and didn’t find it. Mostly, he spent his time talking to the editor and a few journalists.”

  “Were you one of those journalists?”

  “To talk to the detective? Yeah. He was mainly interested in what Josh had been working on. I told them what I knew. By then, the files he’d been working on had already been reassigned.”

  Boyd wasn’t surprised to hear that. By the time he’d driven to his parents to break the news, booked a flight, and got his ass to Fredericton, it had been nearly twelve hours later. Another hour to get to the police station to speak to the investigators. All of which meant it was late the next afternoon before Josh’s file got bumped up to suspicious. It wasn’t until the following morning that Morgan got there to do his interviews. That would be an eternity in the news world, where a new edition had to be ground out six days a week, no matter who died.

  “Then you turned up shortly after and the boss turned over Josh’s laptop and jump drives.” He nodded to the box on the desk. “If we’d known you were coming, I could have had his desk cleaned out and his stuff packed up sooner. We were still in a bit of a state of shock.”

  “No notebooks?”

  Bradley shook his head. “There weren’t any here. Most of us keep our old notebooks and files in our cubicles or in those cabinets,” he said, nodding toward a wall of cabinets that formed an artificial wall separating the reporters’ area from the front desk. “But your brother was in the habit of taking his home.”

 
“Yeah, there were a bunch there with his work-related notes and research. But he was also conducting a personal investigation. That’s the notebook I haven’t been able to find.”

  Bradley blanched, his gaze swinging back to Boyd. “What kind of investigation?”

  Boyd kept his face expressionless. “I don’t know if he mentioned it, but Josh and I were adopted. He was looking into our birth parents. Because of a problem with our birth registration, the usual methods for opening the adoption records weren’t cutting it. So he was working that investigation in his spare time.”

  “Oh, of course.” The relief on Bradley’s face was evident. “I knew that, but I guess I’d sort of forgotten.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about it?”

  “Not really, but we all knew. You see, when he first joined the paper, a group of us were speculating about what might have happened to make him leave one of the best jobs in the country for this. We figured he must have disgraced himself somehow.”

  “Josh?” Boyd snorted. “He’d be the last guy to do something journalistically unethical.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Bradley said. “But we didn’t know him then. In fact, none of us had ever laid eyes on the guy. Which was why he was able to walk right up and join the conversation we were having about him.” Bradley laughed. “Talk about some red faces.”

  Boyd grinned. He could see Josh doing that.

  “Anyway, I never gave it much thought after that. Whatever he was doing in his spare time, it didn’t impact what he did here at the news desk. He worked hard, learning the lay of the land, political sensitivities, historical background. He assimilated more information about us in the first two months than most New Brunswickers will ever know.” He shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Yeah, he was good at that,” Boyd agreed. “And he’d changed jobs a few times, so it wouldn’t have been the first time he had to come up to speed in a hurry.”

  “He really helped the rest of us up our game,” Bradley said. “He’ll be sorely missed, but he left us better than he found us.”

  That made Boyd’s throat tighten. He cleared it. “So, would you mind if I give the cubicle a search myself?”

  The other man’s eyebrows lifted, but he said, “Not at all. Knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you.” Boyd stood there, waiting for him to go.

  Taking the hint at last, Bradley said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”

  With the reporter’s departure, Boyd turned his attention to the cubicle. It was a short and fruitless search. Before five minutes had passed, he sat back in the chair, suppressing another sigh. Dammit. No journal. He’d looked in, under, and behind every drawer and every piece of furniture in the room.

  He glanced up at the wall of cabinets beyond the warren of cubicles . . .

  Nah, Josh wouldn’t have stashed it in the cabinets. As Bradley had pointed out, he hadn’t even used the storage space for the work-related notebooks. No way would he leave his personal notebook there.

  “Detective McBride?”

  Boyd glanced up to see a woman standing in the doorway. A beautiful woman. Late twenties, he figured. Maybe thirty. She was dressed demurely enough. In fact, apart from a few inches of slender leg below her cropped black trousers, there wasn’t an inch of skin to be seen from her neck to her retro-looking heels. Yet the high-necked white blouse and the bright-yellow cardigan couldn’t hide a knockout shape, and the shiny swing of precision-cut hair framed her face perfectly. She put him instantly in mind of the actresses in the old black-and-white movies his mother still liked to watch.

  Belatedly, he stood and held out his hand. “That’s right. I’m Josh’s brother, Boyd. And you are?”

  “Grace Morgan. I’m a reporter here. Josh was an inspiration and a mentor.”

  It clicked then. “You must be Detective Morgan’s wife.”

  Her eyes widened. “You know Ray?”

  “Just in the context of the investigation of Josh’s death. But he mentioned you’d worked with Josh here.”

  “Of course.” She blinked rapidly. “I just wanted to say how very sorry I am about Josh. He was an amazing reporter and an even more amazing person.”

  Seeing the sheen of tears in her eyes made his own eyes burn. “Thank you,” he said gruffly.

  She cleared her throat. “I also came to see if I could help. You seemed to be looking for something.”

  “A notebook. Specifically, the one I’m sure he must have kept in connection with his investigation into our birth parents. I haven’t been able to find it at his place. Everything there was work related.”

  Her brows drew together. “Is it a mininotepad with a sort of camel-colored leather-look cover?”

  His heart rate bumped. “You know where it is?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, no. I don’t even know if that’s what he used it for. But I did occasionally see him pull it out. It was different than his usual preference.”

  “Yeah, he liked to rock a plain old steno pad,” Boyd said, but his mind was spinning. A small leather-bound notebook! That had to be the one. It did exist.

  Just then, Dave Bradley appeared in the doorway behind Grace Morgan.

  “Hey, Grace,” he said.

  “Oh, hi, Dave.”

  Bradley turned his attention to Boyd. “No luck, I take it?”

  “None,” Boyd said. “But Mrs. Morgan was just saying that she’d seen Josh using a different notebook sometimes. A smaller pad, with a camel-colored leather or leatherlike binding. Do you remember seeing anything like that?”

  “Nope,” Bradley said. “But I can’t say I pay a whole lot of attention to that kind of thing.”

  Grace laughed. “Come on, Dave. Just say it. I’m anal about details.”

  “A little.” He chuckled, looking more relaxed than Boyd had seen him yet. “Do you really know what kind of notebook everyone uses?”

  “Yep. Blueline Executive hardbacks for you,” she replied. “Anselm likes those black, soft-sided pads that flip vertically, but smaller and thicker than a steno pad. I like my Martha Stewart black-and-white floral journal, and everyone else seems to pretty much rotate different kinds of pads.”

  Bradley whistled. “You called it right for me, at least. I’m Blueline all the way. But how do you notice these things?”

  “Blame it on my husband. It started as an exercise to improve my observation skills, but now it’s an ongoing challenge. I’m almost as good as he is, though he’d never admit it.”

  Boyd’s ears perked up at that. “So, you’ve been honing your observation skills here at work?”

  “Everywhere. And once you start noticing everything, you can’t turn it off.”

  “Amen to that,” he said. “No taking a holiday, is there?”

  “Not even when you want to. It’s useful and a blessing, I guess, but there are days when I notice things I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Can you tell me if you noticed anything different about Josh the day he died? Or in the days leading up to his death?”

  “I thought we might be headed there.” She smiled sympathetically. “The thing I remember is what a great mood he seemed to be in that morning. I mean, he was always upbeat, energetic, enthusiastic, and all that. But he seemed especially . . . happy. Maybe even a little smug. That usually meant he’d found a new story and was really digging in. I even made a note of it.” She lifted her shoulders in a half-embarrassed shrug. “I like to keep track of these things, so I can see how often my intuition steers me right. I wrote that I thought he was onto his next big story.”

  Boyd had to swallow before he could speak. “I think you were right again, Mrs. Morgan.” And Boyd would lay odds what that story was. Proof of the identities of one or both of their birth parents.

  Dave Bradley cleared his throat. “So, is ther
e anything else we can do for you, Boyd? Grace and I are due in a meeting in a few minutes.”

  Boyd shook his head. “No, I think I’ve learned all I’m going to learn here. Thank you both.”

  And he had learned quite a bit, he reflected as he headed for his car with Josh’s boxful of personal effects. As disappointed as he was at not finding the notebook, at least he now knew for certain that it existed and what it looked like.

  He also knew his being there, searching the cubicle, and talking to Grace Morgan had unnerved Dave Bradley. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that Boyd was a cop. God knew the straightest, most stand-up citizen could get paranoid as fuck when they found themselves being followed by a marked squad car. Maybe Dave Bradley was that sort of guy.

  Or maybe Mr. Bradley had something to be nervous about.

  CHAPTER 8

  Hayden found herself pacing—again—and planted herself on the couch with a huff of exasperation. God, what was wrong with her? You’d think this was a date, for God’s sake. It was so not a date.

  Despite the tough self-talk, she wanted to jump up and check her hair. With a grimace, she restrained the urge. Her hair was fine. She’d taken it down and shook it out like she did every night. And she’d never checked her hair for Josh.

  Of course, she’d never put on her best Seven jeans and the dangly sea jasper earrings she’d scored at the market or slicked on a tinted lip gloss for Josh either.

  Oh, crap! She needed to lose the earrings and the lip gloss. It sent the wrong message.

  She leapt up to do just that, but the doorbell sounded. Dammit. Too late.

  She opened the door with a quip ready on her lips about the veggie pizza and his macho image, but the words didn’t come out. Instead, her breath caught. She’d been steeling herself against the man’s sex appeal, but she’d forgotten to prepare herself for the shock of the similarities. He stood outside her apartment door dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, with a pizza in one hand and a six-pack of beer dangling from the other. God, he could be Josh, right down to the brand of beer—Molson Canadian in cans.