“Nope,” Annie said, shaking her head. “Not that I know of. Far as I know, only woman he’s been seeing was one named Lilith. And that’s been a while, maybe a couple months back.”
“Mind looking at a picture of her for us, Annie?” I asked as Elise dug out her phone. I really needed to talk to Lacy about printing up a better copy for us. As much as I was enjoying watching Elise pull out her phone from her tight jeans, I was sure it wasn’t the most efficient way to do this.
And, besides, what happened when her phone died?
“Oh, hell, why not. Ain’t like I got nothing better to do.” She took the offered phone from Elise and looked it over. “Yep, pretty sure that’s her. Hair’s a little different now.” She glanced up at Elise. “You two sisters or something?”
Elise nodded. “Yeah. Lilith, huh?”
“Pretty sure that’s what he said her name was. Kevin’s a real weird one, though. Brought her around but never bothered to introduce her to us. People act like that, but I could care less, you know? Kept her in the back corner drinking screwdrivers.”
“Sounds like Eve.” She turned to me. “Well?”
I shrugged. “Pay Kevin a visit?”
“Sure,” she said. She turned to Annie. “Any idea where Kevin might live?”
She leaned forward on the bar. “Now, come on, Jake. You know I can’t just give out information like that. Old Billy’d have my ass for giving out that kind of thing to any yahoo that walks in. Ain’t saying you a yahoo, of course. Just stating the facts, is all.”
“Uh-huh.”
Elise shot me a look, as if to say, “Pay the woman already!”
I sighed, pulled out my wallet, and grabbed a twenty. Between breakfast, this, and my vacation time, this was turning into one expensive side job. Especially considering I was getting paid in desert smells. I slid the bill across the table to Annie, old Andrew Jackson’s face staring up at me accusingly as the bartender snatched him from the counter and stuffed him down the front of her tank top.
“Why, thanks, Jake. You always were such a good tipper.” She gave us directions to his little garage apartment off on the outskirts of town, and a description of his car. It was definitely in one of the other-side-of-the-tracks kind of places.
“Thanks, Annie,” Elise said gratefully. “This means a lot.”
“Well, hope you find your little sister, sugar. That Kevin’s a fucking loser. Hate to think of any woman that pretty spending too much time with him.”
“Lilith?” I asked when we got outside into the parking lot.
“Never heard the story of Lilith and Eve?”
I shook my head. “I stick to old war novels and non-fiction.”
“You know Lilith fair, right?”
“The music festival?”
“Okay, remember how I told you my mom was a little weird?”
“I believe your exact words were ‘dirty hippy.’”
She hit me in the arm. Hard.
“Ow!” I grinned as I rubbed the sore spot. At least she wasn’t too pissed at me. I had a feeling she could hit a lot harder than that if she needed.
“I think the dirty part was your addition,” she said as she headed for my truck.
“What about it?” I asked as we climbed in.
“Well, she was all into chakras and the mystic feminism.”
I sat there without starting the car. “Okay. Still not following.”
“You know your Bible at all?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Alright, gimme a second.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “So, in the first book of the Bible there’s Adam and Eve, right? Well, Mom believed that Eve was actually the second woman, and Lilith was the first. She wouldn’t submit to him, and walked off one day to live her own life. So God had to make Eve. I mean, it’s just a story she told us.”
“You believe it?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
She gave me a look. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “I dunno, that’s why I’m asking.”
“Well, to answer your question, then, I don’t think about it much.” She tucked a long black curl back beneath her beanie. “I’m just living my life, one day to the next. That’s all.”
“So you think that’s why she chose that name, then? Because of that story? Makes sense.”
“Yep. Eve always bought more into Mom’s stuff than I ever did. I took more after Pops.”
“Huh.” I sat there, processing everything I’d learned so far. Why would her little sister have sent a postcard to Elise? And then, just a little while later change her name? Was she hiding from someone? From her family? I started up the pickup pulled out of the parking spot, and took off out of the lot. None of it made sense.
“Think she’ll be there?” Elise asked from beside me. “At this Kevin guy’s place?”
“Want me to be honest?”
“What do you think?”
I had a hunch. One of those kinds of hunches that are basically a ball of raw nerves sitting in your stomach. After so many years on the force, I’d learned to trust them as much as I trusted the clues around me. Sometimes even more. After all, you could always fake a clue, plant evidence so law enforcement would find them. But hunches? No one could fake a hunch in my gut. That was mine. And that hunch didn’t like the sound of this. Any of this.
“What?” Elise asked anxiously. “Tell me.”
I sighed. “I think this is the start of a rabbit hole, Elise. A long, winding, hole. And we’re just now starting to chase the white rabbit down it.”
Chapter Eight – Elise
Jake pulled to a stop a couple houses down from where Kevin’s baby blue Toyota Celica was parked. Like Annie had said, it was held together just by dreams, duct-tape, and rust.
“Looks like the place.”
“Think so?”
He looked around. “Yeah, this is where she described. The bad part of town.”
I nodded, peering out the window at the falling down clapboard buildings that looked like they’d been around since the 30s or 40s. “Can’t believe these kinds of places are still here.”
“Not for much longer,” he said. “The way property values are going up, all of these folks will sell their places off eventually. That or they’ll die and their kids will do the job for them.”
“Cheery, Jake.”
“I try.”
He leaned over, almost into my lap. At first I almost pushed back, but then I realized I wasn’t really put off too much by the closeness. “What are you doing?” I asked as he opened the glove box.
“Going in prepared.” He took out a holstered handgun and straightened back up in his seat, sticking it on his belt.
A fucking gun? Was this guy really that dangerous? “Holy shit, Jake!”
“What? I’m licensed. Never seen a pistol or something?”
“No, it’s not that. I just didn’t know it was in there.”
“Would it have made you feel better if it was a rifle on a rack in my pickup’s back window?”
I thought of all the trucks back home, all the guys in high school who had that exact setup. I shook my head. No, it really wouldn’t have made me feel better. They always seemed like the shoot first, ask questions second kind of guys. And, thank God, Jake didn’t strike me as that way. Sure, he was rough and tough, even for a guy from LA. But he seemed like he had a soft spot, too.
“Exactly.”
We both got out of the pickup and headed up the street, a cold wind blowing in from the north. I guess the ploughs didn’t come to this part of town, and there wasn’t enough traffic to melt the ice into slush. Jake and I had to be careful as we made our way over the snow, since the sun was starting to turn the whole thing into a crusted slick.
Kevin’s car was parked on the right side of the road, right in front of the garage Annie had told us he was living above. In front of it stood an old, pink clapboard, the paints peeling off in giant flakes from the rotting siding.
&nb
sp; We stopped beside the Celica, and Jake brushed some accumulated snow off the driver’s side window to peer inside. It looked even worse up close, where you could see the mottling of the top two layers of paint. He seemed to sniff the air.
“Anything?” I asked, bouncing from one foot to the other. I was getting antsy, nervous. I hadn’t seen Eve in months. If she was here, I wasn’t sure what I’d do or how I’d react.
He pulled back from the window. “Doesn’t look like it’s been driven in a while. You smell that, though?”
I frowned and shook my head no. “Makes sense. Hasn’t been into work in a week, right?”
“Right.” He looked up to the old clapboard house, to the once-white picket fence surrounding the snow-bound backyard. There were so many slats missing now, though, that it really wasn’t much of a fence, only a bare-bones dividing line. In front of Kevin’s car was a small gate that led to the back. And beyond that gate was a slab of cracked sidewalk, shoveled and salted, that led to an old set of wooden stairs rising up to the second floor.
“Ready?” I asked.
Jake nodded.
As antsy as I was, this neighborhood gave me the freaking willies. I don’t know what it was, but the back of my neck was itching like crazy from the imaginary eyes on me.
“Come on,” Jake said, leading the way up to the fence. “I don’t think Kevin’s just going to show the answers down at us.”
The gate opened with a horrible creaking noise, something I imagined the front door of an old haunted house to sound like, and we headed up the little walkway to the stairs. The stairs were only fastened to the garage in one spot, and they rocked uncomfortably from side-to-side with each of our steps. We got up to the landing and Jake knocked loudly on the front door.
No answer.
Jake leaned close to the door. “Kevin?” he asked, nearly shouting. The sound was muffled and barely echoed because of the snow. “Kevin?” he called again, knocking loudly.
No answer.
Uncertain of this, my stomach knotting with nerves, I looked around the backyard and at the house the garage belonged to. Old drapes hung across the window, rotten and moth-eaten. A few busted out window panes on the second floor of the building had been repaired with just cardboard.
I shivered in spite of my warm jacket and multiple layers, and subconsciously leaned into Jake, partly for warmth and partly for protection.
“You okay?” he asked in concern, putting an arm around my shoulder.
I nodded. “Yeah. This place is just fucking creepy.”
“Yep. Looks and smells like a tweaker pad to me.”
“Shit. Are you serious? I thought that kind of crap was going away.”
“Cartels are still bringing it up. Keep a look out.”
“A look out for what?”
He just looked at me, but didn’t say a word.
I knew instantly what he was going to do. It was like we’d already gotten to that phase where we didn’t even have to speak anymore, like one of those old couples. Or my parents. Ugh.
“Goddammit, Jake.” I turned around and peered anxiously at the surroundings of the house.
“Anything?”
“I think you’re good.”
He slammed his shoulder into the door once, then twice. Finally, on the third try, the frame broke and the door went flying open.
The smell. The smell was what hit me first. Like rotten fruit and meat mixed together in one of those Nutri-Bullets. But worse. So much worse. I gagged a little but was able to keep down the contents of my stomach.
Jake, though, clearly didn’t have as strong of a stomach as me. He turned and gagged, puking his breakfast from that morning over the rickety railing.
I patted his back gingerly, rubbing it a little until he waved me off. “You okay?” I asked, trying not to cringe.
“I’m fine,” he sputtered, wiping a sleeve across his mouth. “I’m fine.”
The smell hit me again as I turned back to the little apartment. Then, realization set in. That smell? That smell could be a corpse. It could be Kevin. No one had heard from him in almost a week, and no one had come by to check on him, either.
Or—I could barely think of the alternative. Or that smell could be Eve.
Chapter Nine – Jake
Elise shook her head, taking another deep breath as we stood on the landing. “It’s her. I just know it.”
I spat off the railing, trying to get the taste of bile out of my mouth. That was the worst part of being a shifter. Unexpectedly strong smells messed with our sensitive noses. “Don’t worry, it’s not her. I promise.”
“How the hell can you be so sure, Jake? Have a magic nose or something?”
I opened my mouth, but upon realizing I couldn’t give an adequate response, I just shut it like an idiot. The smell of rotting food and maggoty meat filled my nose. But I didn’t smell dead human flesh. How do you explain to someone that you do actually have a magic nose? Or as close to magic as you’re likely to get in this lifetime, at least.
“Look,” I said finally, “I just have a gut feeling, okay? Your sister’s not here.”
She looked up at me, her lower lip trembling and her eyes watering from both the smell and her fear.
I placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Elise. I promise. Trust me?”
She shook her head.
“Well, okay then. Just keep an eye out, okay? I’ll check the place. You see or hear anything, give a shout, alright?” I just hoped no one had heard me busting the door opened and decided to call the cops. We were on good terms with Sheriff Peak, and all, but we weren’t exempt from the law. Well, we were on better terms before the whole mess with Ashley Maxwell and her father, at least. That had been a real clusterfuck.
She nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
I drew my sidearm and went into Kevin’s unlit apartment. I didn’t expect any kind of a jump scare, and I couldn’t hear anyone inside. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
Kevin’s garage apartment was pretty much a studio apartment. I’d had a place similar to this for a year or so when I moved back to LA after the service. It was just one room with a kitchen and a separate bathroom. The heat was still on, piped up almost as high as it would go. Even with the temperature below freezing outside, it had to be almost eighty degrees in here. The smell, too, was even worse. Inside, it almost had a thickness to the air, like it was coating your skin and clothes. I knew I’d have to change clothes after this, or even burn them. Maybe Elise would have to, too, if I wanted to be able to stand being around her.
I reached up and flicked on the light, expecting the worst.
Well, I got it.
Either the apartment had been tossed, or Kevin just lived in a wreck of a place. I had a feeling it was the former, though.
I glanced over at the kitchen. The door to the refrigerator, some ancient model from the last century, was flung open. Its compressor couldn’t keep up with the heat being pumped into the room, and the shelves were full of rotted fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy products. Either Kevin had never replaced the light when it originally burned out, or it had given up the ghost while the door had been hanging open.
I stepped into the apartment and looked around.
A double bed was pushed up against the far wall, and a dresser on the left. All the bedding had been torn from the mattress and strung across the floor, along with the clothes and drawers from the empty dresser. This place was a disaster.
I went into the bathroom and had a mild shock. It was surprisingly clean. I flicked off the light in the bathroom and went back into the living room-slash-bedroom and holstered my sidearm. “You can come in, Elise. It’s just rotten food.”
“Oh, thank God!” She came into the room and gagged again with a hand over her mouth as the stench hit her. “Jesus!”
“Yeah, I know.”
She dropped her hand from her mouth as she looked around. “What the fuck happened here?”
I shrugged. �
�No clue. Or, rather, this is a clue.”
“Oh, shut up, Jake.” She closed the door as much as she could behind her. It came back open an inch or so, though, since I’d splintered the frame with my shoulder. “Why’s it so hot in here?”
“Probably because they left the heat on.”
I shrugged as she shot me a look.
“Do you think my sister was here?”
I looked down at the pile of clothes and drawers on the floor, and pulled my pen from my pocket. A couple of bras stuck out like sore thumbs among the men’s boxers. Scattered throughout the mess, too, were a peppering of multi-colored panties of all different cuts.
“Whether or not it was your sister,” I said as I crouched down by the edge of the pile and picked one of the bras up by the strap with my pen, “I couldn’t tell you. But there was definitely a woman around your sister’s age, give or take a few years.”
Frowning, she came over and stood next to me. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. We should probably take a closer look around and see what we can find. You take the pile of unmentionables here, and I’ll stick to the kitchen.”
“Got it.”
I went into the kitchen and shut the refrigerator door. It didn’t do much for the overall stench, but it made it almost bearable to go through the drawers. I pulled open the first one beneath a well-cleaned and well-scrubbed microwave. Silverware. I promptly shut it and moved on to the next.
It was a junk drawer, full of—believe it or not—junk.
I pulled it open and found a takeout menu for Dixie’s. I found another one for a really awful Chinese joint on the other side of town. New Big Wong. There were a couple of other menus for greasy spoon restaurants. I found books of matches from various bars around town—The Elk, The Nugget. A small collection of them, though, stood out. There were five or six from a dive bar named Crossroads in a town even further north of here, Yellow Rose. It was an hour to hour-and-a-half drive away, maybe longer in this weather. Interesting. I tossed the matches on the counter and kept digging.
Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 55