I took a deep breath. “Because I wasn’t. I went to his apartment last Sunday. I was going to pretend to know Anna, in hopes of getting her contact information. I found Niles there. Dead.”
“I see.”
“The door was unlocked,” I said. “I thought … well, I thought maybe he was out and I could slip in and find Anna’s information.”
His nod was almost impatient, as if breaking into someone’s home was such a natural response to the situation that it didn’t warrant comment.
“I left him there,” I said. “I found him and I didn’t do anything about it.”
“You think you should have?”
Now it was my turn to pause and consider. “I think I should have felt worse about not doing anything. I think it shouldn’t have been so easy to just leave him there.”
“Had you called me, I would have advised you to do exactly as you did. Witnesses saw him confront you only days before. You broke into his apartment. Even if his death appeared natural, there would have been questions. You instinctively made the right move, and I’m pleased to see it.”
Which was not particularly comforting. I didn’t say that, of course. Just nodded and waited until he’d pulled from the parking spot before I asked, “About the murder, though. Does it seem weird to you? Poisoning someone over a poker game?”
“Yes,” he said. And nothing more.
Chapter Forty-two
When I stepped into my apartment, I knew something was wrong. It was like … I’m not sure how to describe it. Like the hairs on my neck rose.
I walked into the kitchen. There was no sign of the cat. Normally, when he wasn’t curled up on his towel, he was making the arduous five-foot trek to his water bowl or litter box. I’d tried several times to send him outside to play, but he seemed to think I was trying to kick him out. Which maybe I was.
When I heard a low growl, I followed it to my bedroom. Two yellow eyes appeared under my bed. The cat came out and rubbed against my hand.
“Big bad mice scare you?”
He slunk to the doorway and peered out. Then he craned his neck to look back at me, as if to say, “Is it safe?”
I walked out ahead, and he followed. Then, with a satisfied mrrow, he plunked down on his bed.
I looked around. Something had spooked him. I knew the weather could upset animals, but I’d seen no sign of a storm or high winds. I wandered through the few rooms. No sign of a break-in. The front door had been locked, and nothing had been moved. It didn’t appear as if…
Wait.
I headed down to Grace’s apartment and found her setting up on the front porch.
“You bringing my scone?” she asked as I stepped out.
“It’s my day off.”
Her look said that was no excuse.
“Were you in my apartment doing maintenance?” I asked.
“I don’t do maintenance.”
“Was anyone in my apartment?”
“Not on my say-so. I don’t hand over my keys to anyone, and I don’t waltz in whenever I feel like it. I know what’s right. You’ll get twenty-four-hours’ notice if I need to come in.”
“Thank you. It just looked like someone had been in there.”
“Probably that damned cat of yours knocking stuff over. They do that if you keep them cooped up. You should let him out. At least open a window so he can leave.”
“I’m on the third floor.”
She shrugged. Before I could walk away, she said, “I want a scone.” She held out two dollar bills.
“I really wasn’t going to the diner.” I paused. “I could use a coffee, but I’m low on cash.”
She glowered and exchanged the bills for a five.
“Thank you. I’ll leave in a minute.”
She squawked as I went back inside.
Once again, when I stepped into my apartment, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I looked down at the cat.
“Someone was here, right?”
He stared at me.
“Come on,” I said. “Give me a hint.”
More staring at the crazy lady. I sighed and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. If someone did break in, what would they be—
I checked where I hid my laptop. It was still there, untouched.
“What then?” I muttered.
I slowly circled the kitchen and living room. When I walked into the bedroom, I felt a twinge, as if a sixth sense was telling me I was getting warm.
I walked to the dresser. Cold … To the closet … Cold. To the nightstand … Warmer. I turned to the bed, and felt that now-familiar prickle.
Bingo.
One of the pillowcase openings faced inward. I always make sure mine face out. I could say it’s because it looks neater, but the truth is that it’s another superstition—if the pillowcase opening isn’t facing out, bad dreams will get trapped and disturb your sleep. Crazy, but I knew damned well I hadn’t left it like this.
I yanked off the bedsheets and looked under the bed. Nothing. I grabbed the mattress with both hands and heaved it up. A line of dark powder formed a semicircle on the box spring. No, not a circle. Some kind of symbol. The sight of it made the back of my head ache.
Get rid of it.
Get rid of it now.
I shook off the impulse, retrieved my cell phone, and took pictures. Then I scooped some powder onto a piece of paper and folded it up. I put that aside and examined the remaining powder. It looked like ashes, and smelled … like wood, I think, but not quite. Maybe something mixed with wood.
Just get rid of it.
I did. Then washed my box spring, replaced the mattress, and remade my bed.
Had someone really broken into my apartment? What if the symbol had been there when I moved in? A good luck charm placed under the mattress by the former tenant. I knew Grace hadn’t cleaned between occupants.
It took only about twenty minutes for me to convince myself that the symbol had already been there. I didn’t delete the photos, though. Or throw out the powder carefully folded in paper. I just pushed it aside for now. Moved on to something more concrete and less unsettling. Something mundane and distracting. Like getting Grace’s scone and a coffee.
When I returned with my coffee, my brain was still buzzing, so I decided to tackle another dull task—sending a thank-you note to the reporter who’d interviewed me.
Lores’s card only bore a phone number and e-mail address. My mother had taught me that a proper thank-you card went through the mail. Gabriel might know Lores’s mailing address.
As I went to grab my cell phone, I noticed my shoes in the middle of the floor. They were upside-down. I detoured to fix them. Upside-down shoes were bad luck, and I was usually careful not to just drop them like that, but I’d kicked them off when I’d come back, still distracted by that symbol.
I got the phone and returned to the main room. I started dialing Gabriel’s number, then stopped, my gaze slipping toward the hall, thinking about the shoes.
A bad omen is a warning. A sign to stop and reconsider. Proceed with caution.
Oh, hell. I’d been doing so well since embarrassing myself over the hawthorn.
I looked down at the phone.
Stop and reconsider.
Reconsider what? Calling Gabriel? Was he going to answer the phone while on the Chicago Skyway, knock over his coffee, scorching himself, then lose control and go through the guardrail?
And yet that pause did make me reconsider. Not the safety of making the call, but the need for it. Shouldn’t I take two minutes to see if I could find Lores’s address online instead of running to Gabriel for help?
One search and the screen filled with results. News articles with Lores’s byline. I scrolled down past the search engine results. As I was zipping past, a familiar name jumped out. Gabriel Walsh. I scrolled back to it. Not my interview but one with another client of Gabriel’s. Lores had said he’d done pieces on Gabriel’s clients before.
I started scrolling again, then st
opped.
No, Lores said he’d covered Gabriel’s cases before.
Close enough.
And yet…
I opened the article. It was an exclusive interview with a woman accused of disfiguring her daughter’s beauty pageant rival. A case so newsworthy that even I remembered it.
I checked the date. Recent enough that Gabriel should certainly remember granting the man an exclusive. Yet Lores had had to prod his memory.
I ran a new search now. Cross-referencing Lores’s articles with Gabriel’s name. I got eight hits. Eight over almost three years. Again, not unusual, given that Lores seemed to cover crime. Except that of those eight, five were exclusive interviews with Gabriel’s clients.
Son of a bitch.
I called the number on Lores’s card. He picked up on the third ring.
“Mr. Lores? It’s Olivia Taylor-Jones.”
A heartbeat of hesitation. “Yes. How are you, Ms. Jones?”
“Better after that article.” I let out a sheepish laugh. “I wanted to apologize for being such a difficult subject. I’d had a few bad encounters, and I fear I was less than polite with you. But I was very pleased with the results, so I wanted to thank you.”
“Oh. Well, you’re quite welcome. You were very easy to interview.”
“Good. Because…” I cleared my throat. “I have another reason for calling. You were so kind to me and so fair in your interview, and it’s made it much easier for me to go out in public. I’m old news. But I fear that will change, and I think it might be wise for us to establish a working relationship. To avoid other media interest.”
“Of course. I’d be flattered.”
“About that…” More throat clearing. “This is so embarrassing.”
“What is it, Ms. Jones?”
“I … You may know that I’m estranged from my adoptive mother right now. Which means my income is practically nonexistent. I know about your arrangement with Gabriel, and I’m wondering if…” A deep breath. “If it would stand with me, as well.”
“You mean…” Wary now, letting the words drag.
“Payment,” I blurted, then hurried on. “Not as much as you’d pay him, of course. And I can guarantee you newsworthy interviews. Exclusives on my visits with Pamela Larsen. My memories of life with her and Todd. You’d only pay if you could use it.”
“I see.” A pause.
I waited, holding my breath.
“I’m sure we could arrange something,” he said finally. “Would Gabriel be part of this arrangement?”
Now it was my turn to pause, pretending to think. “He doesn’t know I’m calling but, yes, he should know. And probably get a finder’s fee. He’d expect that.”
A dry chuckle. “Yes, he would. When would you be ready to speak to me again, Ms. Jones?”
“Mmm, no rush really. I just wanted to confirm a few things.”
He let out a curse as I hit the button to end the call. Then I speed-dialed Gabriel.
Death Penalty
Gabriel pitched an empty water bottle across the room, doing a rim shot off the trash can. Lydia had given up on the recycling bin after a six-month battle of wills. She now settled for muttering loudly as she separated his trash every week.
He’d shut down his computer for the day. It was still early, but the advantage of owning your own firm was getting to take off early now and then. It wasn’t as if he’d leave empty-handed. His briefcase was already stuffed with files, and he’d synced his documents to his laptop account.
Today he had earned an early departure. He’d barely made it back to the office before being summoned to the courthouse. The jury had returned with its verdict. His client would be going to jail for twenty years. Which, Gabriel supposed, did not make it a good day for Nelson Rivers, who’d left the courtroom cursing Gabriel. He hadn’t put much venom into the curses, though. Rivers was a smart man. He might not like going to jail, but he’d known he didn’t have a hope in hell of an acquittal.
Gabriel’s day had started equally well, with Olivia’s meeting with William Evans. He’d been anxious about that, unconvinced Olivia could get anything useful on her own. But she had. And what she’d gotten could be the key to proving the Larsens’ innocence. Or at least to raising enough of a doubt to give him another shot at a career-making case.
He was equally pleased by how quickly she’d handed over that file, despite Evans’s warnings. She seemed to trust him in a professional capacity, which would make their partnership much easier.
To his surprise, it was indeed becoming a partnership. There was a reason he ran his own law firm. All right, there were several. But one of them was the simple fact he didn’t play well with others. They brought too much baggage to the table, petty annoyances like morals and ethics.
While Olivia certainly had those, she’d demonstrated a capacity to nudge them aside when the situation demanded it. He’d seen a glimmer of ruthlessness there, which cemented his own growing sense that he could actually work—and work well—with Olivia Taylor-Jones.
He checked his watch. Enough of that or he wouldn’t get out early after all. He popped open his briefcase and dropped in a last file.
When his cell phone rang, he considered letting voice mail pick up. But years of jumping every time his phone rang, praying for work, had conditioned him well. He’d check caller display and if it wasn’t urgent…
Olivia.
Almost certainly not urgent, but he still found himself answering.
“Hey, is this a bad time?” she asked.
He clicked his briefcase shut. “Not at all.”
“Did you get your verdict?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Guilty. He’s off to jail for twenty years.”
“Hey, at least he didn’t get the death sentence. Illinois still has that, as my research into the Larsens taught me. I thought we’d gotten rid of it.”
“Probably because there was a moratorium on it for the last decade. And, actually, it is now illegal. It was abolished last year.”
“Ah, well, at least your client didn’t get life, then. So how’d he take it?”
Gabriel paused. Olivia didn’t make small talk, which may be one of the reasons he found working with her less than painful. That meant she was expressing an interest in his work because she wanted something.
And yet … He didn’t mind telling her about the case. She’d seemed genuinely interested in it earlier, in a purely intellectual way, divorced from any actual feelings about a man who’d murdered his longtime business partner and tried to dissolve the body. That was refreshing.
And it wasn’t as if he was rushing off to anything. He did have plans for the evening. Dinner with a potential client at seven. Then a game of one-on-one with an assistant DA who seemed to think Gabriel needed friends, and that by filling the void, he might earn insight into Gabriel’s cases and win a promotion. To get that information, though, the young lawyer realized he ought to give some in return, which was making it a very profitable relationship for Gabriel.
He sat back in his desk chair, and told Olivia how the case had ended. As they talked, his phone beeped, telling him he had another call coming in. He checked the display. Martin Lores. He ignored it.
At last he said, “I should probably let you go. I was just leaving.” And waited.
“Right. Actually, um, sorry about this, but could you do something for me first?”
He felt his lips twitch in a small smile. She was good at this.
“Yes?” he said.
“You mentioned you have research notes on the ritualistic aspects of the Larsen killings. Expert opinions.”
“I do.”
“Could I get those? I’ve been doing some research here and I … might have found something.”
He let the chair snap upright. “What?”
A laugh. Almost teasing. She was obviously in a good mood, and when she was, that side of her came out—warm and quick-witted.
�
�I’d … rather not say just yet.”
He imagined her eyes flashing as she said it. Definitely teasing. “If you don’t say, then you don’t get the files.”
“Oh, come on. Give me the chance to look exceedingly clever. And to avoid making a complete fool of myself by telling you, then reading the files and discovering I’m completely off-base.”
“Hmm.”
“I could let you do the research instead,” she offered.
“No, thank you.”
She laughed. “Didn’t think so. So, can I have them? Please?”
Now he really did smile. When Olivia wanted something from a man—whether it was information or extra whipped cream on her mocha—her contralto voice took on a husky note. She didn’t even seem to be aware she was doing it. A fascinating bit of learned behavior.
Not that it worked on him. A lawyer couldn’t afford to be susceptible to female clients, so he’d developed an immunity early on. Which was useful, working with Olivia, who was undeniably attractive, in an intriguing variety of ways.
Still, there was no reason not to give her the files. He turned his computer back on.
“I’m e-mailing them now,” he said. “With any luck, they’ll be more useful to you then they were to me.”
“Got ’em,” she said after a moment. “So I’ll talk to you— Oh, wait. You said you’d arranged interviews for later this week. Who was it again? I should do some research on them, too.”
He chuckled. “You can do all the research you like. I’ll e-mail you the names now.” He did that, too.
“Damn, you’re good. Okay, then. Thanks and have a good night.”
She hung up. He was just about to put the phone into his pocket when it rang again. Lores. What the hell did he want? Gabriel checked his watch, hesitated, and answered.
He’d barely gotten a hello out before Lores spilled his story, peppered with so many anxious apologies that it took Gabriel a few moments to realize what he was saying. When he did, he knew why Olivia had called for those files.
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