by Lila K Bell
I stepped out of the office and kept a light tread on the floorboards until I reached the top of the stairs. Then I froze.
A light was making its way through Ralph’s office, occasionally striking the floor in the foyer, sometimes hitting the wall beyond. Someone else was in the house and, considering the silent way they moved, it wasn’t anyone who was supposed to be here.
Holding my breath, I descended the stairs, keeping my weight spread out to avoid setting off any creaks that could give me away. When I reached the bottom, I pressed my back against the wall and peered around the corner into the room. A figure stood behind the desk, a flashlight caught between their lips as they riffled through papers.
Two options remained open to me. Either I got out of here before The Felonious Flashlight spotted me, or I confronted them, chased them away, and finished what I came here to do.
Through the darkness, I scanned the figure over to get a full sense of what awaited me if I went for it. The person was tall and svelte, wearing a fitted long-sleeved tee and jeans. Their mask, though similar to mine, looked to be more of a slim-fit version. Not a rookie, then. And definitely male. A very well-built male.
One of Margery’s clients looking to destroy evidence that would lead the police to his doorstep?
If so, I wouldn’t get a better chance to catch him and drag him in to Sam, adding another checkmark to my score card.
Deciding to take the chance, I stepped into the doorway. The moment I came into view, the man dropped his flashlight and dashed toward the window. I threw myself at him, preventing him from jumping through, and took him to the ground. He pushed back against me, but I wriggled on top of him until I removed any possible leverage he might hope to find. With one arm free, I pulled up his mask.
“Ryan?” I hissed, and tugged off my own mask as I rolled off of him. The muscles I’d felt underneath me and the way I’d moved on top of him suddenly took on an entirely different meaning. Heat rushed into my cheeks and I was as warm as if I’d just pulled myself onto a balcony. A recent enough experience to make for a good comparison. “What are you doing here?”
He slipped the mask off the top of his head and gave me a sheepish grin. “You caught my curiosity. I wanted to know if you’d learned anything useful.”
Grumbling, I rose to my feet and brushed off my knees where they’d skidded across the floor. Ryan grabbed the edge of the desk, lifted himself up, and stuffed the mask into the back pocket of his jeans.
“How did you get in?” I asked, grudgingly. Had he beat me here or had I just not heard him?
“Through the front door,” he said, gesturing to the bag resting beside the desk. “I had my toys with me, so it was easy to get past the alarm.”
“Such a handy little gadget,” I said, remembering how simple it had been for him to turn off the alarm in the moneylender’s office a few weeks ago. “One of these days you’ll have to tell me where you got it.”
“So you have an even easier time making Brookside’s locks obsolete? I think it’s for the best if I don’t.”
The amusement in his voice didn’t go far to ease my irritation over being broadsided. I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Find anything interesting?”
“I only just started,” he said, and gestured to the desk. “Ladies first?”
I huffed and went around the other side of the desk to the files neatly stacked in the middle of the blotter. After a brief whispered discussion, we divided the desk in half to cover ground more quickly. Ten minutes later, my penlight hard at work, I hadn’t learned anything more than that the married people of Brookside were incredibly unhappy and impressively merciless.
“This woman is trying to take three out of their four houses away from her husband,” I said, shaking my head. “All he’d be left with is a little fishing shack in Muskoka.” I leaned in close to read the small-printed email. “‘It’s where he spends all of his time anyway. What more does he need?’”
“Harsh,” said Ryan. “Over here, I have a guy Margery fought a custody case for. She won, only to hand over a bill for more than he earned in the settlement.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“According to the invoice, she had to travel across the province to get the information they needed, and she charged him the travel expenses.”
“That is either real dedication or a scam hiding under a veil of legitimacy.” I scanned the stack he was going through and spotted a few files at the bottom marked with red in the corner. “What are those?”
He lifted the other files away and spread the five red-marked ones across the desk. After flipping through the first three, he released a drawn-out whistle. “Ms. Brooks was quite the fiend, wasn’t she?”
I crossed my arms and waited for him to explain, refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking again.
“These are the problem clients. The ones threatening to sue her.” He lifted one. “This person threatened to keep going until she was disbarred. Maybe it’s fitting that Brooks was dressed as the Queen of Hearts when she died. Based on this collection, you might say they’re all mad here.”
He winked at me, and I restrained a laugh. It wouldn’t do to encourage his horrible jokes.
I slid one of the folders closer and flipped it open. The label read Court McCallister. Based on the profile sheet, I learned he was forty-three years old, two kids, lived in a condo high-rise on the west side of Brookside, and managed Harvey’s Hardware downtown. Also in the file were a lot of confidential memos that I skipped over — I didn’t want to know the ins and outs of his divorce — but I stopped when I came across an email filled with capslocked words and exclamation marks.
“Wow,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much swearing written into such a short message before. Some of it is quite creative.”
I passed it to Ryan. He scanned it over, and the corner of his mouth quirked. Likely he’d reached a few of my favourite parts. When he got to the end, his eyebrows rose. “‘If you don’t fix this, I can’t guarantee you’ll live to see another penny.’ That’s quite the conclusion.”
“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I think that sounds like a death threat.”
6
Having got what we came for, and not finding anything else in the files — at least on paper Ralph’s clients were much more satisfied with his services than Margery’s were with hers — we put everything back where we’d found it and headed out the front door. I had to admit it was much easier than climbing.
I shoved my mask into my bag, and together we headed back to Bessie. Ryan’s matte black Ducati Monster was parked behind her.
“How do you always know where I park?” I asked.
“You might think this car makes you blend in, but in this town anything older than last year’s model stands out,” Ryan said. “I also know that when I see this beast out and about, it means you’re more than likely getting into some kind of trouble.”
I crossed my arms. “And what? You track me down to find out if I’m a damsel in distress?”
He grinned and my heart fluttered.
“I’ll have you know I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “I never claimed to want to protect you. I just know good entertainment when I see it.”
The hint of laughter under his words sent the flutter from my heart into my stomach.
If I didn’t get out of here soon, I was going to say or do something I regretted.
“Thanks for your help tonight,” I said, and took hold of the driver’s side door handle. I curled my fingers around it, ready to pull, but despite every intelligent brain cell I possessed telling me to get in the car and drive away, I couldn’t bring myself to leave yet. “Even if it was unasked for.”
“You’re welcome.” He leaned back against the side of the car and stared down at me. The height difference wasn’t so much — just enough that if I dropped my head, it would rest comfortably und
er his chin; not that I’d given it a lot of thought — and I could feel the tickle of his breath on my hair.
My sweat- and mask-matted hair.
Great.
The sharp jolt of reality tugged me out of the romance in my head and back to the present, where I had just climbed the side of a house, broken into an office building, and snooped through confidential files to get information about a potential murderer.
Sure, right from there to kissy-kissy on the street.
With a man I couldn’t even be sure was interested in making a move.
Get your head out of the storybooks, Fi.
“Anyway,” I said, and succeeded in opening the door.
I hated that there was still a small hope in the back of my mind that he would say something to stall me.
That hope was quickly dashed as he said, “Head straight home now, you hear? I don’t want to have to follow you all over the city tonight.”
He gave me a wink, then pushed away from the car and headed toward his bike.
I forced a smile, climbed into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door shut behind me. Not because I was upset with him — the latch just doesn’t close otherwise.
The moment I was alone, I let my head fall back against the headrest and released a sigh.
What a night.
Yes, I’d found another potential lead, but it would be nice if my heart stopped bouncing around on a pogo stick by the time I was ready to follow up on it. I could still feel Ryan’s body beneath mine, as solid as the floor beneath him.
“Stop it,” I told myself, and jerked my thoughts back to the car, only to jump on finding Ryan standing outside the door.
Hoping he hadn’t noticed my reactions in the dark, I rolled down my window. It got stuck halfway down. “What’s up? Your nice expensive” — incredibly smooth and sexy — “bike won’t start?”
He pointed at the sky. “It’s raining.”
Apparently, in my shock of finding him lurking outside my door, serial-killer style, I’d missed the incredibly obvious downpour that must have started the moment I’d closed my eyes.
“I take a lot of chances,” he said, “but wearing black on a black bike in the middle of the night in the rain is not one of them.”
Although I knew what I was going to say next, I hesitated. After our last joint B&E effort, he’d left me to evade the arriving police cruiser on my own while he’d escaped on said getaway bike. It was tempting to repay the favour and let him find his own way home.
But he was right. Messing with him, threatening his liberty and his criminal record, was one thing. Motorcycle safety was a whole other issue.
“Fine, come on in,” I said, hauling my bag off the passenger seat and tossing it in the back. “I’ll give you a lift home.”
To my surprise, it was his turn to hesitate.
At first I wondered if he doubted Bessie’s ability to bear the weight of two people to the end of the block, or if maybe my deodorant had failed somewhere along my climb and I’d filled the car with noxious gasses. Gradually, however, as I played through what would happen if he accepted, the truth dawned on me.
It would be incredibly awkward.
I had never been to his place before. I didn’t even know what area of town he lived in. We really only ever met by chance, either at the Trove or near Bessie or his bike. There had been no crossing over into the personal areas of our lives. If I drove him home, I’d know where he lived, while he would still have no idea about my own contact information.
It would be a whole new phase of our relationship — whatever it was.
As a fork of lightning cut across the sky, he seemed to realize he didn’t have any other choice. Hunching his shoulders against the rain, he came around to the passenger side and slipped into the seat, which creaked under his weight. It took him three tries to close the door, and by the time he finally got settled, he was cramped into the tiny space, his long legs pressed against the dashboard. He reached down to adjust the seat and the handle came off in his hand.
He said nothing, just raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. I shrugged. “I don’t usually use Bessie for carpooling.”
Screwing his mouth into a grimace, he dropped the handle onto the floor and reached behind him for the seatbelt, which he snapped in with difficulty.
Once he was in, I pulled away from the curb. “You’ll have to let me know where I’m going. Unless you want me to take you somewhere close and you can walk the rest of the way.”
It was only fair to give him the option. Keep us on firm footing. Don’t upset the balance.
For a second he seemed ready to nod, but after another bolt of lightning shot down, he said, “Hang a left.”
He directed me through the downtown core toward the edge of town, a once-fashionable and now low-income neighbourhood. As low as Brookside got, anyway. Rows of townhomes and six-unit low-rises crowded the streets. Instead of extravagant gardens, the lawns were covered in bicycles and patio furniture, kids’ toys and scrapped cars. Lights flickered in the windows from late-night television viewers, and all I could think as I drove along was how cozy it all looked. I liked my house well enough, and the space from my neighbours was great, but there was something to be said for closer-knit communities.
“Up here to the right,” Ryan said, pointing to one of the low-rises.
I pulled to a stop and put the car in park, though I left the engine idling.
“Thanks,” he said.
I wondered if I was imagining the tension that had suddenly filled the car. My tongue felt too thick to utter any real words, and all thought of conversation flitted out of my mind. If tonight had been a date, this would be the point where he leaned in to kiss me. But it wasn’t a date, was it? It was just two acquaintainces — maybe friends? — engaging in some light breaking and entering to satisfy some overactive curiosity.
Apparently Ryan agreed. “I’d invite you up, but I’m not sure what I might have left lying around.”
He laughed, but there was a distinct uneasiness in the sound.
“Not a problem,” I said. “I think I’ll sleep better at night not knowing what keeps you entertained when you’re not watching the game at the Trove.”
He chuckled and reached for the door handle. Paused. Turned back. “Have a good night, Fi.”
And with that, he got out of the car, gave the door a hefty slam that closed it on the first try, and hurried through the rain toward his front door.
I watched until he’d gone inside, then drove away. I had no idea what had just happened, or why I couldn’t shake my deep sense of embarrassment and disappointment.
***
When I woke up the next morning, I remained focused on my plans for Court McCallister to avoid reliving the awkwardness that had closed the previous evening. It was hit or miss as far as success went, but at least it made my morning ablutions speed by.
Before I had to worry about my entire day being taken over by distracting thoughts, however, I happened to check my email. Sitting in my inbox was a message from Sybil Robinson.
Now, please understand my shock. This was a young lady who had, for the most part, barely acknowledged my existence beyond a greeting and a few murmured responses to my attempts at conversation.
From what I could tell, her moodiness didn’t stem from being a taciturn teenager — though I’m sure that had something to do with it. The real cause was a lack of understanding for why her brother wanted her to spend time with someone almost ten years older than her, who she’d never really met before, and with whom she had very little in common.
I wondered that myself.
But it seemed something about Margery Brooks’s murder, or perhaps more accurately my interest in it, had sparked her enthusiasm.
Hey Fiona, the email read. I uploaded all the photos from the party last night and noticed something strange. Keep an eye on the Ace of Hearts. He sticks pretty close to the Queen for most of the evening, but in the first set it kind of looks li
ke he’s stalking her, doesn’t it?
I opened the pictures she’d attached and followed along with the rest of her email. Her assessment was correct. In every photo of the Queen of Hearts, the Ace was somewhere in the background. Always watching her, but never coming close enough to speak with her, or even to draw her attention.
I switched back and forth between the photos and Sybil’s email, wanting to get her interpretation as I formed my own. A few photos down, he seemed to have worked up his nerve to approach her. Their heads were together as they shared a private conversation in a crowded room.
And then things got really interesting. Beneath the mask that covered the top half of her face, Margery’s expression twisted in anger, and the Ace had his finger in her face.
According to the time stamp, the argument took place about two hours before she died. If you check out the next shots, which I took only a few minutes later, you can see she’s drinking a new vial of champagne. After that, he disappears from the scene.
Sure enough, there was the photo. The argument ending, the server swinging in with a nearly empty tray, and Margery drinking, the Ace of Hearts still nearby.
“All right, Mr. Ace. Who might you be?”
Leaving his picture on the screen, I switched back to my inbox and pulled up the document Mother had sent me with the costume assignments. I scanned the list and stopped when I reached the Ace of Hearts.
Joseph Marley.
The name didn’t ring any bells for me, but that didn’t mean he was off the hook for a few questions.
I hit reply to Sybil’s email. Thanks, Sybil. These are really helpful! Let me know if you find anything else.
“Now, Joseph Marley,” I said, bringing up the photo of the Ace once more. “Why don’t we see what you have to say about things.”
***
As eager as I was to chat with Marley, first I would have to find him, and since that would require a bit of extra digging, I figured I would start with Court “Death Threat” McCallister. At least I knew how to track him down.
