Home for a Spell

by Madelyn Alt

  Marcus nodded slowly, all business. “I think I could do that.”

  “Same deal as before. The confidentiality agreement is still in effect.” He locked eyes with me. “For both of you.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” Marcus replied. “Do you, Maggie?”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t quite the truth, because I would love nothing more than to mull things over with Liss, but that didn’t matter. I wouldn’t break it. “Not for me.”

  “Good. You got into the thumb drive fast enough. This should be a cakewalk for you, since there doesn’t appear to be any damage whatsoever, although there is always the possibility that the files could be password protected.”

  “I should have something for you ASAP, then, depending on your objectives.”

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked him. “Just to be sure we’re clear.”

  “Well, if you want me to sift through the entire contents of his computer, then that would, of course, take much longer than searching for relevant JPEGs and other items of possible interest and copying the lot of it to an external hard drive that you could plug into and search through to your heart’s content.”

  Tom made up his mind even faster than I did. “Option number two. Do your thing and search for things that might show up on an initial survey for possible interest, but copy everything over to an independent drive so that I can do a more in-depth search as time allows.”

  “And bill the county my regular rate plus expenses, such as the external drive, correct?”

  “Deal.”

  Tom gave an ending-the-conversation-now nod and started to walk away. He paused in midstep about ten feet away and turned back. “One more thing.”

  Surprised, Marcus and I both waited for him to say what he had to say.

  “You know computers, but . . . I hear tell that you worked in Intelligence in the military. Is that true?”

  Marcus nodded. “Very.”

  “Think you could take a look at something?”

  I started to follow, but Tom said, “It’s kind of cramped quarters, Maggie. Would you mind staying outside?”

  Would I mind? Of course I minded. Marcus and I were a team, like chips and salsa. Like witches and magick. Like, What is Tom thinking making me stay outside? “No, of course not,” I lied pleasantly through gritted teeth. “I’ll just be here, then. Waiting. Around. No problem.”

  Marcus aimed an apologetic glance my way—over his shoulder as he followed Tom’s lead. I sighed, fidgeting with my crutches. I should probably find a place to sit down. Prop up my ankle. But if I stayed where I was, I ran the chance of maybe, possibly overhearing some of what was going on inside the office.

  I was focusing so hard on eavesdropping, I mean, overhearing the goings-on inside the office, that I completely missed any sounds leading up to:

  “Did I hear them right?”

  Chapter 15

  I whirled around—albeit clumsily—at the voice behind me, only to find Alexandra Cooper standing there, in the shade of the tree. This afternoon, the clothes she was wearing—close-fitting yoga pants that showed off her supertight abs and glutes, topped off by a zipped-up hoodie jacket that would have had me dying of heatstroke—gave a clue as to her intended destination. But with her thick, long hair down and a face full of makeup, I couldn’t help hoping she had brought along a hair tie and a towel. She was going to need it. Hair sticking to sweaty face while working out? Bleah.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked her, distracted by the multitude of visuals.

  “Did I hear them right?” she repeated. Her glance bounced off toward the office, then back at me. “They found pictures? And a hard drive?”

  “Um . . . well . . .” My mind was whirring, uncertain how to process this direct assault on my agreed-upon promise of confidentiality. “I mean . . .”

  “So, it’s true?”

  “Um . . .” I was going to have to do better than that. “Is what true?”

  “There had been a rumor floating around the place that the creep was taking photos of all of us.” She jerked her chin in the direction of the office. “Locke. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he actually was. I was so sure it was just one of those silly rumors perpetuated by silly little girls fresh out of college and off on their own for the first time.”

  “Um, well, I think you’ll have to ask Special Task Force Investigator Fielding about that.”

  “You heard him as well as I did, I’m assuming. Since you were a part of the conversation,” she pointed out.

  “Um . . .”

  She huffed out her breath, putting her hands on her enviably trim hips. “It makes sense. Now. Because what would you expect from a man like our illustrious apartment manager? Standing in his private room in his office, getting his jollies from being no better than a sleazy peeping Tom. Good Lord, I hope they’re careful with their evidence. Things like that can ruin good people.”

  “Who—exactly—had been talking about Locke taking pictures around here?” I asked her, my curiosity having gotten the better of me. “Was this something that was conveyed to the police? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “Well, unless I’m mistaken, you’re not a tenant,” she said, lifting one well-manicured eyebrow.

  “No,” I agreed, “I’m not.”

  “So you wouldn’t have heard anyway, would you?”

  “No. I guess I wouldn’t have.” She probably wouldn’t believe how I knew what I knew to begin with, so there was really no need to explain.

  Her blunt demeanor softened then, slightly. “I guess it’s all just part and parcel of who he was, though. Not a big surprise, considering his past.” She sighed. “All water under the bridge now, though. Perhaps we can all just chalk this one up to divine justice. Something to think about, eh?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely. Something to think about.” I was still caught up in the thought that someone amongst the residents of the complex had found out that Locke had been photographing them. Why was that just a “rumor”? Why wouldn’t someone have reported it, if they’d known or even suspected? I said as much to her.

  “Why? Maybe the person couldn’t prove it but wanted to warn the others anyway,” she suggested with a dispassionate shrug. “I mean, it was no secret that he had an eye for a pretty girl. He even offered me a package deal to sign a lease here when I mentioned that there were several places I was looking at. His offer made it hard for me to turn down.” Her mouth twisted. “I really wish I hadn’t listened, now. All of this has been . . . pretty intense.”

  “What about Abbie?” I asked her. “Could she have been the one to start the rumor?”

  “Ah, Abbie Cornwall. A-slash-B student, most of the time. Could be all As if she wanted to. Did she start the rumor? I don’t know. She and her mom weren’t here long. Locke took a comment I made in passing about her being my student and put two and two together about her being underage as far as his lease was concerned. Booted them there and then. Abbie seemed to take it pretty hard. I’m pretty sure she blamed me; Locke told them how he’d figured it out, the jerk. Just blurted it out without a thought as to how it sounded. It certainly didn’t help my relationship with Abbie at school.” Her mouth twisted in a grimace that was meant to double as humor. She paused then, as though considering whether she should say more. “You know, it occurred to me last night . . . I had been seeing her around the complex lately. Quite a lot, actually. I know it probably means nothing. At least I hope it does. I hope she didn’t do anything that might get her into trouble.” She cocked her head to one side thoughtfully. “She lived in the apartment you were looking at, you know. I saw you coming out of it that day, so I’m assuming you were here for a reason,” she explained.

  I nodded my confirmation. “Yes, I was looking at the apartment.”

  “Lucky you.” When I raised my eyebrows at the wry comment, she prodded, “Well, you didn’t sign the lease, did you?”

  “No. I never got a chance to. That’s why I was here t
hat morning. That’s how I found his . . . body. Marcus and I.”

  “I suppose he offered you a special deal on the rent?”

  She was very forthright. Surprisingly so, considering we were strangers caught up in an even stranger situation. Maybe that came with being a teacher and dealing with teenagers, day in, day out. A kind of coping mechanism? “Well . . .”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not like it can come back to bite you now that he’s dead. I knew I wasn’t the only one he offered the deal to. What I could never figure out at the time was, why?”

  “What kind of a deal did he offer you?” I asked, curious. Locke had told me it was because of Lou being a lodge brother. Was that not true?

  “He cut the rent and offered me two months’ rent free,” she said without even blinking. She raised a hand and carefully smoothed back her already carefully arranged hair, and then self-consciously plucked to straighten the bangs back out over her forehead. “You?”

  So. Not just because of being lodge brothers, then. “Something quite like that, actually,” I admitted without going into detail.

  She nodded matter-of-factly.

  “I, um, don’t suppose you found the apartment through someone who knows him from his lodge?”

  Confusion knit her brows. She shook her head. “I heard about it through another teacher. Her niece had just signed on to live here. And before you ask, yes, with a special rent deal. It was exactly what I was hoping to hear from him when I came to look at the apartment. Good, safe, clean places are hard enough to come by. Add low rent into the mix, and—like I said—I couldn’t turn it down.”

  “Why do you think he was offering these deals? I mean, like you said, good places are hard to find.”

  She tilted her head to one side and angled a measuring gaze my way. “Well . . . this is just a guess, but . . . you’re an attractive girl. Have you seen any of the other tenants?”

  “One or two, from a distance.” And a few in pics, all too up close and personal.

  “They’re all quite pretty,” she commented. “Young. And if the rumored pictures are true . . .” She shrugged. “You do the math.”

  Marcus and Tom came out of the office just then, and our conversation came abruptly to an end. “Well, I’d better get my workout in, now that they’ve cleared the health center for residential traffic. Thanks for the info,” she said, waving as she melted away.

  A workout. Never my favorite thing, but after being relegated to inactivity for weeks at a time, even a stair machine was starting to sound good. And much safer than the stairs at the hospital when all is said and done, letmetellya.

  “So, you’ll get back to me as soon as you can?”

  “You got it.” Marcus held out his hand, and I held my breath as seconds stretched interminably. Finally, Tom with jaw set reached out and slammed his palm against Marcus’s in a testing, gauging, testosterone-filled handshake.

  Aw. Look at the two of them, making nice. Maybe there was hope for a truce yet.

  Tom barely gave me another glance before he moved off toward his next task. I waited for Marcus to offer a clue, any clue, about what Tom had enlisted his help with. Marcus just looked at me, a patient and enigmatic smile lifting one corner of his mouth.

  Maddening.

  “Well?” I asked him finally.

  “Ready to go?”

  I crossed my arms, tapping my fingers against my biceps. Not. Budging.

  His smile widened. “You are so cute when you’re mad.”

  “Not working.”

  “And persistent.” When I set my jaw and stared patiently into his eyes, he finally relented. “Okay, okay. He wanted me to take a look at some electronic equipment they found locked away in the back room.”

  “In the bathroom?” I repeated, confused.

  “No, back room. Which was actually set up as a bedroom and private space. Locke sure kept it locked up tight. Can a man’s name be a glimpse into his character?” he mused. “A sign?”

  A bedroom? I had thought the additional space, besides the bathroom, was a utility room or something of that nature. Why, I don’t know. It just never occurred to me to consider it in a more personal way.

  “He lived there,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around that. Come to think of it, one of the officers had said something about that. It just hadn’t registered.

  “Sure seemed that way to me.”

  “Is that . . . normal . . . for an apartment manager? I guess I’d always expected that they only worked on the premises unless they had an apartment—a regular apartment—within the complex. Not just a room connected to their office.”

  “I don’t know. But that’s what he did. Twin bed and all.” Wry amusement twisted his mouth. “Some Lothario, huh?”

  “Except for what we now know of him. And we still don’t know if it had a connection to the reason for his murder.” Except if not that, then what? Was it enough that Locke had a secret past? And was that past tied to his present? It certainly seemed, through the synchronicity of the thumb drive being discovered in the wreckage of the office, damaged but still viable, that the universe was pointing us in that direction. And then a sudden thought occurred to me, and I tilted my head to one side and squinted at him: “Wait a minute, he wanted you to look at what? What type of electronic equipment?”

  He grinned at me. “Wondered when you were going to get around to that. It was video equipment, and what looked to me like a gaming system that had been modded to be a central media server. Low tech but very efficient. And . . .” His voice trailed off, a major tease.

  “And?”

  “It appeared to me, based on a very cursory examination, mind you, that our Mr. Locke had customers for his . . . product.”

  It took a moment for it to sink in with me. I had been thinking of Locke in terms of a simple, lower-level businessman, an employee of a larger business entity, and not a very important one at that. Not someone with customers. And in the blink of an eye, that vision of him was forced to change. Customers. “For the photos?” I asked him, my voice faint.

  “And possibly video,” he suggested.

  “Video! Of what?” The pictures he’d grabbed off the thumb drive swam into view in my mind’s eye—grainy, sordid. Secret. “He had videos of the women as well?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “What sort of videos? Oh, don’t tell me,” I said, closing my eyes and cringing. Such a violation of trust. “I don’t want to know.”

  I couldn’t help thinking back, remembering the moment I’d first seen him, coming out of the room I’d assumed at the time was the bathroom. Turning to lock the door behind him. It hadn’t struck me then how odd that gesture had been. It sure as heck did now.

  “That’s not for sure. It’s just an educated guess. Hopefully we’ll all know more once I have the data off this old hard drive, hm?” He raised the zipped plastic bag for emphasis. “And speaking of which . . .”

  He had a job to do. And my job was to stand by and watch, one gimpy foot in the air. Where was the glory in that? Sigh.

  “No wonder he handed out steals and deals to his prospective tenants,” I commented as we made our way back toward the truck, feeling a tad bit gullible for nearly falling for his spiel myself. I could have been featured among those photos as well. Who was he selling them to? How did he market them to his “clients”? Ugh. The whole notion of it made my skin crawl. Sleazy, sleazy, sleazy.

  Marcus paused, one hand on the passenger-side door handle. “To more than just you?”

  “I spoke to one of the tenants today, while you were in with Tom. A teacher. Oddly enough, she would have been my upstairs neighbor, if I had actually taken the apartment,” I told him, marveling at the coincidence. “She told me Locke had offered her a similar deal. Lower rent, a couple of months rent free. And she made it sound as though it was pretty likely the two of us weren’t the only lucky recipients of such a deal.”

  Marcus shook his head. “The guy really had a racket goi
ng on, didn’t he?” He helped me up onto the seat, then handed me my crutches and waited until I had them situated before closing the door and coming around to his side.

  “Quite the con artist. I guess he was making up for the loss in rent revenues by lining his own pockets and letting the apartment complex take the hit. Harding must be so proud.”

  Marcus laughed. “I’ll bet.”

  His cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the charger and held it to his ear. “Hey, Unc. What? Um, yeah, of course. She’s right here.” He looked over at me and held out the phone. “So, care to tell me why my uncle suddenly wants to talk to you more than he wants to talk to me?”

  I shrugged prettily. “I . . . haff . . . vays,” I muttered, waggling my eyebrows as I emulated his previous claim in a seriously bad attempt at a Russian accent.

  He handed the phone over with a lecherous sweep of my body that took my breath away. “Oh, I know,” he agreed, “I know.”

  I cleared my throat as I answered the call. “Hello there.”

  “That you, Maggie?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, thank goodness. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “You have?” I asked, surprised. I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell phone. Whoops—powered down. Guess I should have charged it earlier. “Oh, sorry about that. My phone shut itself off.”

  “It happens. It’s been one heckuva day. Hey, listen. Coupla things here.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You didn’t sign that lease, did you?”

  The question took me by surprise. “Well, actually, no. I didn’t. I didn’t get a chance to. The whole dead-man-in-the-pool thing kind of took the wind out of my sails just a mite.” That probably sounded flippant, but it was the truth. “And then the owner took issue with me working with my boss and refused to honor any lease agreement that Locke might have offered me, so that was the end of that. I’m not worried, though. Everything happens for a reason. I firmly believe that.”

  “Thank goodness,” he repeated, and he really did sound relieved.

  Curious now, I said, “Can I ask why?”