Envy

by J. R. Ward

Chapter 41

  As Reilly drove over to Veck's house with half a dozen other officers, she was prepared to let her colleagues' fingers do the walking.

  She was in observational mode and going to stay that way: eyes peeled, but hands staying in her pockets. Frankly, she was lucky to be allowed to come along at all.

  By the time the various cars were parked in Veck's driveway, it looked like a cop convention, and as she got out of her unmarked, she caught sight of a couple of neighbors peeking through blinds. His reputation in his neighborhood was not her concern anymore, however.

  Now, she was worried about keeping these people safe from him.

  As the front door was opened with his own keys, the talk of her colleagues faded into background music for her, everything receding from notice as she entered behind the others.

  The first thing she did was look at the couch. There was a pillow down at the far end, as if Veck had spent the night there, but no blanket, even though it was still cold at night. An ashtray full of butts along with two crushed packs of Marlboros and a red Bic were on the floor . . . right where his wallet had landed three nights ago.

  Reilly fled that scene fast, and heto the kitchen, not out of any design, but just because that was where her feet took her.

  Cursing to herself, she knew she had to put her detective hat on. Boxes . . . where would the moving boxes be?

  "Is this the cellar?" someone asked as they opened the door to the hall bath.

  She almost pointed the guy in the right direction, but held off. The last thing she needed to do was demonstrate how well she knew the house.

  "It's over here," somebody else replied as they opened a different door and hit a light switch.

  Reilly went over and followed that officer downward. As she stepped off onto the concrete floor below, the musty air tickled her nose and the chill made her pull her coat in closer.

  "And I thought the upstairs was empty," the officer muttered, his voice echoing around.

  You got that right, she agreed. Aside from the furnace, and the hot water heater, there didn't appear to be anything in the basement.

  Even still, they walked around, taking separate routes, and then she stood to the side as he took a flashlight out to check behind the HVAC stuff.

  "Nothing?" she said.

  "Nada. "

  After they returned to the first floor, she stayed in the kitchen, and got a look at the back of every cupboard Veck hadn't used and the bottoms of all the drawers he hadn't filled and the empty rods of the closet he hadn't hung anything in. Officers were taking photographs of all the vacancies, and there were the sounds of people walking up above on the bare floors.

  God, had she ever really been with this man? she wondered.

  No, she thought. She'd been with the image he'd wanted her to see.

  With a shudder, she went up the stairs and glanced into the master suite. The bed was messy and there was another pack of Marlboros and an ashtray on the side table. Two duffel bags were in the corner, and she went over and nudged open the one that was unzipped with her foot. Leathers. Fatigues. What looked like a black AC/DC shirt. Black socks.

  The kind of stuff you'd take for an overnight, except nothing that she'd seen Veck wear before - but like that counted?

  Frowning, she edged past the other officers and leaned into the bathroom. Two toothbrushes on the counter with a tube of toothpaste. A third brush standing upright in a glass.

  Who the hell else was staying here?

  And why was there a towel over the mirror . . . ?

  As a flashbulb went off from behind her, the flare was caught in the panes of the window she'd seen him through that first night.

  Grimly, she wheeled away and went out into the hallway. There were two other bedrooms with nothing in them, and another bath. With nothing in it.

  "Been up in the attic yet?" she called to the other officers. When they shook their heads, she reached up with a gloved hand and pulled down the folding stairs.

  Stepping aside, she let a colleague go up first with his flashlight. God, with this much available storage space, you'd think no one would bother to take anything to the third floor, but Bails had said he'd humped boxes on stairs - and there was nowhere else to check.

  "Nothing," came the male voice from above.

  Reilly took to the ladder-like steps, clawing up them with her hands and following with her feet. In the attic proper, the other officer had turned a bald lightbulb on, and the thing was swinging on its tether, going back and forth and pulling shadows out from the rafters.

  After glancing around, she knelt down and ran a finger across the wooden planks that had been laid over the insulation. Dust. Lots of dust.

  Frowning, she inspected the flooring that was around the opening they'd come up through. Her footfalls and those of the other officer left a distinctive pattern in the thick, pristine layer of particles.

  What the hell? she thought.

  Not only was there nothing up here; nothing had been up here since well before Veck had moved in.

  " 'Scuse me," she murmured, before slipping back down the folding stairs.

  She went into the first guest room she got to. Inside, there was only wall-to-wall carpet with footprints on it - no indentations left from boxes having been stacked anywhere. And in the bottom of the closet? More of the same: smooth, unmarked rug, the kind of thing you got when you'd vacuumed a while ago and left the fibers alone to recover from the tracks of your Dyson.

  Getting up on her tiptoes, she looked at the shelf. No streaks from things having been pulled off and removed.

  The other bedroom was the same.

  Downstairs, she went into the kitchen, passed through the mudroom and headed out the far side into the garage. No lawn equipment or tools or birdseed. Just two bins for garbage, both of which were empty.

  "When's the trash pickup?" she asked, not expecting anyone to answer.

  It was a fact worth knowing, and no doubt someone would be finding out soon enough.

  Returning to the kitchen, she stood in front of the open cupboards and drawers. It was clear that he'd given permission for them to search the house because he'd known damn well they wouldn't find anything - and she'd been aware of that coming over here.

  But she had the sense that nothing had been here to begin with. She hadn't seen any boxes anywhere when she'd been over, but more to the point, there appeared to be no evidence that anything much had been moved in. Yeah, sure, he'd had a good twelve hours to get rid of stuff . . . but you couldn't manufacture things like layers of dust and unscarred carpets.

  Maybe Veck had tweaked to the juvie report's falling out of something . . . and thrown the documents out. Except what the hell had Bails been talking about when it came to the boxes? And why would he have lied? The two were well-known for being friends, and the guy had been legitimately crushed.

  God, there were just too many black holes everywhere.

  With a curse, she checked her watch, then took out her phone and dialed de la Cruz's number. The detective had stayed behind at the station house, and when she got voice mail, she didn't bother leaving a message.

  He'd know what she was looking for.

  Outside, she got into her car and sat behind the wheel. Eventually, she looked over at the house. In the bright sunlight, the shadows were nearly black -

  Her cell phone went off and she answered it without checking who it was. "Reilly. "

  "I have the results of the polygraph. " De la Cruz sounded as tired as she felt. "Just came in - and I figured that was why you called. "

  "It was. Can you tell me?"

  "He passed everything - all of it. "

  "What?"

  "You heard me. "

  "How is that possible?" Except the instant she asked the question, she knew it was BS. A good liar, an exceptional liar, could fool the machine. It was rare, but not impossible.

&nb
sp; With a groan, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Hold on, just to be clear, they asked him about the visit to the Bartens', the earring, the evidence room - "

  "Everything. "

  "And he denied it all, and the machine said he was telling the truth. "

  "Yup. Except for one question. "

  So he was a stupendous liar - "Wait, he failed a question ?"

  "No, he didn't deny something. The examiner asked him whether he'd intended to kill Kroner that night by the motel. And he said yes, he had. "

  Reilly shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. Why would that be the only thing he admitted to?"

  If he was lying about everything else, why wouldn't he cover his ass on that one as well?

  "I don't know," de la Cruz muttered. "I got no answer for that. . . . "