Grave Robber for Hire (23 page)

“It’s a go.”

I didn’t fancy being in a roof space with over a century of god knows what, but I wanted to be there when we found the Rembrandt. Tyreal reached down and helped me up the last few steps until I kneeled in the dark void amongst a century and half of dust, webs, filth and other yucky things.

“It’s all good. Don’t you think the snake skin over there adds rustic appeal?”

I swung my torch around, illuminating all sorts of once furred, some never furred lumps. “Not as much as the mummified rats and possum.”

He flashed the torch near my face. “Want to go back down?”

“Not on your eternal soul’s existence.” I wanted to find this Rembrandt, smell its ancient oil paint, so I could cash in my twenty percent, be done with the case, and leave Clyde to where he belonged—
Hell
.

White teeth flashed in the gloom. “Thought as much.”

We stood and started walking across the ceiling’s bearers. The space was large and dark with the odd shaft of light sneaking through roof iron gaps and the old nail holes.

An hour later, we were both dripping sweat and pretty disappointed. “Princess, this is the second time we’ve checked these corners and eaves, and there isn’t and as far as I can see, never has been a false wall or partition here.”

I gave the gloom a final stare, huffed out a truly heartfelt-life-sucks sigh. “That sucks.”

“The Rembrandt isn’t here, Princess.”

I stuck my lips into a sulky pout. “Sucks more. The stupid painting has to be here somewhere. Even if we have to tear the house apart, dig up the yard, we’re going to find it.”

“Not pull the house too much apart, I hope.”

“Metaphorically. I need to read more of that accounts ledger. Go over the entries I didn’t time jump.”

For two days, we groveled in decades of filth, searching the house for the Rembrandt. We filled two industrial skips with rubbish, and found several valuable antiques long hidden by the previous owner. To our disappointment, mine especially, no other massive rings appeared.

But the painting would have made me happy enough to forgo any more bling.

Chapter 22

We arrived at Gladys’ in Inala at ten in the morning, pre-planned by my stomach sniffing out some unwholesome and undoubtedly high calorie morning tea. All that sorting and cleaning might have knocked off some of my curves. Vig had been keen to come along for the whole ride, saying it was for my safety but I had a feeling it was more for the cake.

Tyreal carried Gladys’ old books, letters, and some photos. Tit Tit, met us in the garden, meowed his greeting, ran ahead, tail twitching to his owner. Gladys, with her perfect denture smile greeted us as she opened the front door. Tit Tit darted in, smoothed his coat across her legs.

“Come in.
I’ve made lamingtons and mini pavs for morning tea.”

Vig rubbed his stomach as if he’d get to eat the homemade lamingtons. I love lamingtons, squares of Madeira cake dipped in chocolate icing then rolled in shredded coconut. Yum. And mini
pavlovas. Meringue topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit, oh yum yum yummy. All my fat cells did pirouettes of delight. I glanced at Tyreal. He grinned. Since I’d seen him naked, I knew he had no fat, so his one fat cell cheered.

We sat at the table, sipped tea and gorged on old women’s cooking. Yesterday at Clyde’s house in another futile search for the painting we’d found some old photos we assumed were of family. I pulled them out of Tyreal’s carryall and laid out the frames on the table.

“Are any of these people related to you, or your ancestors?”

Gladys put her hand to her heart and pointed with the other to one picture of an attractive lady in her early forties. “That’s my Grandmother.” She moved her hand to the image of a young woman. “My Ma.” She leaned over peered at the date. “1912, not long before Mom and Dad married. Where did you get these? Cousin Ira kept all the family photos when he inherited the house.”

“You know Ira passed away three months or so ago?”

She blinked at us owlishly. “He did? Huh fancy that, thought he’d live with his insanity for eternity. Old grump lived like a recluse, said the house was cursed.”

Well his desk was, but I didn’t feel any so far in the rest of the house.

Tyreal nodded at the photos. “You can have these. We know who owns the house now so any further photos can be passed over.”

“I can? Why that’s wonderful.” She put her chubby knobby hand on Tyreal’s. “Thank you, that means a lot. I never had a photo of Gran when she was young.” She gathered the frames and put them on her sideboard and returned holding out two notebooks. “Found these in one of my spare rooms.” She passed me the books.

Ooze tingled up my hand the second I touched them. Gee guess who wrote in them? I stuffed them into my carryall. My love beads rattled as I wiped my palms down my early 1970’s maxi flower power dress.

“I’d forgotten I had them. Those rooms are full of old things. I only had one child, so the rooms accumulated stuff over the years. A lot of things came from my mother’s house when she died twenty-five years ago.”

“I didn’t know you had a child.”

“A son. Haven’t seen him for over fifty years and don’t want to. Born evil. From what I understand of Clyde I reckon it passed through my genes. Shame. The boy had the face of an angel, but no-one in heaven had the grace to hand my boy a soul.”

I looked at Vig. This was proving my genetic link for evil, but what about the creature they turned into. “What’s your son’s name?”

She snorted. “Jacob, from the Bible. We’d have been more accurate by naming him Beelzebub. He’s rotted in prison for over fifty years, never to be released. I can’t say I feel shame for what he became, because nobody can help birth defects. People like Jacob should never walk our Earth.”

Everything in me stilled, I swallowed and flicked Gladys then Tyreal quick glances. Then I held Vig’s for a couple of long seconds. I didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

Tyreal focused on Gladys. “What prison is your son in?”

Please, please don’t be
Longlands
.

“Sir David
Longlands Correctional Prison at Richlands.”

Fuck. The prison Sasha escaped from. “Did or does he have a cell mate?” One who maybe knew of family legends and lost Rembrandts. Vig walked over and stood beside me, his hand on my left shoulder.

“Don’t know love. Never contact him, nor he me. The prison system keeps me informed on prison moves, but that’s it. He died to me when he was less than twenty. Killed my dog and cat, raped the neighbor’s fifteen year old daughter and her mother. Two months later he’d killed a whole family. Apparently it wasn’t the first family butchered by him. Said he’d done it as Lucifer’s mercenary, and that he had been sent to cleanse the Earth of all Earth bound angels.”

I sucked in a startled breath. He’d said almost the same words Sasha had said to his judge. Did Sasha have a mentor, read Jacob’s trial transcript, or were all psychopaths inbuilt with the same bullshit?

She looked hard at both of us. “That Lucifer rubbish almost put him in the prison for the insane. Luckily enough people came forward, including myself who testified for his sanity.”

“He sounds like the creature that’s my brother. And he’s just escaped from prison. Sasha Meyers.” Vig’s hand increased its pressure.

“Oh, yes. They put up pictures of him on the telly a while back. Another man with the face of an Angel and soulless eyes.”

“Dead,” Vig said softly. “Our Sasha dead.”

I hadn’t seen a recent picture of my brother and I had none at home other than early childhood ones. Vig and I had burned all the ones from our older years the day Sasha went into Juvenile Hall.

Best therapy—
ever.

But Gladys’ description brought back memories that made me shudder. I’d seen Sasha last when we’d both just turned fifteen. He’d always been beautiful, far more than I, and until his eleventh year his eyes held a warm lo
ving light. But after the night he turned evil, when you looked into his eyes you found cold blue pits, like sink holes in a glacier. I’d seen more emotion in a skull’s eye sockets. As Vig said, dead.

“No living creature is more soulless than Sasha.” I’d be looking into Sasha’s and Jacob’s jail time. Try and find out how much time they spent together.

I was growing more and more positive Sasha had visited me, not just to scare the crap out of me, although feasting on my fear would be his true joy, but because somehow he knew of the ultra-valuable treasure I was hunting. That he too wanted the Rembrandt.

#

That night after time diving into the two notebooks of Gladys’, I knew I had to return to Sydney. At the time of his death, Clyde owned many properties in Sydney.

Tyreal opened up my laptop and spent some time hunting through records to see if the houses still existed.

“Six are now roads or freeways or were demolished to build newer houses. But eight are still in existence. And one is Josey’s house.”

“Really, she owns one of Clyde’s old houses?”

“Yeah,” he scowled. “Shit, that’s odd.”

“What?”

“Josey’s name appears on the property title back in 1860 and it’s never altered.”

“Never changed hands?”

“Three times. Patrick John Franks, 1832, Clyde Owen Jones 1857, then Josephine Mara Richards 1870. No following records.”

“So she’s not his descendant?”

“I’d say the records are wrong. Let me do a little research into this. I might have to get someone to access the original written records.”

“This smells like a huge pile of monster manure.”

“Sure smells of something and I’m afraid to find out what.”

Gut instinct and that casual cold horror that grips you sometimes made me bet the bitch didn’t just have the Rubens, she had the Rembrandt and somehow she’d had them since three days before Clyde died. I couldn’t wait to search her house—not.

Searching a shark-toothed woman’s house is the shit little girls dream of doing when they grow up.

#

A creature of habit, some bizarre, some normal, I booked rooms in the same hotel I used in Sydney at my last visit. Separate rooms, to eliminate waking to Tyreal’s wood pressing into my ass and my body’s unwanted urges that good-wood created. Since our last visit to Sydney, I was proud of how I’d kept a wary distance from Tyreal even though he’d been staying in my house. I liked our working relationship, and as partners in a business venture I didn’t want to screw things up with, well,
screwing
.

I booked into the hotel for one night, not willing to leave my house and pets for longer. With Sasha still free, I knew he’d try and come for me and mine again. Tyreal enlisted Baiden, his younger blond brother, to act as chief house guard and pet feeder. Baiden moved in for the night and promised to put in twelve temporary CCTV units that fed to mine, Tyreal’s, and Baiden’s computers.

I’d left a bewildered Baiden holding a long list of how to feed my animals, as I wouldn’t risk Lucy going to the house alone. Baiden, ex-army himself, and now a teacher of some sort of Mixed Martial Arts, and a builder, could handle himself even though he’d cringed at my cat litter changing instructions. He also owned and knew how to use several very large guns, although no Uzis.

Nobody owned an Uzi.

At the hotel, Tyreal took his room’s key card from the young lady behind the reception desk, and glowered at me as if a pissed off male would make me change my mind. He picked up our bags and headed for the silver doors of the elevator.

“It’s safer to share.”

I pressed the up button, shrugged and pretended the floor tiles were fascinating. “They didn’t have a twin available, and you’re not sharing my bed.”

“You’re lying.” The door pinged and we walked in and faced the front as per official standard elevator etiquette.

“No, you’re not sharing my bed.”

He stuck his head out and low, his hot breath feathered my ear. “You’re lying that this hotel doesn’t have any twin rooms.”

Me, a liar? Never. “I am. The rooms are next door to each other.” But twin beds separated by a couple of feet didn’t seem safe from the way his body emitted testosterone and ignited my willing, and each hour more desperate, libido.

Men were more than sex. Not all men are evil. Tyreal is my friend.
I ran this litany through my mind over and over.

“Okay so we know that Josey isn’t around. What time are you meeting Tony again?” Yep, the old change the subject trick.

“Meeting him downstairs for a beer in an hour. Since our last visit, the cops have been watching Josey’s house and her other known haunts. They’ve seen no signs of activity or sightings of her and she doesn’t answer her cell phone. Good chance she hasn’t returned with the Rubens, but the Rembrandt could still be here.”

“If the cops are watching the house, then how are we going to break in?”

“We’ll case the block and the cops and see what we can work out tonight.”

Oh good, I liked when no real plan existed. Made me chock-full of confidence.

#

Two houses down from Josey’s, Tyreal cruised past the unmarked police vehicle and snorted in disgust. “She could walk in and out, and these two deadbeats wouldn’t notice. Looks like one is watching a movie on his tablet and the other guy’s asleep. Great surveillance team Tony has going here.”

I scowled at the unmarked police car. “So she could enter and be sitting inside and nobody would know?” Great, good news. The best. Break in, get blasted by monster domme bitch’s purple lightning.

“She could, but the house is dark, so I doubt it. Suits me. This way they probably won’t notice us doing a little B and E.”

A valid point, just not one I totally felt comfortable with.

Tyreal parked six town-houses down from Josey’s, eight from the cop car. He looked over and quadruple checked my outfit. “Tuck your hair inside the skull-cap, when you get within six feet of the house pull down the face mask.”

I ran my fingers around the cap’s edge, pushing in strays. “How’s that?”

“Cute. Here, you missed a couple.” He pulled my cap down firmer, ran fingers down my cheek, and cupped my chin. “Anything happens in that house tonight, run. Run to the useless surveillance guys and scream rape or murder.” He pulled me into his molasses dark depths and absorbed me. My body tingled with anticipation of what I knew would be awesome. I looked away.

“You can run, Princess, but I run faster. You and me, we’re destined.”

“How the hell did that subject just come up?”

“I’m feeling that distance you keep putting between us and don’t like it. Something inside draws me to you.”

Yeah right, destiny,
pffft, as if that shit existed. “You’re so used to women dropping at your feet with their legs spread that my refusal eats you alive. Sometimes being gorgeous isn’t enough.” Of course with me, a man being gorgeous was usually a prerequisite for me to even make eye contact.

His grin, Cheshire wide, oozed cockiness. “You think I’m gorgeous?” He gave it a sing-song beat that made my nostrils flare and my ego seethe.

“You’re being a jerk. A big dinosaur of a jerk. Never have I hidden the fact that I find you attractive. I need a business partner. Sex is available in any nightclub.” Time to hunt for some fresh friend with benefits man-meat.