Red (12 page)
Mission accomplished.
Chapter 16
“What?”
It was at least the fifteenth time Nate had glanced over at me since we’d left Gran’s house.
Nate’s eyes darted back to the road, and he shifted in his seat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Nothing.”
“Then why do you keep looking at me?” I demanded. “You’re starting to creep me out.”
Nate’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, his expression becoming even more intense. “I just . . .”
I waited for several seconds, but when he didn’t continue, I prompted, “You just what?”
He huffed, then said quickly, “I just wanted to say you’re beautiful.”
Startled by his frank compliment, I jerked a little, not entirely sure how to respond. Besides, the sudden warmth in my cheeks made it a little hard to think. “Um, thanks.”
Nate shrugged. “No big deal. You know, just being honest.”
I nodded. “No worries. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Yep.”
An awkward silence fell between us for a moment, neither of us entirely sure what to say next. Finally, I decided to just leave it alone and try to get our attentions focused on something else.
“So, Gran comes home later today,” I announced.
Nate’s shoulders eased a bit. “Good. That’s good. I’m glad she’s doing okay.”
Remembering the surprise I’d received the night before about him and Nicky being old friends, I asked, “So, had you met Gran before yesterday?”
Nate’s tension immediately returned. “Once,” he said stiffly. “But I hadn’t come to collect her. She just happened to be nearby. We didn’t really meet—I just saw her from a distance. She didn’t even know I was there.”
I gave myself a mental smack on the forehead. Of course, he’d seen her before—Gran was a widow. Odds were good she’d been there the day her husband had been collected.
“Is there anyone else you’re acquainted with that I should know about?” I asked.
Nate gave me a disappointed look that stopped just short of rolling his eyes at me. “It’s safe to assume that I know pretty much everyone you know, Red—it’s my job. And if I haven’t met them yet, I’m going to.”
I flushed a little. “Right.” Trying to redeem myself by actually asking an intelligent question, I said, “So, are we Tales the only ones on your client list?”
“Do you mean do I collect Ordinaries as well?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not like Tales are dropping like flies or anything. Statistically, I’d think the Ordinaries would be better business. Supply and demand and all that.”
“I don’t collect Ordinaries,” Nate told me. “Not unless I happen to be there collecting a Tale at the same time.”
“Why?”
Nate got that closed-off look as he replied, “I’m on special assignment.”
My brows lifted in surprise. “We’re a special assignment?”
He cast an irritable glance my way. “It’s not like you play by the same rules as Ordinaries, is it? You’re fictional characters made flesh. It presents a few unique challenges to collecting you. For one thing, I can’t just drop you off in the hereafter.”
“I can understand that, but—”
“It’s complicated,” he interrupted with a finality that clearly indicated I should drop the subject.
I chose to overlook it. “So enlighten me.”
Nate’s jaw tightened and he didn’t immediately respond.
“I’m trying to understand you, Nate,” I said sincerely. “I just want to get to know you, to understand where you come from. Is that so horrible?”
I saw his muscles ease just a little, but his voice was quiet when he tentatively asked, “And if you don’t like what you find?”
That’s what he was worried about?
“Nate,” I said with a laugh, “it’s not like I don’t know about your second job. You’re a Reaper. I’m not asking you to give away the secrets of your trade or anything—I honestly couldn’t care less about how your job works. That’s your business. But I
am
curious about
you
.”
am
curious about
you
.”
Nate exhaled on a sigh and I knew I’d made some headway. “Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“How’d you get put on special assignment?”
“I asked for it.”
“Why?”
Nate shrugged. “Thought it would be interesting.”
“Yeah?” I said with a grin. “And what do you think so far? Have we been a huge disappointment?”
“Are you kidding me?” Nate said as he turned off the main street and onto a gravel road leading to a huge complex of warehouses surrounded by a nine-foot-high chain-link fence. “You Tales are so dysfunctional you make the Ordinaries look like one big happy family.”
I grunted. “You say that like you’re not one of us.”
As we reached the entrance to the complex, Nate pulled a stick of gum out of his pocket and folded it in half before putting it in his mouth. Time to get down to business. “So, do you know which one it is?” he asked, nodding toward the rows of identical square buildings.
“Yeah—third row from the left, eighth building down.”
Dave Hamelin’s pest control company was nestled among the other warehouses and only stood out because of the several white vans emblazoned with the logo of a man skipping merrily while playing a flute, an assortment of rats, roaches, bees, and various other pests trailing along behind him.
“Think the employees know about Hamelin yet?” Nate asked, pulling into a vacant spot next to one of the vans.
“Only one way to find out.”
The answer to Nate’s question was clear the minute we stepped inside the building. At the reception desk of the office area, a young woman with a chestnut brown bob and wide brown eyes rose to meet us. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her nose was red and swollen from crying.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “But we’re closed. I just haven’t changed the sign.”
“We’re not customers,” Nate assured her gently. “We are looking into Dave Hamelin’s death and were hoping you could answer some questions.”
She glanced between us and sniffed a couple more times. “Are you cops?”
“Not exactly,” I replied, realizing she was an Ordinary. “More like private investigators.”
She nodded and grabbed a couple of tissues from the box on her desk. “Okay then. I can help you with any questions you might have.”
Wondering just how cooperative she would’ve been had we said we were police, I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Alice.”
“Alice, were you and Dave pretty close?”
A sob burst from her at my question and the waterworks began anew. Nate gave me a pleading look and jerked his head toward Alice.
“What?” I mouthed.
“Help her,” he mouthed back.
I puffed my cheeks full of air, then let it out on a sigh and went around behind the desk, wondering just how I was supposed to console the weeping woman. Dealing with my own emotions was a bit of a stretch—dealing with the emotions of others was completely foreign territory.
“Uh, is there anything we can do?” I asked lamely, putting my hand on her shoulder. “Do you need some water or something?”
Alice shook her head and made a concerted effort to pull herself back together. “No, no. I’ll be fine. It’s just that”—she hiccuped a couple of times—“Dave was like a father to me.”
Nate and I exchanged glances, apparently both having difficulty picturing Dave in the fatherly role, all things considered.
“How so?” I hazarded.
After taking a long, shaky breath, Alice said, “I used to be a street kid, did lots of drugs and all that. Dave took me in, gave me a job, helped me find a place to live. He actually cared about me, you know?”
Actually, I didn’t know. In fact, I never would’ve guessed.
“Alice,” Nate said gently, “do you know if Dave was in any kind of trouble?”
She wiped her eyes with the tissue and shook her head. “No. Things were going great. We suddenly had a ton of business—big clients, too. Rich people.”
“Do you mind if we take a look at your client list, Alice?” I asked. “Maybe we could talk to some of these folks and see if any of them can help us understand what might have happened.”
The poor thing looked at me like I’d just offered her a million dollars. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, sure.” I looked at Nate to confirm the offer.
“You bet,” he assured her, giving her one of his killer smiles. “We’ll do anything we can to help.”
Alice’s face lit up as she returned Nate’s smile. Then, with a little bit of a bounce in her step, she scurried over to a filing cabinet and rummaged through the folders until she came out with several sheets of paper stapled together.
“Here you go,” she said, turning the list over to Nate. “That’s the most recent list of clients. I print a new hard copy every couple of weeks, so this one was current as of last week.”
“Why keep a hard copy if you have them in the computer?” I questioned.
She smiled a little sadly. “Dave doesn’t like me to mess around in the computer, so I don’t know the log-in and password. He would log in for me every other Friday and let me catch up on some of the invoice work and print out a new list.”
“You seem like a bright girl,” Nate told her. “Didn’t he think you could handle it on your own?”
Alice flushed a little at his compliment. “It isn’t that. It’s just that this is his personal computer, too,” she informed us, gesturing toward the desk. “He said he was working on some freelance project that was confidential and that he couldn’t violate his agreement by letting me accidentally stumble on it.”
I’ll bet.
I tried not to think about the variety of smut and other illegal content that might be lurking on Dave’s hard drive. No wonder he didn’t want his darling little protégée to stumble upon anything. Of course, there might also have been some truth to the whole freelance story. Maybe he
was
working on something for somebody on the side—something that he couldn’t risk coming to light if I hauled him in for a parole violation and we confiscated his computer.
was
working on something for somebody on the side—something that he couldn’t risk coming to light if I hauled him in for a parole violation and we confiscated his computer.
“Alice,” I said, making a concerted effort to smile and seem friendly, “do you think maybe you could let us borrow Dave’s computer for a couple of days?”
When she drew back, looking skittish at my words, Nate immediately joined in. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We won’t give anything we find to the police. We know people who can hack past his password and find out if there are any clients who still owe you money, that sort of thing.”
Alice’s eyes went wide, giving her a panicked look. “Oh, God,” she gasped. “You’re right! What am I going to do now that he’s gone? We’ll have to close the company. What will I do for a job? I’ll end up back on the streets!”
Sensing the dam was about to burst again, I quickly moved forward and put my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I think I know someone you can talk to. She’s really good at helping people who’ve lost their way and need a little help finding it again.”
Alice blinked at me with teary eyes and sniffed. “Really?”
I nodded, then went to the desk and hunted down a piece of paper and a pen. I quickly jotted down a name and number and handed the paper to Alice. “Give her a call sometime in the next couple of days. I’m sure she can help you.”
In a move that completely took me off guard, Alice threw her arms around my neck and hugged me so tightly I struggled to breathe.
“Thank you,” she sobbed. “Thank you so much!”
I gave her a couple of pats on the back. “No problem.” When Alice didn’t get the hint that she was slowly suffocating me, I sent a pleading look Nate’s way, but he was scowling at me angrily, apparently content to let me fend for myself.
I patted Alice again and then gently pried her loose. “It’s okay. Just hang in there, all right?” Then, seeing her rather forlorn expression, I reached into the inner pocket of my trench and pulled out a card that had nothing more than my name and phone number printed in simple block letters. “Here. This is my number. Call me if you need anything.”
She nodded and sniffed, pocketing both numbers. Taking my cue, I quickly disconnected Dave’s laptop from the docking station and tucked it under my arm before she could capture me again. “Take care,” I called over my shoulder as I headed out the door.
“I can’t believe you,” Nate hissed, suddenly materializing in my path.
“What?” I snapped.
“You know what.”
I pulled open the car door and stuck the laptop in the backseat. “No. Sorry, I don’t. Care to enlighten me?”
He rushed toward me, crowding so closely I could feel the heat of his anger. “How could you turn that girl over to her? After all she’s been through, you’d send her right back into the streets? God, did I have you all wrong.”
Other books
This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan
Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) by Jeb R. Sherrill
Chewy Chocolate Chip Murder: A Cookie Lane Cozy Mystery - Book 1 by Karen Sullivan
Ravenous Dusk by Goodfellow, Cody
Beautifully Destroyed by Love, Sandra
Unknown by Unknown
The Runaway Duchess by Eaton, Jillian
Deadly Games by Buroker, Lindsay
Playing Games by Jill Myles
Blood Guilt by Ben Cheetham