This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (31 page)

“So, you still have Mr. Gillford’s possessions?” I asked.

The young man eased his bulk out from behind the counter and picked up a large set of keys. “Good thing you got here when you did. The file cabinets, bookcases, and that big old desk and chair were going to be put up for auction on Saturday.”

“And the papers?” I asked anxiously.

“I called to have them hauled away to a recycling place, but they haven’t shown up yet.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Come on.”

The manager led us out of the trailer and over to a Quonset hut. The steel had been painted white, but it was still an eyesore. He unlocked the door and waved us in. It was breathlessly hot inside the metal building. A fat fly buzzed lazily in a shaft of sunlight pouring in through the high, narrow windows. John’s hand shot out, so fast it was almost a blur, and knocked the fly out of the air.

“Wow,” said the manager. It seemed to be his general catch-all word for surprise and wonderment. “There are the files.” He pointed at several rows of mixed metal-and-wood filing cabinets.

“And the contents?” John asked.

The manager pointed at a pile of large and bulging black plastic garbage bags. John and I exchanged another look. So much for going right to the year when Syd had said the will was drafted. “Oh, yippee,” I said.

We moved toward the pile but suddenly the kid got a crimp in his conscience. “I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be letting you go through this stuff.”

John reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a leather wallet, and flipped it open. It showed a flash of gold before he quickly flipped it shut again. “You’re helping us with a criminal investigation.”

I wondered if he had just kept his badge from when he’d been a policeman or if it was a prop. Either way, it made me uncomfortable. I would clearly suck as a private eye. I waited hopefully, but the kid didn’t seem impressed.

“You’re not a cop in this jurisdiction.”

Damn
Law & Order,
I thought. John and the manager measured each other’s gazes, and it seemed a nonverbal conversation was taking place. John stepped in close and laid a hand on the manager’s shoulder. I drew in a breath, expecting John to sucker punch him or something equally macho. Instead I saw a fifty slide from John’s free hand into the kid’s. I realized I’d watched too many movies too.

“Now that’s the kind of badge I can get behind,” the redhead said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He left, closing the door behind him. “Is this your world?” I asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Does it depress you?”

“No, it’s just left me with few illusions about human nature. Open that door, or we’re going to die from heatstroke,” John said as he loosened his tie and took off his sports jacket. When the jacket came off, I realized he was wearing a gun in a shoulder rig. I spent a moment admiring the way his Italian-cut shirt hugged his body, and I had a sudden, sharp memory of those abs and running my fingers down his side. It got a few degrees hotter in the hut.

I propped open the door with a small rolling filing cabinet. John grabbed the first bag and untied the plastic drawstring.

I sat down on the concrete and started sifting through the mess. I reflected that, for me, the
Abercrombie
case had begun in a welter of paper, and it seemed it was going to end in one too.

21

Gillford had practiced law for a looong time. There were fifty years of files all jumbled together. I tried very hard not to absorb anything from the non-
Abercrombie
files. I tried to just look for key words, like—oh,
Abercrombie.
I also knew that a lot of clients, or heirs of the clients, were about to have their documents consigned to the shredder. This wasn’t really my problem, but I found myself wondering if I should inform the State Bar of Virginia.

Judging by the letterhead, the watermarked paper, and the silk ribbons that tied shut some of the folders, Gillford had been a pretty old-fashioned kind of guy. So I told John to look for large folders of thick parchment-colored paper with ribbons and Gothic type that read
Last Will and Testament.

With fifty years of active practice, there were lots of Last Wills. A couple of times we heard the whine of the electric gate opening, and cars pulling in. Each time John would tense, go to the door, and peer out. Every time it turned out to be a tenant and not the Securitech goons returning.

“What if we don’t find it before dark?” I squinted up toward the ceiling, but the Quonset hut didn’t seem to have been wired for electricity. “Have you got a flashlight?” I added.

“Have I got a flashlight.” John stood up and took a penlight out of his pocket. “A good PI, like a good Boy Scout, is always prepared.”

“So, what else have you got in your pockets?”

John dropped down next to me. “You know, that sounds faintly suggestive.”

I gave him a slap on the upper arm, but his nearness and the spicy scent of his sweat and aftershave had me once again very aware of my pelvic area. I could tell I was blushing, and I wanted to say to hell with this search and go find a hotel. But I didn’t think the kid would be as amenable to our search after he had a day to reflect. We had to finish today.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, the kid wandered in, bringing with him the scent of pizza. My stomach gave a growl. It had been five hours since lunch. I thought about the chicken in the car. Then I thought of the heat and decided a dose of food poisoning would not improve the day.

“Hey, the night manager’s going to be coming on at eleven. I don’t think he’s going to be too cool with you going through stuff, so you better finish up before then.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said. He slouched out again, and I tackled the second-to-last trash bag.

“You know it’s probably going to be in the last bag,” John said.

“The way our luck has been, yes, that’s probably true.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think your luck has been pretty damn spectacular,” John said.

“What?” It emerged as an outraged shriek. “I’ve been attacked and nearly killed by werewolves
twice
. I’ve come
this
close”—I held up two fingers a millimeter apart—“to getting fired—twice.”

“Yes, and you’ve survived, both literally and metaphorically. And you’re leading a women’s revolt in the office.”

“I am not.”

“Are too. But be careful. Ryan has a nasty streak.”

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” I answered, sarcasm dripping off each word.

“Using you is one thing. He hasn’t actually gone after you.”

“What can he do to me that he hasn’t already tried? He tried to get me fired and failed.”

John was staring at me with an expression of bemusement. “For somebody who was raised by a vampire, you seem awfully naive. Or you must have been fostered with an exceptional vampire.”

“Yes, I guess he was … is. He started me riding, supplied my horses, and gave me the horse I was riding when I turned eighteen and went off to college. He and Shade are close friends.”

“Okay, that explains a lot. Shade Ishmael seems closer to human than most of them, and I suspect a friend of his would be the same. But let me assure you, that is not the norm. Most of them are distant loners with a narcissistic streak. They’d have to be because what other kind of person goes out looking to live forever, leaving behind all the people who were important to them in life?” His tone was harsh and ragged, and his gaze seemed to turn inward. I had a feeling this had less to do with vampires and more to do with him. It didn’t seem like the right time to point out the obvious, but this was me, so of course my mouth engaged before my brain.

“You’re going to live forever too.”

A flash of corrosive grief filled his eyes. He dropped his lashes, veiling those betraying eyes. “Not forever. The Álfar die too, but slowly, very slowly.” He paused, then added so quietly I almost missed what he said, “I just don’t know if I have the courage to deal with that.”

“Courage? What does that mean?” Then understanding hit like a punch. “Oh no, don’t you tell me you’re thinking about suicide.” The papers I’d been inspecting lay forgotten in my lap.

“What other solution do I have? I’ll watch my parents die—”

“That’s a burden all children bear.”

“My siblings. If I marry, I’ll bury her too, and our children, and their children.” John fell silent, and his face was so immobile that he reminded me of the effigies on tombs in Westminster Abbey.

The future he was describing did sound horrible, but I was twenty-seven and dying seemed pretty horrible to me too. “John, how old are you?” I asked.

“Forty-three.”

It startled me. He looked like a man in his twenties. I picked up the papers and nervously shuffled them, shifting them front to back.

“Then you’ve got a lot of time before—” John’s hand shot out and closed on my wrist.

“Linnet, look.”

I did. I was staring down at a heavy parchment folder that read,
Last Will and Testament of Henry Lee Abercrombie.
My fingers were trembling as I untied the ribbons holding it closed. There were only two typed pages inside. It was a very short and simple will, and it was as Syd had described. Henry had left all his worldly goods to Chastity Rose Jenkins and her daughter Destiny Star Jenkins, whom he formally acknowledged as an heir of his body.

“Oh, this is fucking dynamite,” John breathed, and I noticed that his hand went up to touch his pistol in its holster. I don’t think he was even aware of it, but for an instant, and despite the suffocating heat of the Quonset hut, it felt as if a bead of ice water had run down my back.

*   *   *

We hurriedly stuffed the papers back into the trash bag, then rushed over to the trailer and told the manager that we were finished. In a voice that was
way
too casual he asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

John’s hand tightened on my arm. I gave the manager big eyes filled with total sincerity. “No. I don’t think the will—” I broke off suddenly as if I’d given something away. “The document we were looking for ever existed. Thank you for letting us look though.”

John gave him another fifty and we jumped into the rental and hit the highway. John kept checking all the mirrors, and he seemed to be taking a circuitous route, much to GPS Barbara’s annoyance. Every time he ignored her instructions we would hear a huffy “Make a legal U-turn and proceed 400 feet to—” Or an even more annoyed “Recalculating route.”

“You think Securitech talked to that guy,” I said.

“You think so too,” John said.

“Why are they always a step ahead of us?” I grumbled.

“They’re not, but they are definitely only half a step behind us. They’re breathing down our necks. We need to get a copy of that will faxed to the office.”

“We can do that.” I checked my watch. “Though I doubt any place will be open at six p.m. in Red Oak Hollow. But it really won’t make any difference. This is one area of the law where the courts aren’t keeping up with technology. A fax or a scanned document will not be considered binding. Since property’s on the line, the court demands the original document.”

“So we book it for New York,” he said.

“The only other option is that we hang around here and hit a court in Roanoke in the morning,” I said.

“Securitech will be all over us before morning. I think we’ve gotta keep moving. They’ll expect us to take the direct route through Roanoke, so I’m going to head south for a little while. Try to throw them off the scent.”

We drove in silence as I clutched the satchel containing the will. This document represented a life change for two women I had never met. I wondered how they would react. Then it hit me, and I sat bolt upright.

“John, we’ve got to go to Roanoke.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do. Chastity and Destiny are there.” His head snapped around, and he stared at me. “We know Securitech talked to the manager. They now know the papers were still on site. They’d be stupid to assume we
don’t
have the will. Which means Chastity and Destiny are in danger, and we know Deegan won’t hesitate to kill people. We need to take them with us.”

“Oh shit,” he moaned as he beat his forehead against the steering wheel.

I was hurt and piqued by his reaction. “Tell me if you disagree—”

“No, no, you’re right. Goddamn it.”

*   *   *

We reached the outskirts of Roanoke. “Okay, do you remember where this place was?”

“We passed it when we left the airport. I remember that much. Wait.”

I dug out my phone, went to the browser, and Googled Hot Lips, Roanoke, VA. Soon a map appeared. I keyed the address into the GPS, and Barbara came out of her sulk and began to guide us. John pulled into a driveway marked with a sign containing a big red arrow and more lips that read
PARKING IN REAR
.

“There’s something so crudely suggestive about that,” he remarked as he pulled into a space. Since it was a little past seven at night, I figured the place would be hopping. Surprisingly, there were only four cars in addition to ours parked in the lot—two pickup trucks, a beat-up Nissan, and a low-end BMW sedan.

“Seems pretty dead,” I said.

“They probably have a big noon crowd, and it’s still early for a titty bar,” John said as we got out of the car.

The main entrance appeared to be in the back, facing the lot. Which made sense. Maybe the men frequenting the place didn’t want to go parading down the street, and it was a much shorter walk. The door was big, metal, painted black, and very heavy. John pulled it open, and I walked into an entryway that had a coat-check area, a sofa against one wall with some magazines—
Field & Stream
,
Guns & Ammo
,
Popular Mechanics
—and the doors to the bathrooms.

In front of us were big double doors padded in red leather with large brass pulls. They were also very heavy, as evidenced by the sudden definition in John’s biceps. Past the double doors was a large room with curving walls, mirrors, a disco ball (I couldn’t believe my eyes), a raised stage with the obligatory pole, and cages on either side. Four men were seated at tables as far apart from each other as possible. Two were powerfully built men whose T-shirts revealed bunched muscles in their arms and burgeoning paunches. They were drinking beers out of bottles. In the very back was an old man who seemed more interested in the plate of prime rib than in any activity on the stage. Seated at a table closest to the stage was a man who looked like a banker. He was dressed in a decent suit, the coat draped over the back of his chair, and he was nursing a highball.