Max was spreading out trash bags on nearby displays. “Did someone spray-paint a dick on the door too?” he called.
“No,” I answered before going back inside. “Why?”
“Add insult to injury. Should I move this stuff away from the window?”
I tugged my phone from my back pocket. “Hold on. Let me get some pictures before we move anything.” I snapped photos of the window and floor before motioning him to continue.
When I stepped away from the immediate area, I noticed the brick across the room. I went over, crouched down, and picked it up. It was just an ordinary brick. With a rubber band wrapped around it. I set my phone on the floor beside me and turned it around to see a folded piece of wet paper on the other side.
Hell. There were easier ways to get in touch with me. There was this great invention called the telephone.
Even a carrier pigeon would have been better. Because a pigeon would just crap on my inventory and be gone. A pigeon didn’t require a police report, insurance paperwork, and my jerk of a landlord coming down to inspect this mess.
I yanked the rubber band free and unfolded the paper. I don’t know what I had been expecting as I held it close to read, but it wasn’t I know you like mysteries.
“What’re you doing?” Max asked.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Someone attached a note to the brick.”
“What does it say?”
“‘I know you like mysteries.’”
“Me?”
“No, that’s what the note says,” I replied while waving the paper over my shoulder. I picked up my phone again and stood, knees cracking like I was an old man and not just a crabby thirty-three-year-old. I turned around and saw Max had gone very still. “Are you okay?”
“This isn’t going to be like Christmas, is it?”
Duncan Andrews had thoroughly fucked up my holidays. He’d been responsible for the death of my former boss, had harassed and stalked me, and had shot Detective Calvin Winter.
“No,” I said firmly, shaking my head. “Duncan is rocking an orange jumpsuit now.”
“What about a copycat?”
“Poe never hurled bricks into antique shops. It’s okay, really.”
I told Max to finish with the displays and gave the police a ring to report the vandalism. Two officers arrived after I had gotten off the phone with Luther North, my landlord, who gave me more than an earful about the window, as if I had been asking for punks to hurl bricks at it.
“Do you have insurance, Mr. Snow?” the male officer asked. He’d introduced himself as Officer Lowry and had uncomfortably reminded me of Neil: same build and hair, same strong face and handsome features. But thankfully, there was no relation.
“Yeah. And the landlord is on his way now,” I answered. A cold breeze blew in through the gaping window, and I shivered while crossing my arms over my chest.
The woman officer smiled and pointed at me. “I was here two months ago.”
“I’m sorry?”
“When there was a pig’s heart in your floor.”
“Oh.” I nodded and had to resist the urge to look over my shoulder at the spot in question. “No dismembered body parts this time.”
She laughed quietly. “That’s good.”
Lowry, who had been writing notes, asked me a few more questions. Did I have any disgruntled customers lately? Had I received threats prior? But no. The entire event seemed completely unprovoked. To the point that I had considered someone threw the brick through the wrong window.
Except….
I know you like mysteries.
