“Good.”
He was a man of few words this morning.
“I bet the sunrise was beautiful. Too bad I missed it.”
“It was.”
She followed his gaze, not seeing anything particularly interesting. “Amazing, I’m sure. God’s masterpiece coming to life.”
Reid grunted in return. Obviously, God still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Maybe, one day. Would he say anything about last night’s kiss? Or would he ignore it like an elephant in the room?
“I found Joe’s obituary in the paper this morning,” Reid said.
Elephant it was.
“They’ll be having the service tomorrow. It gives us all day today to search his office and do those interviews.”
The sooner they got started, the better, she supposed. “I’ll go get JJ up.” She turned and headed back into the house.
Within the hour, the three of them were pulling into a strip mall. Joe’s office was sandwiched between a nail salon and an insurance company. Quinn’s stomach churned as Reid produced a key from his pocket and let them in. Then, he disarmed the alarm. “Joe said he trusted me enough to let me keep a key after I branched off. Said we’d probably need to work together a few times anyway. He had a key to my place, too.”
The bare office Quinn expected based on the film noir private detective movies she’d seen wasn’t what was before her now. Instead, it was a well-decorated waiting room. A receptionist’s desk, four chairs, and a small coffee table filled the room. Pictures portraying the ocean adorned the walls. Behind the receptionist’s desk was a door, and there was another door on the wall to the right of it.
“Let’s start in Joe’s office. I doubt there’s anything in the conference room.” After locking the front door, Reid walked across the waiting area and opened the door behind the desk.
Joe’s office was decorated in the same navy blue and gray. A large oak desk sat in the center of the room, two armchairs sat directly across from it, and the left wall was lined with filing cabinets.
“Why don’t you sit right here and play the math game?” Quinn patted one of the armchairs and handed JJ her phone. He hopped into the chair and started playing.
“I’ll start with his desk.” Quinn didn’t want to look through the filing cabinets. She felt like she was invading people’s privacy. Not like going through Joe’s desk wasn’t an invasion, but it was different. Reid had worked for Joe. He’d most likely seen most of the files. It wasn’t like breaking confidentiality.
“If you see anything you think is relevant, let me know. I’m not entirely sure what we’re looking for.”
That didn’t exactly fill her with hope. She sat in Joe’s chair, facing his desk. A laptop sat closed in the middle of the desk. A phone to the left. A picture frame with a photo of a man and woman on their wedding day sat on the right.
Guilt grew in her stomach. She wasn’t to blame. She swallowed hard and saw a calendar lying open with various entries, mostly names and times and appointments scrawled across it. She opened the middle drawer. Pens, pencils, and other basic office supplies. The drawer to the right held empty manila folders and legal pads. The drawer below it had folders labeled for bills, accounts receivable, and bank information. Nothing at all useful.
The top left drawer held a metal lockbox, the lock open. “Reid?”
He closed the drawer he was thumbing through and came to her side. “That’s where he kept his gun.”
“Gun?”
“Yes. He liked to carry a gun for protection. He had a concealed carry license.” He lifted the lid. It was empty except for a box of ammunition.
“Do all PIs carry guns?” She looked at him.
He shrugged. “Some do and some don’t.”
“You don’t.” She hadn’t seen him with a gun this whole time.
“I don’t like them.” He dropped the lid and went back to the cabinets.
He didn’t like guns? That was interesting.
She lifted the box. Nothing lay underneath it. The drawer beneath it held various files. She thumbed through them and didn’t find anything. She sat back up and focused on the wedding photo. “Were they happy?”
Reid looked up from the drawer he was searching and stared at her, brow furrowed.
