Ginny rang the doorbell. She reapplied her lip gloss while they waited for someone to come to the door. Nobody came. Shepherd knocked on the door. Still, nobody answered. Ginny rang the doorbell again and said, helpfully, “Hello?”
There were windows on either side of the door, but they were covered by blinds. Shepherd tried to squint between two slats but could only make out the back of a single couch. He knocked again.
Ginny shrugged and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. The door swung inward. She shrugged again. “Hello? Mom? Mr. Martin?”
The A/C was on high, a startling contrast to the air outside. Shivers ran down Shepherd’s back from the temperature change, and not at all from the look in Ginny’s eye when she glanced at him over her shoulder.
“If you even suggest that my mother is doing anything untoward right now—”
He mimed zipping his lips.
“Mom?” Ginny shouted, walking further into the house. It was furnished in your typical beach-home wicker—all light woods and white tile floors, kitschy signs that remind guests to take their shoes off or to laugh and love while they’re living. Not something he would’ve picked for Mr. Martin, but the man was so rich he probably had an interior designer and had opted for a renter-friendly package in case he ever put the listing out there.
The living room opened into the dining room. Off to the side was the kitchen. All the lights were off, but there was enough sunlight coming in from the slats in the blinds to illuminate a strange, dark liquid running in the grout of the tiles between the kitchen and the dining room.
Shepherd blinked down at it, his sneakered toes at the edge of the flow. It was moving like a stream, staining the white tile red in its wake, finding its way underneath him. “What a weird spill,” he said, his brain refusing to accept what it was seeing. “Never struck Mr. Martin for a Kool-Aid man.”
Ginny gasped, a frightened hitch in her throat, her hands blocking her mouth. Shepherd shook his head and declined to look where she was looking. This was not happening. This was impossible. He hadn’t planned for this.
Finding the landlord dead in his restaurant? Sure, he had a plan for that. It was called Grabbing His Passport and Fleeing to the Bahamas on the Closest Boat.
But this? His landlord, bleeding out on his own kitchen floor? Nope. That was not something Shepherd had ever even remotely considered as a possibility. At least, not one that would be his responsibility.
“Mr. Martin!” Ginny jumped over the blood, her long legs clearing the stream easily. “Mr. Martin? What happened?” She kneeled down next to him, taking his hand in hers.
Shepherd inhaled and held the breath in his lungs. Slowly, he followed the blood trail to the man it was leaking from, his shoe leaving several bloody half-prints in his path. Mr. Martin was lying on the ground in silk pajamas, a deep, dark hole in his stomach that couldn’t have been from anything but a gun.
His lips were blue, his teeth were chattering, and his eyes were slits.
“Mr. Martin?” Ginny’s soft voice compelled Shepherd forward. He stepped over the blood and came up behind her, staring down at the dying man in horror. She touched his forehead with her palm, stroked her fingers down his cheek. “Mr. Martin? My mother?”
Mr. Martin’s breath rattled. In a thin wheeze, he whispered, “Cardello.”
And then, like something out of a movie, the next rattling breath never came. His eyes didn’t close, but his fingers lost their grip on Ginny’s hand. His teeth stopped chattering. His chest didn’t rise.
Ginny stared up at Shepherd, her mouth and eyes wide open. She sucked in a loud breath, followed by another, her complexion turning grayer and grayer with every breath. “Cardello?”
Shepherd, finally back in his body, was reaching for his phone to call the police. He heard her talk, but in a far-off sort of way, as though she were in a nearby room.
“My family represented a Cardello,” she said. “Not too long ago.”
PART TWO
EIGHT
The first cop car pulled up, sirens blazing, while Shepherd was still explaining things to the 911 operator. It could not have been more than a minute and a half since he first dialed the number. Damn. They sure take policing in the swanky areas seriously.
The second cop car pulled up while the first round of cops were poking their heads into the open door and stating that they were, in fact, police, in case anyone without eyes and ears was afoot.
“They’re here,” Shepherd told the operator before ending the call. “In the kitchen!” In fact, he hadn’t moved an inch since watching Mr. Martin die.
What a weird thing to think. He’d watched a man die less than three minutes ago. The shock had slipped into a strange sort of denial, allowing him to remember one of his plans.
Step One was: Call the Police. Done.
Step Two was: Let the Police Handle It. Easy. Peasy. Lemon squeezy.
Ginny, however, had taken off, tearing through the two-story house shouting, “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
