Page 26 of Immortal Unveiled

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Kim noticed that Manus had gone silent. His impenetrable expression didn’t give her any clues as to what he was thinking. Seconds ticked by, and she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

“Will you help me find out what really happened?”

She pinned him with her eyes and didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

He nodded. “I can’t promise you that we’ll ever find out what all this is about, but I’m willing to try.”

“I understand that. Now, to the money.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your fee. I can—”

He lifted his hand, stopping her. “This will be pro bono.”

“But I can’t accept that.”

“You’ll have to.”

“But you have to make a living. We all do. And that’s your job: investigating things.”

“Let me worry about that. This case intrigues me. And if the police really covered this up and there’s something to your supernatural theory, then it’s possible that they did the same in my previous case. In which case, my former clients will want me to look into this anyway.”

Though she wasn’t comfortable with Manus working for her for free, she said, “If you insist…”

“I do.” He let out a breath. “I should probably talk to some people at the museum. Maybe they can tell me what your mother was working on before her death. It might give us some leads.”

Kim nodded. “I can introduce you to her colleagues. They’ll talk to you if I come with you.” She looked at the clock to see if the staff at the museum would still be working when there was a loud knock at the door.

Surprised, she looked toward the door. Had Jennifer forgotten something when she’d left just before Manus had arrived? “Excuse me for a moment.”

She walked to the door and opened it. Mrs. Fogarty, one of her mother’s neighbors, stood on the stoop, holding a few letters in her hand.

“Oh, Mrs. Fogarty, is something the matter?” Her mother had always been on friendly terms with the older lady, and they had on occasion watered each other’s plants when the other was out of town.

“Good afternoon, Kim. I thought I saw you arrive earlier, so I figured I’d quickly come over and bring you these.” She pressed the envelopes into Kim’s hand. “That new mailman keeps mixing your mother’s mail in with mine. I meant to bring it over last week, but then my gout was playing up, and I couldn’t get out of my chair. And you haven’t been here much.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fogarty. No, I’ve not been here much. But I’ve just started clearing out the house to get it ready to sell.”

The woman gave a sad smile. “Such a shame. Your mother was such a good neighbor. Why don’t you move in yourself?”

Kim shrugged, not really in the mood to continue the conversation, but she didn’t want to be rude to Mrs. Fogarty. The woman had always been nice to her mother. “Too many memories.” In particular the one of finding her mother dead on the floor. There was no way she could ever live here again.

To her surprise, Mrs. Fogarty put her hand on Kim’s forearm. “I understand.” Then she looked past Kim into the house. “Well, at least you’ve got a young man here to help you with the task. Is that your fiancé?”

Kim looked over her shoulder and saw that Manus had followed her and stood in the archway to the living room. “No, no, just a friend.”

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer then,” Mrs. Fogarty said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fogarty.” Kim lifted her hand as a goodbye and waited until the older lady had turned and was walking away before closing the door.

As she turned, she looked down at the two letters Mrs. Fogarty had given her. One was a solicitation to take out life insurance and clearly of no use anymore. The other letter didn’t look like a mass mailing. Kim read the sender’s name.

“ABC Storage Facility,” she murmured.

“What’s that?” Manus asked.