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CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Dexter
“So, no luck with the mechanics?” Madelyn said, sinking into one of the chairs at the central table in the Vigil office.
I thought she still looked a bit annoyed that we’d finally talked her out of going back to the shop with us to ask about her memento of her dad, even though Slade and I had promised emphatically that we’d keep her in the loop and have her along on less dicey parts of the investigation. When Slade had pointed out that the guy she’d pummeled might have a grudge against her now and be less likely to talk if she was around, she’d finally backed down.
It was much better that she hadn’t been with us, though. There’d been threats Logan wouldn’t have wanted to make, force he wouldn’t have wanted to resort to when she was watching. That part of his reaction to her I at least partly understood. I wasn’t totally comfortable with the means we resorted to in order to achieve our ends either.
But who was I to complain?
“They had no idea there’d ever been a box of any kind in the car,” I told her, meeting her eyes for just a second. They were kind eyes, and pretty with that deep shade of blue—at least I thought so—but holding someone’s gaze for more than a moment always sent a creeping sensation over my skin. It was easier to pretend I was occupied considering other things. “Whoever stole your Malibu must have taken the trinket box out before they dropped the car off at the shop. They left it with a note saying they’d be by to pick up the cash from selling the parts in a week.”
Madelyn frowned, her smooth forehead furrowing. “Is that how chop shops normally operate?”
I shook my head. “Not from what I’ve seen. It’s definitely unusual that they wouldn’t come to a direct agreement about the price and all that. The thief was being particularly secretive.”
“Are you sure we can trust anything those assholes said?”
“I saw no reason to doubt them,” I said evenly. After the way Logan had intimidated them while he’d asked his questions, seeing the expressions on their faces, I was sure they’d been telling us the truth. He’d made them nervous, and nervous people made mistakes, but none of their body language or comments had given any hint that they were hiding something.
“Crap.” Madelyn sighed and slumped in the chair, her fine blond hair sliding across her shoulders. “What now?”
“That’s why I called you in.” I flicked to the notetaking app on my phone. “Anything you can tell us about this box and its significance might help us narrow down the culprits. I know it belonged to your dad and approximately what it looks like. What did your dad use it for? Did he ever say anything noteworthy about it? Why did it seem special enough to him that you wanted to hold on to it?”
Madelyn rubbed her mouth, her eyes going out of focus as she reached into her memories. I could focus on her more easily now when she wasn’t looking right back at me.
“I mean, like I said before, its value was all sentimental, as far as I know. It was always a fixture on his desk—even when he reorganized or got new furniture, it kept its spot right at the corner. I liked to pick it up and run my fingers over the design when I’d go in there to visit with him while he was working.”
“Did he work from home a lot?” I asked.
She nodded. “Enough that he kept that small home office. For the more intensive research, he needed to be in the hospital or the lab he had ties to, of course, but when he was reading up on a subject or compiling notes or that sort of thing, he’d often do that at home. He said he wanted to be around as much as possible to see me growing up. That’s why he didn’t mind me dropping in. He’d say he was always happy to have an excuse to take a quick break.”
She paused with an audible swallow. I felt abruptly awkward, not knowing what to say. I knew more about this situation than she had any clue about, and yet at the same time I had no idea what the details had looked like from her perspective.
“He died when you were pretty little, didn’t he?” I said in what I hoped was a gentle tone.
Madelyn sucked in a breath and gave me a wry smile. “Yeah. I was eight. Maybe it’s silly that it still affects me, but it was so sudden, and— It’s hard not to think about what it’d be like if he were still here. He was a really great dad, always encouraging me and there when I needed him. It was an unexpected illness, came on suddenly and hit him really hard. We barely realized we were saying actual goodbyes before he was gone. It took me a long time to get back to feeling close to normal again.”
“I’d imagine that’s understandable.”
“It doesn’t help you find the box, though.” She straightened her posture with an air of determination I was starting to see came naturally to her. “I’m not totally sure why he liked the thing so much. Maybe I’d have asked him once I’d gotten older and really thought about details like that. He’d have told me—he wasn’t the kind of parent who’d brush off questions or give half-hearted answers to a kid. He always gave me his full attention.”
“He does sound like a great dad.” I wished my own parents had been more like that.
“Yeah. I just remember he told me it was his ‘box of secrets.’ A place where you could hide away important things. I told him I wanted something like that, and he swore we’d pick one out, but before we got around to doing that…”
She trailed off, but my mind had latched on to her earlier words with a surge of adrenaline. A “box of secrets” for hiding important things? Thatwasthe sort of thing someone might want to steal, wasn’t it?
“Was it some kind of puzzle box then?” I asked, restraining my eagerness. My fingers were already itching to get my hands on it and figure out the tricks.
“I… I don’t think so,” Madelyn said. “Like with secret compartments and stuff? It opened like a normal wooden box, and I never found any other drawers or whatever. But I could have missed something, I guess. I didn’t look that hard.”
This was a puzzle about a puzzle, then. Playing right to my skills… But first we had to solve the part of the puzzle that would let me get my hands on the thing. If her dad had hidden something away in the box that no one had ever found—if someone out there had reason to believe he’d done that and that whatever he’d hidden was important…
I was so wrapped up in those speculations that Madelyn must have thought I’d totally zoned out. I barely remembered she was in front of me until she moved her hand toward my arm as if to tap it to get my attention.
The motion made me tense up before her fingers had even brushed my sleeve. Madelyn jerked her hand back with an apologetic grimace. She tucked it under the table on her lap. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t really like the whole physical contact thing.”
