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Harris was trying not to laugh and doing a poor job of it. “Well, let me know if you tingle again. It’s a very useful superpower.”
15
Cassie and the detective sucked in a sharp gasp as the icy breeze assaulted them. They’d only been inside for half an hour—long enough for their body temperatures to return to normal. It made going back outside even worse.
“Reed’s office is a couple of blocks away.” Harris pulled her jacket up around her chin. “Let’s walk.”
Cassie couldn’t think of a good reason to walk instead of drive, but she didn’t argue. She had more important matters on her mind. “About last night—”
“Let’s tackle one thing at a time.”
Cassie bit down on her frustration, not wanting to push the subject. It looked as though David had taken money from Aguilar, but there had to be another reason Harris had shut her out. Why couldn’t her psychic abilities give her the answers she wanted to know?
They arrived at Reed’s office building before she could think of another way to get Harris to open up. The two-story structure carried all the age and none of the grandeur of City Hall. The bricks were faded and dirty with a hundred years of city life. There were no ornamental figures across the façade. Even the old-fashioned marquee that bore the words Don A. Reed, Attorney at Law looked dilapidated. This wasn’t an aesthetic choice to uphold the vintage atmosphere of the building—it had been kept in place out of sheer laziness.
Harris pulled open the door and stepped inside. Cassie followed, unimpressed with the way the building had been kept up over the years. An ornate rug adorned the hallway and the stairs leading up and to the right. At one point, it had been beautiful, but now it was more mud than fabric. The wood paneling along the walls was cracked and dull. The banister—which must have once gleamed in the light of the now cobweb-infested chandelier—was rubbed raw from years of use. If someone had had the heart to restore it a decade or so ago, it might’ve been salvaged. Now it was too late.
A man standing in the hallway looked up as they entered. He wore the navy-blue jumpsuit of a janitor and filled out every inch of it. He wasn’t tall, but stout with arms that bulged against the seams of his uniform. The tattoo along his neck was partially hidden by his collar and shoulder-length gray hair. His beady black eyes followed their every movement, even while he rinsed his mop and slopped it against the floor, spreading more dirt than he cleaned up. Cassie could smell the putrid water from the door.
If Harris was bothered by his presence, she didn’t let it show. She turned to the directory just inside the door. All of the metal plaques for other businesses had been removed or scratched out. The only one left read Don A. Reed, Attorney at Law. On the second floor in room 204.
The stairs creaked with every step. Even though Reed’s office was at the end of the hall, she
imagined he could hear them coming. On the landing, the floorboards moaned under their weight. The putrid scent of the mop water accompanied them, and Cassie wondered if the man downstairs washed the floor with it to keep normal clientele out of the building.
The door to room 204 was open. Harris stepped inside, but Cassie hovered at the entrance. This area was a degree or two hotter, and she couldn’t tell if it was from the heating system or something else. Either way, it was empty save for an unoccupied desk. She spotted another door on the opposite side of the room. It was closed, but sounds radiated from within.
Harris closed the distance and rapped her knuckles twice on the door. No one answered, even though they could hear someone on the other side. Harris knocked again. A man with a raspy voice shouted, “Go away!”
Harris didn’t listen. Tossing a look over her shoulder, the detective shrugged at Cassie and opened the door uninvited. Cassie scrambled after her, noting the temperature of the room rising another degree. But any thoughts of supernatural occurrences went out the window when she got a glimpse of the room.
Folders were strewn about the place. Stacked on tables, chairs, the floor. The room smelled like old deli meat and cigars. The air was stale and oppressive. Cassie suppressed a cough, but Harris wasn’t so lucky. She erupted into a fit, waving her hand in front of her face as though it would clear the room of the smell. The man behind the desk didn’t even bother looking up.
“Get out,” he said. “No appointments today.”
Don A. Reed was both nothing like Cassie had pictured and exactly who she thought he would be. Short, squat, and balding, he wore large glasses and held an unlit cigar between his teeth. He wore a white tank top and suspenders, which at least indicated he was also wearing pants, but his button-down shirt was tossed over a peg on the coat rack, along with a beat-up tan and brown fedora. He’d be perfectly cast in a mobster movie, and certainly not as one of the good guys.
“I just have a couple questions for you,” Harris began.
Reed looked up at the sound of Harris’s voice and his eyes went wide at the sight of them. Cassie couldn’t decide if it was because they were women or because he had never expected two people who looked like them to show up at his door. But as soon as the surprise came, it dissipated.
“Don’t have time.” He gestured to the paperwork around him. Cassie spotted at least three empty coffee cups, and one of them had started growing mold. “Don’t you see I’m busy here?”
“It’ll only take a minute.” Harris’s voice was bubbly, but firm. Tossing a stack of folders onto the floor, she sat down in a chair opposite him. “I have a business proposition for you.”
Cassie followed Harris’s lead, grabbing a pile of folders from the other chair and dropping them to the floor. The chair was deep red, made darker by years of dirt and sweat and—oh God, was that blood? Cassie perched herself on the edge of the seat, doing her best to touch as little of the fabric as possible. She held her fist over her mouth to hide her gagging.
When she looked up again, Reed was staring at her. Lowering her fist, she smiled, looking away. The stack of folders on the edge of his desk between them were piled so high, she could just make out his eyes over the top. Some of them appeared to have been left in the rain or dumped into a pot of coffee.
She noticed a tab in her direction about halfway down the stack. There was no mistaking the word printed in blue ink and careful handwriting that didn’t match his persona. It said Annex. If he tried to deny he was associated with the company, she had proof right in front of her.
Cassie hugged her purse to her chest and slipped her phone out of the front pocket. Maybe Jason could find more information on this guy. If the file folders were any indication, he probably had his hand in a lot of businesses—and may have slipped up somewhere.
“What are you doing?” Reed’s rough voice jolted Cassie in her seat. He was staring right at her. “Put your phone away.”
Cassie didn’t bother trying to hide it. “I just wanted to take notes.”
“No notes.” The man was going red in the face. “No phones. Leave. Before I make you leave.”
