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“Like I was saying, there have to be ways to break in without actuallybreakingin. I can find instructions for anything online. Look up some lock-picking videos, do a little practice at home, and we’re good to go.” He waggled his fingers with agrin.
Seth frowned. “I know you’re the master researcher, Ky, but do we really want to stake our lack of criminal records on you learning how to become an expert lock-picker in a couple ofdays?”
“Why focus on the lock?” Jin said breezily. “There might be a window we can open. He might not even lock the doors in the first place. Most people in towndon’t.”
“No, I’m pretty sure Mr. Cortland would,” I said. “Especially if he’s gone for ten days.” He might not want to overdo the security, but he didn’t want just anyone wandering in there either. “I guess there couldbe—”
“For fuck’s sake,” Damon broke in, rolling his eyes. “You guys are hopeless.Ican pick a lock. Does that solveeverything?”
We all stared at him. Another smile tugged at my lips, but I didn’t give in to it in case looking too eager would scare him off. “It does if you’re going to come with us,” Isaid.
Damon sighed. He bowed his head, the jagged line of his dark brown hair falling to shadow his eyes. “I guess I’m in, then,” he muttered. But he looked up at me through that shadow right after, as if he wanted my smile afterall.
Chapter Thirteen
Seth
Well, that’s the whole house,” my brother said, sounding frustrated. “I can’t think of anything we didn’t check.” He stood in the center of James Cortland’s dining room, hands on his hips, light brown hair askew from bending to peer behind cabinets and under side tables. Right now he was glowering at the antique maple buffet as if he could force it to give up some secret through sheer force ofwill.
Given the strength of Kyler’s will when he put his mind to something, maybe he wasn’t totally wrong totry.
Jin replaced the painting he’d glanced behind with a careful thump against the wall. “There’s still the grounds,” he pointed out. The old Victorian house had a yard about as big as one of the town blocks. Nothing on the same scope as Rose’s estate, but a sizeableproperty.
“I don’t think we should go wandering around out there,” I said. “People drive by here going to and from town all the time. There’s too much chance we’d beseen.”
“And what the hell are the chances this geezer buried his evidence in the garden or something?” Damon said, his lips curling disdainfully as he took one last look around the room. “He’d probably be too afraid of getting dirt under hisfingernails.”
The house was incredibly well kept. I’d seen a pretty wide range of homes during the renovation projects I’d worked on with my dad, but I couldn’t remember any other building I’d been in with the furniture so orderly, not a speck of dust anywhere, not even a spot of mildew in the bathroom. Even though the place had been shut up tight, the air wasn’t stuffy, just dry and faintly bready-smelling.
Rose’s hand had come to rest on the top of the maple table, which was just as solid and polished as the buffet. Her expression was distant. She was trying to think of something we might have missed, I guessed. She’d been counting on us findingsomethinghere. Something that could either reassure her or confirm her stepmother’sintentions.
My only memory of Rose’s stepmom was the day she’d barged in on our little gathering in the woods, years and years ago. The flash in the woman’s eyes that had looked almost electric. The sharp clamp of the air around my body when I’d tried to reach for Rose. I hadn’t been able to move, not a finger, not my mouth to shout, until after the woman had already dragged Roseaway.
My stomach clenched. We hadn’t been able to do anything for Rose back then. We had to come throughnow.
“I guess we’re done then,” Rose said finally. “It makes sense, if he’s involved in anything shady, that he might not keep any evidence even in private.” But her brow was still knit. She’d expected more than this. “The longer we’re here, the more chance we’ll get caught. We’d better getgoing.”
We slunk through the shadowed rooms to the back door. Damon had, true to his word, disengaged the lock on it with just a couple of metal rods. At the time Jin had made a joking comment about new skills he’d developed, and Damon had retorted with a glare and a mutter about howsomepeople had to make the best of bad options, and no one had said anything more about it afterthat.
Now Damon strode out first, hardly pausing to check that the road outside was clear. Jin squeezed Rose’s shoulder and said in a jaunty tone, “More mysteries still to uncover. But they don’t stand a chance with the bunch of us on the case, dothey?”
I couldn’t help noticing the flush that had crept into Rose’s cheeks at histouch.
My brother gave both her and me a playful salute. “I’ll keep at it on the data side of things. See yousoon.”
They slipped out. Rose brushed her hand through her hair as we waited for them to disappear down the road. We’d figured it was less noticeable if we didn’t all cross the yard in a pack. But now I had no one to distract me fromher.
She tested the lock to make sure it would engage when we shut the door behind us. “He’ll come in the front anyway,” she said, as if to herself as much as me. “We left everything else the way it was. Even if the lock doesn’t quite catch, he’ll probably just figure he didn’t set it properly before heleft.”
“It looks to me like the door will lock just fine,” I said. After all the buildings I’d worked on in the last five years, I should at least be able to comment on that factor withcertainty.
Rose glanced up at me. The sun was getting low outside, and in the dimming light her dark green eyes looked almost as black as her hair. A soft, liquid black that I could almost see the worries behind. God, this close to her I could smell her too, a delicate freshness that made me think of springlilacs.
Before I knew it, the words were tumbling out. “You go on ahead. I want to stay and do one last sweep of the place. I’ll make sure it’s locked up when Ileave.”
Rose blinked, startled. “Are yousure?”
“Yeah. I’ll feel better knowing we covered everythingtwice.”
