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“This is a lot more people than I expected,” I told Gunner under my breath.
“I have no idea the capabilities of the Dark Hand Syndicate, since, like I said, not really something I’ve had to deal with before. I figured overkill was better than leaving vulnerabilities.”
I shivered. “The way you talk about this Syndicate sometimes reminds me of, like, the cartel, or something. It freaks me out.”
My hand bumped his, and without missing a step, he took it and squeezed reassuringly. “I won’t lie and say I understand the depth of firepower that Dark Hand actually has, because I don’t, but I know that my team isn’t anything to fuck with either.” He huffed in amusement. “Maybe, after this is all over, I’ll start my own smuggling ring or something. Certainly it’s more interesting than my normal day to day operations.”
“Must be why everyone is so chipper this morning,” I commented, not taking my hand from his. He lowered his head closer to mine and talked in a low tone, as if telling me a secret.
“Actually, it’s because I’m paying them double time for playing mercenaries.”
I giggled, astonished that he could make me feel so lighthearted even in these dire times. I really shouldn’t have forced myself to go through the last half a year alone; splitting the difficulties certainly makes them easier to bear. Not that any of my porn star friends would have been any help in a fire fight, unless the Dark Hand thugs were frightened by long nails and glow in the dark dildos.
The office had been organized, as much as it could be by a group that had no idea where things were supposed to be placed, but since I hadn’t ever seen the room put together before Trevor’s mental breakdown, I supposed no one would ever really know. At least there were no more piles of documents on the floor and books flung about. Everything was meticulously labeled, colorful tabs sticking out of some of the large tomes marking certain passages.
At Trevor’s old desk was a man, probably in his early twenties. He had shaggy hair and a smattering of freckles that made him look younger, but the sharp intelligence I saw behind his glasses made up for it. He had a thin, wide laptop open next to Trevor’s older model, wires running between the two of them.
“Kevin.” Gunner left my side and met the other man at the desk. They shook hands as I felt strangely bereft with mine now empty. “Have you found anything else?”
“Nothing that helps us, but this guy was definitely in a dark place. He has a lot of forum posts and emails exchanged with experts trying to get more information about the artifact, but he was always too vague with them to get any real help. It seemed like he was desperate for assistance but at the same time too afraid of being caught to actually accept it.”
“Poor fucker,” Gunner mumbled as he walked behind the desk to see what Kevin was working on. After just a minute or two of browsing, he sighed defeatedly. “You’re not wrong. None of this gets us any closer to finding the thing. Let’s get this safe open, then.”
“It’s a two-lock system, so while we have the code for the inner lock, the outer one is going to take me a few minutes to get open.”
“No problem. Just don’t open the inner portion, I need to do that myself.”
“Roger that, boss,” Kevin responded. I watched in fascination as he rose from his chair and walked over to one of the large paintings Trevor had hung in the office, removing it and sitting it to the side.
The wall behind it looked unremarkable to me, but the computer guru pressed two of his fingers against the nail that had been holding the picture, and, to my amazement, it depressed like a button. A square portion of the wall, three feet by three feet, separated and swung upward on a pneumatic hinge. I could barely believe it; the wall had looked completely solid just seconds ago!
“Wow,” I breathed. “Could he have more hidden in the house?”
“We don’t think so. We’ve scanned the walls with a metal detector to see if there are any other secrets lurking, but as far as I can tell, this is the only one.” Kevin shrugged. “Sorry.”
He set to work getting the outer portion of the shining steel safe open, and I meandered around the office to find something to do. A lot of Trevor’s documents had been put into marked cardboard boxes, and none of them really caught my eye until I spotted the one simply labeled “Rachel Starr”.
I stopped breathing as I picked the box up, carrying it to one of the unoccupied long tables against the wall, and pulled up a chair. Exhaling through my nose slowly, I began to flip through the small pile of papers.
There were no sweet notes or confessions of regret; just longer versions of all the unsettling things I had found in his desk. There were my school transcripts, IRS statements, and everything in between. What was most helpful, at least for my future endeavors, was a list of all the assets that had been transferred to me. Looking closer at a few of them, I frowned, pulling the paper closer and rereading it.
Trevor had transferred the accounts to me months before he died, faking my identity to get it all completed. Which meant he didn’t leave the accounts to me in his will. I was told the transfers happened immediately following his demise. In reality, this had been done long before he was positive that death was nipping at his heels.
It didn’t change much. Logically, I knew this was a possibility, but it showed more than ever how I was nothing but a pawn for Trevor from the beginning. He never loved me. Any softer emotions he ever had towards me near the end of his life were just an unfortunate coincidence, not on purpose.
Gunner, who was standing with Kevin and talking quietly, must have noticed my distraught look because he was suddenly at my side. “Hey, you don’t have to go through all this stuff. If there was anything we needed to see it would have been set aside and marked.”
When I didn’t answer, just pressed my lips together trying not to cry, he gingerly took the paper from my hand, placed it back in the document box, and put the lid on the container with an air of finality. “Why don’t you come look through some of these books? I think some of them are basically stolen artifacts themselves, they're so old. It’s probably the only time we’d get to see them up close and not in a museum—”
“I’m in,” Kevin declared.
That got my attention. On the outside of the safe, the metal face swung aside, revealing a smaller, black, matte metal case. Gunner and I were both on our feet, with Gunner relieving Kevin of his position so he could open the final lock.
“Both of you stand back, in case there is some trap of failsafe in place,” he commanded.
“Don’t you think you should wear some protection, or maybe have someone else—”
“It’s pointless.” Kevin said under his breath. “Mr. Stone does what he wants, when he wants. I wouldn’t waste your breath.”
