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The last folder had a stack of real estate appraisals for different properties. There were different ones paperclipped together, so I spread them out and snapped pictures. I didn’t know what I was looking at exactly. There would be one property with five appraisals, four of them all around the same amount, but one of them over a million dollars higher. It didn’t look right, even to me, so I crossed my fingers and hoped it was good enough for Delove and Dobbs.
Just when I was about to close the drawer, something caught my eye. A little black jewelry box was tucked towards the back, and I pulled it out, opening the lid. My hand froze as I stared at the contents. Was that… was that hair? I squinted my eyes, realizing it most definitely was hair. A woman’s hair, most likely, braided and tied with rubber bands at both ends. There was also a silver necklace with an angel pendant next to it.
Ick. I didn’t think I wanted to know why he had this hidden away, and I really hoped I wasn’t going to open a closet or cabinet and find his dead grandmother’s skeleton in there. Chills ran through me at the thought.
I put everything back exactly how I had found it and shut the desk drawer. My heart slowed down when I heard the click, realizing that the drawer had locked itself again. I took one quick look around the office for the journal. When I didn’t see it, I reached over and turned off the light and opened the door, running right into Ryzen.
“Nova?”
Oh, fuck my life.
“Did you put the pot roast in the oven?” He rubbed his forehead. “Don’t burn it again or Nana will be angry.”
“Um, what?”
“Riddick stole my Easter eggs. You’re going to punish him, right?”
My shoulders dropped and I sighed.He’s sleepwalking.
“Yes, Ryzen.” I turned him around and pushed him into his bedroom. “I’m gonna spank his ass real good.”
“OK, thanks, Nova.” Ryzen flopped down on the bed face first and went back to snoring.
*****
I wiped my forehead and chugged the glass of water. Another nightmare had me tossing and turning all night. But what had woken me was that damn app Thora had put on my phone. When she said it had some bugs, I didn’t realize she meant it would start blaring weird chants at five a.m., making me have a panic attack.
Ryzen was sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes when I got back to the bedroom.
“Hey, sleepyhead. You passed out on me.” I handed him a glass of water and reached for my purse.
“That’s never happened to me before,” he mumbled and stretched. “Must have been really tired.”
“Seems that way.” I turned my back to hide my smile. “I gotta get ready. Long day ahead of us.”
I left before he could ask any questions, giving Valik a salute on my way to the elevator. No doubt he would be right behind me soon enough.
After a hot shower and a change of clothes, I called Juliet and told her we would pick her up in twenty minutes. Today was our first official day back at the office. We had a lot of catching up to do, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Owen was going to meet us there in the afternoon to help out.
Valik picked up Juliet and we cruised down the freeway to the South Side of Chicago towards our temporary office space. When the Backstreet Boys came on the radio, Valik started humming along, and Juliet and I glanced at each other, trying to hold in our laughter. I guessed he wasn’t so bad for a bodyguard. By the time we got to the office, we were having a full-blown concert in the backseat, with Valik holding up a pretend microphone for us to sing into.
“OK, big guy. You don’t need to stick around here. I’ll call you when we’re ready to go home.” I held onto his hand as I jumped out of the back seat.
“But Mr. Goodacre…”
I shook my head. “Are you really going to sit out here all day? Just go, take care of errands. It’s almost that time of the month, you know. Do you want to go buy me some tampons?”
He flushed and cleared his throat. “If you need them, then yes, ma’am.”
I sighed and threw my purse over my shoulder. “You’re not going to listen to reason, I can see that.” Juliet tugged my hand and we headed inside our office.
Yes, I mostly wanted him gone because I didn’t want him snooping around when Delove and Dobbs showed up later. But at the same time, how boring must it be sitting around babysitting a twentysomething who designed dildos for a living? I just hoped that D&D would sneak in upstairs without being seen.
The office smelled like old dirty clothes and I was pretty sure I had seen a rat run into a closet after lunch. I put our cell phones in the small refrigerator in the makeshift kitchen, something I had seen on one of the documentaries about serial killers. Supposedly it would block any signal and if someone was spying on you through your phone, they wouldn’t be able to hear. I caught her up on everything that had been going on with Ryzen, her jaw falling to the floor when I told her about the sleeping pills.
“Nova, that was really risky.” She bit on her fingernails and I smacked at her hand.
“It’s under control, Jules.”
