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Mathi’s driver pulled to a halt on the opposite side of the street and, after telling him to wait in the car, Mathi climbed out. I hastily followed suit, tugging up my coat’s hood as I ran across the road after him.
“So we’re just going to walk up, bold as brass?” I said.
“Skulking around in posh neighborhoods is never advisable, as it tends to be noticed. Far better to act as if you belong.”
“And you do.”
He glanced at me, eyebrow raised. “I do not have a house here. You know this.”
“Yes, but you are posh. More so than me, anyway.”
“Ah. True.”
I nudged him. He laughed and pressed the doorbell. The chime echoed for ages but drew no response. He stepped back and motioned me forward. I pressed my fingers against the doorframe and lightly connected to the building’s fabric. The song was surprisingly faint, and it took more effort to slip deeper into the stream and catch the information about the building’s fabric. I couldn’t hear anything unusual in the echoes coming from the two floors above us, but the ground floor and the basement—if there was one, and most buildings this age did have them—were basically dead zones. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but usually when the music was so faint, there were two main causes—ill care, or renovations that involved the original flooring being ripped up and replaced, thereby breaking the connections within the building’s fabric.
“There’s no one moving about on the top two floors,” I said. “But I’m not getting anything useful on this level.”
He motioned me to step back, then retrieved his lock pick from his wallet and went to work. He had the door open in quick time—one of the skills he’d learned while hanging around the various crims being processed at the IIT in his youth, apparently.
He ushered me in and then closed and locked the door behind us. The entrance hall was a good size, with high ceilings, dark slate floors, and light gray walls. A large abstract painting adorned the far wall above the stairwell that wound down, and there were two doors, one to the left of the stairs and the other up a couple of steps to our right.
I walked over and pressed a hand to the frame, but the wood’s song remained muted.
“Still nothing,” I said. “But if anyone was here, surely they would have come to investigate.”
“Your knives? Any response from them?”
“None at all.” Which was odd if this place did belong to Aram. Given his business dealings weren’t exactly aboveboard, surely the first thing he’d have done was protected the place he lived.
“Let’s go check the basement first, and we’ll work our way up from there.”
I nodded and followed him over to the stairs, placing one hand on the banister as I walked down. The wood wasn’t particularly old, and its music was strong but forlorn, thanks to the fact it had no real connection to the wood in the rest of the house.
We headed down into the darkness, the gentle hum of a refrigerator audible over our footsteps—mine rather than his. Elves tended to walk so lightly that even on gravel surfaces they made little to no sound. As we neared the last step, I dug out my phone and switched on the flashlight, sweeping it across the shadows. The room was long but not very wide. There was a washer and dryer along the wall to our right and, down the far end, a fridge and a couple of chest freezers. Cupboards and shelves lined the remaining wall.
“Nothing here,” Mathi said.
“Nothing obvious here,” I corrected. “But that freezer is overly large for a man who lived alone.”
He glanced at me, amusement evident in his bright eyes. “Have you been watching too many horror movies again?”
I grinned. “Bodies are always found in freezers like that. You know this.”
“Not in this neighborhood.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Those living in posh neighborhoods probably have more skeletons in the closet than the rest of us. You’re a prime example.”
“There’re no skeletons in my closet. Might be a few buried under other properties though.”
Part of me suspected he wasn’t kidding, despite the twinkle in his eyes. “A gentleman would do the right thing and just check.”
“You’re going to harp on this until I do it, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Why? Is intuition kicking in?”
“No. I just want to be sure something doesn’t crawl out of it and chase us up the stairs.”
