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There she was, in jeans and a lacy black bra.
There she was, back turned to the windows, no bra, a sexy red lace thong putting her round ass on perfect display.
There she was, towel wrapped around her, brushing her hair. Then again a moment later, sans towel.
My hands reached out, clawing at the pictures, dragging them down, feeling like I was invading her privacy just to be in the same room with them. Folding them in on themselves, I threw them in the trash bin beside the bed, empty but for two candy bar wrappers.
“Jacob Hill,” Smith said, coming in as I gathered the trash bag, tying the top, not wanting any of the other guys getting an eyeful of what I had already seen. “Forty-seven. Never married. Used to be a welder, but is on permanent disability after falling and busting his back.”
Smith, among many other things, was fast at data collecting. While I was taken aback by all the pictures, he was already rifling through drawers.
“Started renting this place nine months ago. That’s, what, a month or so before Aven said she started seeing the guy?”
“Yeah, about,” I agreed, opening the nightstand drawers, pulling out an address book, cell, and notebook.
All three would be coming with me.
This place didn’t need to be cleaned the way Aven’s did. It just needed to be stripped of every last shred of evidence that led back to Aven.
“Got a card here in the wallet for a shrink. Wonder how long he’s been fucked in the head.” Smith mused, mostly to himself. “Next of kin is listed as a sister. Got a hundred that says that’s the crazy chick with the chunk taken out of her leg.”
That made sense.
Who else would overlook a house full of pictures of a woman who didn’t know she was being photographed?
A girlfriend certainly never would tolerate that.
“Alright. I’m gonna start cleaning this shit up,” I said, grabbing an empty laundry basket from the closet, and starting to pile anything that needed to go – the pictures, journals, phone, film, cameras – in.
Really, it only took about an hour to have combed through every last inch of the house, crawl space and attic included. Smith collected information on the man himself, things that would hopefully lead back to his sister. I went through his car, finding pictures of Aven taped under the visor and another camera in the glove box.
Then, finally, we were on our way back to the office.
“You work the sister angle. I’ll have Lincoln deal with destroying all this shit. When are you planning to head out to deal with the Russians?”
“A week,” Smith said, shrugging. “That was the soonest they could be bothered to have a meeting.”
“Probably too busy having meetings with hitmen,” I mused as we walked up into the office. “At least it gives us time to figure out what is going on with the sister before you head out. Jules,” I said, nodding my head at her as we walked in.
“I brought them up some coffee. Even the asshole,” she added, meaning Gunner. “And I picked up some essentials for Aven as well. She didn’t have time to pack a bag. I figured we can’t have her wearing Fenway’s clothes for more than a night.”
I felt my lip curl at the idea of her in his clothes at all.
“I am going to go up and talk to her about what we found. Her headache gone?”
Jules’s brow rose at that, knowing that a hatchet through the skull wouldn’t normally deter me from filling in a client when I had something to tell them.
“Yeah, she said she just needed some Advil this morning to take the edge off. Here,” she added, handing me a coffee.
“You need a raise,” I told her, moving down the hall.
“Pretty soon, I’ll be making more than you,” she shot back, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“And you’d deserve every last penny,” I agreed, opening the door to the staircase.
I was halfway up when I heard her laugh.
It was enough to stop me in my tracks, hand on the railing, listening to the rolling, happy sound – something I hadn’t heard from her before, and something I knew I was going to steal from her when I went up there.
A part of me wanted to turn back around, go back to my office to deal with work, go back up later.
The other part, well, knew that she was likely laughing with Fenway. And that was enough to have me charging up the stairs, stabbing the code into the door a little too hard, making me have to do it twice, a show of carelessness no one would ever accuse me of.
I walked in to Fenway sitting on one end of the couch, arm across the back, casual as could be in gray slacks and a white button-up, he being the sort who never dressed down except to swim or golf.
