AT THREE A.M. ON a Friday morning, the downtown streets were as close to deserted as they ever got. With the window open, I could hear the sound of my pickup’s engine echoing off the glass monoliths, like the city was humming along to the tune. I drove the truck for a few blocks before pulling over about halfway between the Aerie Club and the Morgen. White shoes to blue collar, in under a mile.
I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone else yet. Not even Luce. Instead I sat in the truck, and watched the stoplights cycle through their slow patterns. It had been a long day followed by a longer night. My head was reeling with everything that had happened.
I didn’t trust Arthur Ostrander, Esq., farther than I could spit. But he had been right about one thing. I had incentive to find the explosives, and whoever took them. A hell of a lot. Stack up all the motivation and carve it into the rough form of my family home. Then put Luce’s life, and Leo’s and my own, as the mountains behind it.
Maurice Haymes could stick his money up his ass and set fire to it. None of us were safe until I found out who wanted me in tiny pieces. The person who had almost killed Luce. That was all that mattered.
Retrieving the explosives meant a lot to Maurice Haymes, too. Maybe his whole future. Ostrander had just proved to me that they were willing to pay a few thousand percent more than market value to get those cases back. Maybe Kend had figured out his dad’s weak spot and had stolen the Tovex with the idea of ransoming it, to buy his way out of trouble with Broch. But Kend was killed before he could cut a deal with dear old Dad. Whoever had murdered Kend and Trudy had driven the Tovex away in the dually truck.
So who had helped Kend steal it? And who had it now?
Elana was the obvious first choice. She had a criminal record. She’d been at the cabin. She was even strong enough to load fifty-pound cases into the Volvo, if she had to.
But there was another individual I liked a lot better, for that kind of heavy lifting.
Barrett Yorke picked up on the third ring.
“You’re awake,” I said.
“Have you heard? About Trudy?” Her voice was thick.
I guessed what was coming, but had to play dumb. “Did she call you?”
“Trudy’s dead.”
“Dead.”
“A relative had been trying to reach her, and they filed a missing persons report, and they found out it was her at the cabin all along. And nobody knows where Elana is. God.”
The police would already be looking for Elana Coll. Once they compared the timings of Trudy’s online posts against the times of death, that search would become very serious.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Poor Tru.” Barrett began crying, the quiet, smooth sobs of someone who has been crying for hours and is near exhaustion. Awake only because the grief wouldn’t let her rest. “She was a really good person, you know?”
“She seemed like it. I liked her paintings.”
Barrett wept through another two stoplight rounds. “You called me,” she prompted, when the wave had passed.
“I did. I need to talk to your brother.”
“God, get in line. What’s going on?”
I sat up. “Somebody else has been asking about Parson?”
“Asking isn’t the right word. That implies some kind of manners.”
“Who?”
“Some jerk who said he was investigating Kend’s death. He called last night and wanted to know if Parson was home, or where he was.”
Investigating Kend, the guy had said. Implying he was a cop, without actually claiming to be. “Was his name Rusk?”
“He wouldn’t say. He sounded all official, but he was a creep. Tell me this and tell me that. I figured he was a reporter. I told him where he could go, all right. He got so mad I thought he might just crawl through the phone.”
“You were right not to talk to him. Where’s Parson?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I called Parson to tell him about the creep, and he just freaked. I explained that I didn’t say anything, and so what? But he hung up. He hasn’t been home all night.”
Dammit. Rusk had Kend’s computer. He was probably working his way through Kend’s close friends, looking for anyone with enough heft to be Kend’s accomplice. Maybe Barrett had diverted him to the next name on the list. Or maybe Rusk’s cop instincts had told him he was on the right trail.
But the HDC security chief’s questions had sent Parson running for cover. Which confirmed what I had only started suspecting about the big kid.
“Barrett,” I said. “Is Parson—I don’t know another way to put this—normal?”
She tsked. “Parson’s fine. Everyone thinks that he’s dumb, because he doesn’t talk much and when he does, it’s not complicated. But really, he’s quite bright. He’s brilliant with electrical things and engines and stuff. He just—he feels really hard. Loves me and our parents and his friends hugely. It nearly destroyed him, when he learned Kend and Elana—Trudy now, I guess—when he learned they were dead. He doesn’t have a lot of defenses, you know?”
“Guileless.”
“Yes. That’s him. Van?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Parson in trouble?” Her voice was small.
“I don’t know, Barrett.”
“I was really ticked at you, you know? Not just because you turned me down. I’m not that delicate. But I knew you weren’t telling me everything, at Trudy’s.” She sighed knowingly, and it turned into a yawn. “You probably aren’t telling me everything now. Men with secrets. Why are guys like you the ones I go for? You and Kend.”
She had said it so quietly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Kend? Did you and he—?”
“Hmm? No, no. I just liked him a lot, is all. Nothing ever happened. Maybe if he and Elana . . .” She yawned again.
I was beginning to understand why all of the couple’s love notes had been stuffed into a drawer in Kend’s apartment. And maybe why the photo of Barrett and Trudy had been banished with them.
“If you hear from Parson, call me. I’ll help.”
“Sure.” She sounded like she was falling asleep even as she hung up.
Parson Yorke had more devotion than a pack of Saint Bernards. Especially to his best buddy, Kendrick. Parson might have committed grand larceny with Kend. He was fervent in his belief that Kend hadn’t killed Elana.
So do you think the rumors are true? Barrett had asked me on the rooftop bar. Parson had immediately answered for me. No. A flat statement. No, Kend hadn’t killed her. No, he wasn’t a murderer. Parson might have meant both of those.
Or maybe the huge lump had unconsciously been saying, No, Elana isn’t dead. Had he known?
I’d spooked Elana. She’d lost what little food and shelter she’d acquired by pretending to be Trudy. She might cut her losses and put a few thousand miles between herself and Seattle before ditching the Ford sedan.
But I didn’t think so. She had stayed hidden in Seattle, after the horrors at the cabin. If she was still as stubborn as the Elana I’d once known, she’d stay in Seattle now. She would need money, and a place to stay, and she’d be desperate enough to ask someone for help. I could guess that good old Parson would be more than willing.
Unless Parson was the one that Elana had been running from all along.
Just a big naïve kid. Brilliant with electronic things. Like security systems. And maybe like bombs.