Lachlan gave a pleased-with-himself snort, “You know what?” he said. “Now I think of it, it is kinda funny. According to the church records kept by a local priest that I was finally able to find, the Skin House was discovered when a local gang tried to break into the house and found ‘horrors that all prefer be forgotten’ and one ‘poor blind creachur’ that the good Father Jonas was called in to provide last rites to.”
“I didn’t ask for a bedtime story—”
“But the ‘creachur’ lived, and since the authorities couldn’t find the owner of the house, and since the rest of the nice wealthy people on that very expensive street wanted the whole thing to just… go away, they officially deeded it over to the ‘creachur.’ Father Jonas was involved and made very sure that the poor man in his care got what was due him… since he doubted the man would ever be able to do a trade or even labor for his keep.”
“And?”
“That’s why he kept a copy of the deed,” Lachlan said. “Signed by the ‘creachur’ himself, John Doe.”
Lachlan dissolved into snorting, inelegant laughter and hung up.
That gave Ledger a minute to sit and spiral. He doubled over to put his head between his knees, staring at the floor under his bare feet as every theory and idea he had fell apart like a matchstick house. It didn’t even matter that he—maybe, to use the word Wren had taken issue with—knewwhere the deed was. Even if Syder had it, and even if Ledger got it back, there was nothing useful on it to get any closer to Earl’s death.
It was still the letter of Bell’s deal, but, of course, Ledger had made his own promises.
He dropped the phone and clasped his hands around the back of his neck. Tears stung his eyes as he breathed raggedly. The mental box he’d been storing all that panic and dread in—that had been so easy to dismiss last night—strained at the seams as if it was about to explode.
It still wouldn’t do any good.
Ledger squeezed the back of his neck until the pinch of hard fingers helped him focus. It was what Bell used to do when he wanted the kids to behave, to think about how much worse it could be later. It pissed Ledger off that it worked, but itdidwork.
OK.
He breathed out slowly and made himself unfold. It kind of hurt doing that. His muscles felt like he’d been to the gym, not almost gone fetal on a dirty motel room floor. There were still some leads he could chase down, some hunches he could follow. The odds had gotten worse, but they hadn’t exactly been in his favor to start with.
Ledger got up off the bed.
Nothing had changed. Either he got up and tried to solve this puzzle, or he curled up in a ball and waited to die. The second option would have been more tempting if he’d stayed in a nicer hotel.
As it was… Ledger scrubbed his hands over his face and looked at the unsorted information on the bed… he should get to work.
CHAPTER18
THE NEXT MORNINGLedger stood in the lot of the motel and stared at his rental.
Someone had shattered a—not empty from the smell—whiskey bottle and used the jagged glass to carve “here” into the paintwork on the hood. Over and over. The bare metal was exposed in some places.
“Yeah, well, so am I,” he said aloud. “Not happy about it either.”
He wondered, briefly, who’d done it. But it was either someone he knew about, in which case he was already on the case, or it was someone new. In that case, he already had enough on his plate.
No more evil crazy monsters until he’d used up all the ones he had.
Ledger left the car there and went into the office. The clerk at the desk looked up as the door rattled, checked Ledger out, and then mutely pointed to the disclaimer on the wall.
“The motel doesn’t accept responsibility—”
“It’s not mine,” Ledger said. “I don’t care. The table in my room broke. Could you send someone to replace it?”
The clerk looked at the computer and stabbed a few keys on the keyboard. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I’ll add the charge for the table to your bill.”
Ledger snorted softly. He guessed Wren had been right about who’d be paying for it.
“Where are the newspaper offices these days?” he asked.
The clerk pointed at the stack of folded papers next to the bagels. “We have complimentary newspapers available with breakfast.”
“I know. I need to talk to someone, not read about them.”
