Teddy snorted. “No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t, but life would be much, much easier if I did. I’ll have to take lessons from Eerie. I can’t believe he sucked up all the dismay at humanity in the womb.”
“As if you’d take any even if he hadn’t.” Teddy walked up to the door and pulled a key out of his pocket. “Let’s just hope they didn’t change the locks.”
“You have a key?” Saint’s mouth formed an O. “When did you get a key?”
“Last time we were here.” Teddy inserted it into the lock and turned it, smiling at the satisfying click it made.
“Who gave you a key?” Saint asked, clearly unwilling to let it go.
“Jenelle from reception,” he said, walking inside and praying there was enough natural light coming through those new windows to allow them to dig and look for information they needed. Turning the lights on would give them away, and they couldn’t exactly afford that.
“What did you do?” Saint walked in after him. “That woman is a harpy. Did you wink at her? I bet you winked at her.”
Teddy turned around to look at him, quirking a brow before winking.
“I KNEW IT!”
“Shhhhh!” Teddy clamped a hand over Saint’s mouth and pulled him away from the door before closing it behind them. “How can you be so awful at this after so many years?”
Saint mumbled under his palm, flapping his gangly arms around, Trace’s sweater adding to the visual of a deranged moth.
“I’ll let go if you stop yelling,” Teddy said, perfectly capable of deciphering the muffled words.
Saint gave him a thumbs-up mid-flail, and Teddy released him, looking around the room while he caught his footing.
Luckily for them, the changes the owner had made since the last time were only on the outside of the building. Cosmetics and pretense, mostly. She knew she couldn’t stop people from talking, so a remodel was a better story than an active case.
Unluckily for them, the room was still just one gigantic, open space, with very little furniture and literally not a single corner they hadn’t already looked into.
It was supposed to be a ballroom of some sort, as far as Teddy understood, so other than a small stage with some instrumentstorn to shreds and some tall, round tables guests could put their champagne glasses on, there was nothing else in there.
“We already looked at all of this.” Saint ducked under one of the tables and glanced at the underside, as if some evidence would materialize.
“I know, but I keep thinking we’re missing something. We have so many disjointed clues and we need something to…” Teddy mimicked gluing things together by putting his palms against each other and squeezing.
“Yeah.” Saint stood upright again. “I just don’t think the glue is here.”
“Let’s just do one more sweep. As it stands, this will probably be rehauled within days, so if we miss anything it’ll be gone for good.”
“Way to take the pressure off, man,” Saint said, but he still walked over to the door and stood to the left. “I’ll take this side.”
Teddy walked over and stood to the right.
“Meet you in the middle,” he said, and turned his back to Saint, following the wall in a circular direction around the room.
It felt like he knew the room by heart at this point. There’d be a shoe just under that chair. Check. There’d be a wallet behind the curtain on that window. Check. There’d be a torn button right against that… Wait.
Teddy poked at the button with the tip of his shoe and caught the edge of it, making it flip over. It caught the light and Teddy frowned at the face of it.
He crouched, pulling a glove out of his jacket pocket and putting it on before picking up the button.
“Saint!” he called, standing up and walking toward him.
“You got something?” Saint’s voice was flat and void of hope after scouring the room five times before with zero success.
“Maybe,” Teddy said and that snapped Saint into action. He bounced over and leaned over Teddy’s outstretched palm.
