“This isn’t your car,” I said as he pressed the key fob and the doors unlocked with a chirp.
“It’s Charlie’s,” he said. “It’s a little more comfortable than my Impala.” A wave of déjà vu washed over me as Nick held open the passenger door for me. I wasn’t feeling particularly comfortable as I settled into the passenger seat, and I fidgeted as Nick got in and started the car. He angled the vents toward me and turned my seat heater on, but the air was already feeling a little too warm.
“Where’s Agent Stokes? Isn’t he coming with us?”
“He’s meeting us at Grindley’s house.” He reached over the center console for my hand, periodically glancing at his mirrors as we drove the short distance to Pleasantville. He checked his rearview as we exited the expressway. Then again as we pulled into a run-down neighborhoodof dated split-levels and 1960s Ramblers. He parked in front of a rusty chain-link fence surrounding a drab, gray single-story box with a ramshackle, shed-style garage tucked around the back. The chipped concrete walkway out front was overgrown with weeds, stopping just short of a spindly front porch. It reminded me a little of Cameron’s grandmother’s house.
A sleek, black SUV with tinted windows pulled in behind us and flashed its lights. “That’s Garrett,” Nick said, ducking low to study the yards on either side of us. A group of ragtag adolescent boys were gathered on a nearby corner, checking us out. “I was going to let you stay in the car, but the neighborhood’s a little sketchy, and this car sticks out like a sore thumb. Come on,” Nick said, slipping his badge into his jacket and opening his door. “I’m sure Mrs. Grindley won’t mind if you wait inside her house.”
My mouth went dry as Nick rounded the car and opened my door for me. Garrett waited beside the fence gate in crisp blue jeans and a navy peacoat. He might have ditched his FBI-emblazoned windbreaker, but he still looked like he’d stepped off the set of a TV police drama, and between the three of us, we were attracting some attention. A Rottweiler shot through the flap of a dog door on the side of the garage and charged the fence, snapping at us through the mesh. A curtain peeled back in the front window of the house. A casement cranked open, and the woman inside let out an ear-piercing whistle. The dog went silent and retreated to the backyard.
The woman appeared in the door and held it open with her knee. A cloud of strawberry-vanilla vape smoke spooled from the house, carried to us on the frosty wind. “Come on. She won’t bite,” the woman called out.
Garrett was cautious as he opened the latch on the gate, testing it a few inches before holding it open for me and Nick. Nick led the way up the sidewalk, one eye on the side of the house where the dog had disappeared and a hand pressed firmly against the small of my back. Garrett climbed the weatherworn steps to the porch and presented his ID to the woman. I risked a long look at her as she studied it. Her hair fell overher shoulders, brittle and brassy. Deep smoker’s wrinkles around her mouth and on her hands made it hard to tell her age, but she was dated by the shape of her nails and the severe cut of her thick, rounded bangs. I guessed she was somewhere in her late forties.
“Trina Grindley? I’m Agent Garrett Stokes. We spoke on the phone. This is Detective Nicholas Anthony with the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia. He’s one of the local investigators assisting us with your husband’s case. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us.” Her eyes flicked to me as she took a drag off her vape. She glanced down at Garrett’s ID, then at Nick’s. Her gaze traveled back to mine and lingered, as if she were trying to place something about me.
“This is Ms. Donovan,” Nick said as he returned his ID to his jacket. “She’s riding along with me today. Would you mind if she waits inside while we talk? It’s a little cold in the car.”
Mrs. Grindley blew out a long, strawberry-vanilla exhale before opening the door the rest of the way and leading us inside. There wasn’t far to go. The door opened into a disheveled living room boasting a disproportionately large flat-screen television on one wall and a glass trophy cabinet on the other. A threadbare sofa sagged in the space between them.
Garrett nudged aside a distractingly large chew toy, clearing a place for us to stand in the cramped space. The room smelled close and hot, like fruit smoke and dog food. The radiators clicked as the heat kicked on in the wake of the draft from outside.
Nick closed the door behind us as he took in Mrs. Grindley’s home.
“Your lady friend can wait here,” Trina said, gesturing to the couch. “I’ve got sodas in the kitchen if you want to talk in there.”
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” Nick whispered in my ear as she led Garrett a few feet away to the kitchen. I looked around me for a clean place to sit, moving a stack of magazines and a handful of dog toys off the couch and swatting away the dog hair before gingerly taking a seat. Nick and Garrett pulled out two rickety chairs from her kitchen table and sat down.
I stiffened at a soft snuffling sound beside me as Trina opened her fridge. I turned to see the woman’s Rottweiler creeping toward the couch, her nostrils wiggling. I froze as the dog gave my sneakers a curious sniff. She moved closer, the stub of her tail wagging faster.Oh, god. My shoes probably smelled like Marco’s suite. Did this Rottweiler have a thing for tiny wiener dogs?
Her nose climbed my pant leg and I nudged her away. She pressed her snout against the top of my jeans. I crossed my legs and folded my arms over my crotch to deter her, but she only became more intent. “Go away,” I whispered as she started to whine. I angled my body away from her, but she wasn’t trying to get a whiff of my groin. I was pretty sure she was trying to cram her nose inside my pocket.
I pressed a hand to the denim, my fingers going still over the tiny bulge inside it.
Oh, no!
Ike’s tooth.
I smiled wanly at Trina when she emerged from the fridge and glanced over at us. She tipped her head, watching me wriggle on the couch as her dog put her two massive paws on my lap, her stubby tail wagging faster as she attempted to burrow under my jacket.
“That’s weird,” Trina said. “She don’t like most people. Aside from Ike, that is. She adores him.” She held up a Coke can. I politely demurred. Or at least, as politely as one can with one hundred and fifty pounds of canine in your lap and a face full of slobber.
As soon as Trina turned away, I retrieved Ike’s tooth from my pocket and tucked it inside my shoe. The dog sat back and sank to the carpet. Her chin rested on her paws at my feet, her ears perked and her face mopey as she stared wistfully at my sneakers.
Trina set the two sodas on the table and sat down across from Nick. She leaned back in her chair, eyeing the men warily as she took a leisurely drag off her vape. “Have they found him yet?”
“Not yet,” Garrett said. “The investigators assigned to the case have a few leads, but Culpeper County PD is still treating this as a missing persons investigation.”
“Then what are you two doing here?” She tipped her head at Nick. “He’s Fairfax and you’re FBI. You just said the case is being investigated by another county—”
“The county where your husband’s car was found. Yes, ma’am,” Garrett clarified.
“None of that explains what you two are doing in my house,” she said sharply.
Garrett folded his hands on the table. “We’re here because of those leads I mentioned. Detective Anthony and I are part of a joint task force investigating organized crime.” Trina’s posture tightened a fraction, but I was sure Nick noticed the shift. “We have reason to believe that the people who set your husband’s car on fire have ties to the mob, and it would be helpful if you could tell us a little more about what kind of business your husband may have been conducting in Virginia.”
She crossed her arms, pushing her chair back a few inches from the table with her foot. “I don’t know nothing about none of that. I already told the police, Ike’s boss is a private investor. Ike handles collections for him when people don’t pay back their loans. Marco sent Ike to Virginia for a job, and that’s all Ike told me.”
