“Who was it?” Jake asked.
“A man I’d never seen before. Said he was Internal Affairs and that he was tidying up some loose ends on a couple of old cases.”
“Did he ask to see any of these files?”
“No.” Adele shook her head. “He wanted to speak with Wallace, but he was having one of his bad days and wasn’t making any sense. I could tell the young man was getting quite frustrated.”
“Was he alone in Pops’s room at any point?”
“Now that you mention it, yes, he was. I was about to show him out, but I had to take a phone call. It was the drug store about a problem with the dosage printed on Wallace’s meds, and it took me a while to straighten it out. When I came back into the room, the young man seemed a lot calmer. He thanked me for my help and left.”
“But he was left alone long enough to have looked around Wallace’s room?” Jake asked.
“Yes.” Adele frowned. “You think he searched through Wallace’s things?”
“I think it’s probably a fair assumption.” Jake sighed. “Do you remember his name?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I do remember that he looked a little strange.”
“Strange, how?”
“Well, like I said, he was young, probably in his mid-thirties. But his hair was pure white, and he had very pale blue eyes.”
Jake and Olivia exchanged a long look before Jake finally tucked all the files back into the box.
“Well, thank you for your time,” he said. “We really appreciate it.”
Olivia and Jake kept silent until they were both standing back on the sidewalk, the door shut behind them.
“Well, that little bastard does like to get around, doesn’t he?” Jake mused.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted. “But I don’t like the fact that you’re out at the lake house all by yourself. It’s too secluded. They’ve already found one body a stone’s throw from your house, and with Brody missing–”
“You don’t think they’ll find him alive, do you?”
Jake shook his head. “I hope to God I’m wrong, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’d like you to think about staying with either me, or Louisa. All of our places are more central to town and have better security.”
“I appreciate it, Jake, I really do.” She sighed as they began to walk back toward his car. “But the lake house is my home now, and I’m not leaving it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Olive,” Jake snapped. “You’ve got a murderer dumping bodies around that place. He’s taking victims who are connected to you, and now we have this unknown white-haired man stealing files, breaking your father out of the mental institution, and stalking you.”
“I don’t think I’m the murderer’s type.” Olivia shrugged. “He obviously has a thing for guys.”
“This is serious, Olivia. You could be in real danger.”
She stopped abruptly. “Look, Jake, I know you’re worried about me. But, after being on my own for the past twenty years I can take care of myself. My house may not have up-to-date security, but I have powerful protection wards around my property. What you saw me do the other night with the fire isn’t even a fraction of what I’m capable of. Trust me, nothing is getting over that line.”
He exhaled in frustration. “You’re not going to budge on this, are you?”
“Not right now.” She offered a conciliatory smile. “But how about this? If anything significantly changes, I’ll think about staying with Louisa for a few days, okay?”
Jake nodded, but she could see the trace of reluctance in his eyes.
After Jake dropped her home on his way back to the police station, Olivia made herself a sandwich and settled down to get some work done, but she couldn’t focus. Needing a distraction, she pulled out the notes she’d made at the museum about Theodore Beckett and his family.
She felt uneasy as she climbed up to the top of the shelf where she’d stored Hester’s trunk and pulled it down. She flicked through Theodore’s journal again and pulled out the sketches. This time, she looked more closely, finding herself once again drawn to the picture that looked alarmingly like her house. In fact, the more she looked at it, the more she recognized little details.
