Dev and Colin remained out front to keep watch, and she hurried up the walkway with Micha. At the front door, he handed her a pair of shoe coverings. “To keep from tracking mud through his house.”
She put them on and he slipped on a pair too then took out his lock-picking tools and got them inside. She still was impressed that he could so quickly get through the locks, but it would make her feel less safe in her own home in the future. If she ever got back to her home. Home alone. Without Micha.
Not having him around all the time? That wouldn’t make any woman feel safer.
Seriously, why was she even thinking that way?
They stepped inside, and a minty smell like from a muscle cream or ointment filled the air.
“Wonder if Layne injured himself.” Micha moved through a small foyer with outdated orange and black floor tile to a small living room painted a drab olive green that clashed with the entry tile.
“He always smelled like ointment when he came to visit Holly.” Ava took in the space that held only a large recliner with a small table next to it, a big-screen TV, and large sound system on a fireplace wall.
“What was their relationship like?” Micha handed gloves to her, then put on a pair and opened the drawer in the table.
She slid her fingers into a glove. “Not real close, so it surprised me that he even cared enough to look into her death.”
Micha thumbed through the drawer. “By ‘not real close’ do you mean nearly estranged or drifting apart that can happen in families?”
“Holly never mentioned a rift between them, if that’s what you’re thinking. She didn’t talk about him a lot except when she was reminiscing about when he was a kid.” Visions of Holly in the last days Ava had spent with her came back, and she worked hard not to cry. “I’ve found that people in the end stages of their lives often want to reflect on happy times and forget about the regrets if there’s no way to fix them. Some are troubled by the past in any form. Some find peace. It’s all a way of letting go.”
“But she didn’t seem to be troubled?”
“No.” She met his gaze. “Why all the questions about their relationship all of a sudden?”
“I was just thinking. What if Layne killed his mother, and the reason he’s working so hard to have you confess is so he gets away with it?”
“Layne? Kill Holly?” Ava let the thought settle in. “It never crossed my mind.”
Micha closed the drawer and started toward the kitchen. “But now that I mentioned it, could you see him ending her life?”
“I don’t think so.” She recalled the times she’d seen him with Holly. “No. No. I doubt it.”
“We can’t rule him out, though.” He opened and closed a vintage white-metal cabinet in the kitchen with a checkerboard tile countertop and floor. He looked back at her. “If he’s capable of coming after you with threats to kill you, he might be capable of killing Holly, too.”
She pulled open the nearest drawer only to find silverware. “I would agree, except that I’m a complete stranger to him, and she was his mother. Blood ties and all of that.”
Micha moved to the next cupboard. “You’d think that would hold a lot of weight, and it does for people who have a normal perspective on life, but not for some people.”
Was Layne guilty of murdering his mother, and Ava just hadn’t considered it? “He didn’t strike me as unbalanced or losing control of his emotions. Just the opposite. He gave Holly an outstanding funeral with a very pricey coffin and loads of flowers. Would a son who killed his mother do that?”
Micha closed the door. “If he wanted to cover up his involvement, he might.”
She pushed the drawer in and stared at him. “I can’t get used to thinking the way you do. Always looking for a person’s ulterior motives.”
“Trust me.” He stilled. “I wish I didn’t. Since I left full-time investigations, I’m much better at not considering it on a day-to-day basis, but put me in the middle of a situation like this, and that mindset is often what gets the job done.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I just can’t imagine it.”
“Most people can’t. Except law enforcement officers. They get it all too well.” He finished the last cabinet and then moved on down the hallway.
She followed, and they entered a small bedroom set up as an office. A worn rolltop desk was perched under the window with a stained white blind, and bookshelves filled the nearby wall. Computer programming and other IT books were crammed in to overflowing. The wall next to the closet held photos in cheap plastic frames.
She stepped over to them, moving from top to bottom. Not a single picture of Holly or them together, but he did have the LARPing picture Colin had found online. She pointed at it. “Seems like he really was into the LARPing group. Maybe we should follow up with Phoenix to get more info on them.”
“We will if Colin’s search gives us a reason to.” He looked down at the file drawer in front of him and withdrew a folder. “Check this out.”
He went to the desk and laid it open. She joined him to see the folder was labeled DNA. It held a DNA report for Layne, along with details on his account with one of the big online ancestry sites.
