I opened the bottom left drawer. It had the brackets to hang file folders on, but there weren’t any, only two spiral notebooks, both brand new.
It was almost as though it was set up tolooklike an office but not actually used as one.
Continuing my quest to find something interesting, I opened the bottom right drawer. Or tried to. It was locked.
Hmm.
I pulled open the top drawer and grabbed the gold keys. Fitting one into the keyhole, I turned it, and what do you know, it unlocked.
Grinning, I pulled it open.
“Pay dirt.”
At least a dozen file folders were hanging in this one, sorted neatly with those little tags on the top of the folder. Names were written in neat, bold letters. I walked my fingers over the plastic tags, reading each one.
R. MU
M. QU
L. PI
A. LE
T. DU
Clients names, maybe? M. Qu was shorthand for Monica Quinn, I figured. I leafed through the scattered papers in the file. Definitely my mother, but there weren’t many notes taken. Nothing incriminating.
“Boring,” I sang.
I was about to close the drawer when I realized there was one more file at the very back. It didn’t have a name tag on it. I spread the folder wide and peered at the first page inside. I saw my name scribbled neatly on the top corner of what looked to be an application.
I pulled the paper out and skimmed it. It was dated September 26, 2023.
DNA results. 99.9% match. The name of the match was Doe, John, but aside from being male, there was nothing else to say who the person was.
“What the fuck?”
* * *
Rule
Expecting to find Laikyn pacing the officefloors, we returned a few hours later after taking care of an issue that came to light overnight.
That was par for the course on Mondays. It happened often enough, Rhyan had a pool for how many weeks in a row we could gowithoutit happening. Jinx won this time around, having predicted three weeks.
I couldn’t count how many times I would get called by a desperate parent needing help covering up something their wild, unruly kid did over the weekend. In this case, a college senior who was slated to be a first-round pick in next year’s NFL draft was joyriding with a couple of his friends. They hit someone on a dark street. To their credit, they didn’t leave the guy there to die, but that was about the only noble thing they did.
It would take some work, but I had the ability as well as the connections to make the problem go away. Had the kid not stopped, I wouldn’t have been inclined to help at all.
“Hey,” I called out when I reached the top of the stairs. “Where is everyone?”
I was met with silence, so I frowned over at Jinx. He shrugged and pulled out his phone. He glanced at the screen, then shook his head.
“Yeah, me either,” I told him, doing the same thing, expecting to find a text or a call from Laikyn. “Check the cameras, would you?”
While he pulled out his laptop, I peeked in Rhyan’s office. She wasn’t there. LaikynorRhyan. I went back downstairs, through the first-floor living room and kitchen. All empty.
Where the hell was she?
