“How is Croy?” Jared asked me.
“Good,” I said. I’d met Croy’s plane at the Flagstaff airport, the same plane I’d then boarded for Calexico. He’d arrived looking as crisp and polished as ever, in a black Burberry suit and white dress shirt. At one thirty in the morning, for God’s sake. He stopped in front of me, tipped his head and waited.
“I appreciate this.”
Being married had changed him, had made his grin warm and real, and it lit his face. “I had no idea you had a mother,” he said drolly. “I was almost certain that they just beamed you down from the transport ship.”
I smirked at him. “That’s hysterical. You should do comedy.”
“I keep telling people that.”
As I shook my head, he stepped into me, gave me a tight hug that I returned, and then I passed him the keys to my rental car.
“She might want to tell your fortune.”
“Won’t she be sleeping?”
“No, not at all,” I assured him. “My mother catnaps all day and all night, so she’s up at midnight, two in the morning, four in the morning. She knows all the angels who rule the different hours. Like, did you know that Barquiel rules the seventh hour of the day?”
“I did not.”
I nodded.
“All right, then I’ll visit with her. I look forward to it.”
“About the fortune, though, just explain to her, nicely, that you think tarot cards are stupid and she’ll leave you alone about it.”
“I would never,” he said, affronted. “Now that I know she’ll be up, I plan to look at all your baby pictures.”
“You’re such an ass,” I said, turning to head for the plane.
“I’ll take good care of her!” he called over to me.
And I knew he would.
“I need to go see Croy soon,” Ella announced, returning me to the present. “I miss him.”
“Me too,” I told her. “Maybe I’ll go with you.”
“Oh, that would be nice,” she crooned.
Jared grunted and then gave me directions.
As soon as I drove onto Walker Evans’s property, Jared turned on the jammer, but the closer we got to the trailer, I realized that what I’d thought we were dealing with was not what I was looking at.
The husks of several cars were clustered together on one side, and more on cinder blocks near a shed where several dogs were chained to a fence. The fact that not a single one let out so much as a chuff, let alone a full-blown bark, was not a good sign. Cooper hopped out of the SUV before it’d even come to a complete stop and ran over to them, treats in hand, as well as a jug of water.
“What the hell?” Ella asked. “How did he know?”
“When Owen looked at the property,” Jared answered her, “he saw the dogs out here chained to that fence with barely any water or food, and cooking in the heat. That’s why I rented the big SUV, so we can take them when we go.”
Of course my boss saved dogs. Was there ever any doubt?
Once the rest of us were out of the SUV, Rais and Ella went around the back of the trailer, and Jared and I prepared to go in the front. I was going to kick the door down, but Jared had me try opening it first, and wonder of wonders, it was unlocked.
Inside was nicer than I was expecting, based on how the property looked from the outside, but clearly this was Walker Evans’s “between homes” digs, the place where he stayed when he wasn’t living the life of luxury on Nick’s dime. He likely hadn’t realized the money supply was dwindling, not until it had dried up entirely and he was evicted from the Santa Monica house. He hadn’t been informed of Nick’s whereabouts after that, for obvious reasons, hence the frantic phone calls to Rosalie Simmons. She’d confessed to giving him Nick’s new number because she couldn’t deal with his harassment anymore. In her defense, she didn’t know Evans was a criminal. She thought he was just one of Nick’s annoying buddies.
In the living room, Jared and I looked around but saw no one. Seconds later, Ella and Rais slipped inside and gave the all-clear that there was no one out back.
Putting the night-vision goggles up over the brim of my ball cap, I turned to Jared. “I’m thinking I could’ve done this by myself.”
“No,” Ella assured me. “Just moving the dogs alone would have been a pain.”
“You actually think I would’ve bothered with the dogs?”
She squinted at me.
“Fuck, fine,” I groused at her, because hell yes, I would have saved the goddamn dogs.
Shit.
Leading everyone single file down the narrow hallway, I checked the first bedroom and found a couple in there, a man and a woman, dead to the world, empty beer bottles littering the floor around the bed. Next room was a bathroom, after that another bedroom with three people, one man and two women, and lastly, the master, where Walker Evans was with two women.