Deceptions (Cainsville 3)

He leaned back with the muffin and coffee as I settled into the other chair. He eyed the painkillers but didn't open them. I reached over, popped the lid, and shook out two.

"Your neck is hurting from sleeping like that. It's only going to get worse. We may have a full day ahead. Take."

He did.

"Thank you," I said. "Now, when you're feeling better, Detective Pemberton got back to me with a name."

He looked up so fast he winced, pulling his neck again.

"Relax," I said. "Let the meds kick in. It can wait."

"You realize, as your employer, I legally have access to your e-mail."

"I didn't use my office one." I smiled and let him simmer for a minute, just for fun. Then I said, "Imogen Seale," and he was on his laptop in five seconds flat.

I waited until he said, "All right. I have--" Then I passed over my notebook, with Imogen's current address and a page of notes.

"Early bird gets the scoop," I said. "Eat, drink, let those pain meds do their work, and we'll get out of here."

We were heading out as Lydia arrived. I left the two remaining muffins on her desk. She said, "Good morning," and refrained from comment on the early hour or the fact I wore an oversized Iron Maiden concert shirt, grabbed from the Saints clubhouse because mine had been stained with blood.

"It's too early to buy a shirt, isn't it?" I said to Gabriel as we walked down the front steps.

"At this hour, if you hope for business wear, yes. There are a few options, though. Nothing fashionable, but perhaps a little less . . ."

"Like I slept with an aging roadie, and he ripped my shirt off?"

A quirk of a smile. "Yes."

"Lead on, then. I won't ask how you know where to buy clean clothes at eight in the morning."

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The shirt came from a diner, a tee that advertised their business. Whch was better than what the other one seemed to "advertise."

By ten, we were at Imogen's house. Or the house where she lived, which actually belonged to her mother. At twenty-four, I'd felt too old to still live at home. Imogen was forty-three.

When we arrived, I was certain we'd made a mistake. We were looking for a house. This was a street of walk-ups and apartments. And, as it turned out, one house, wedged between two towering buildings, like a recalcitrant dwarf squatting between giants, refusing to give ground. Which is, I suspect, exactly what happened. Imogen's family had refused to sell, so they were left there, in the shade of those apartments, with only a house and a strip of grass.

Gabriel knocked. When a stooped, elderly woman answered, he still did the "foot in the doorjamb" trick. Rightly, as it turned out. She took one look at me and tried to slam the door.

"Get your damned foot out of there," she said. "Or I swear I'll crush it--" She yanked feebly on the door, her face reddening. Then she peered up at Gabriel. "I'll call the police."

"We'd like to speak to Imogen Seale. She's your daughter, I presume?"

"Get the hell off my property."

"We believe Ms. Seale has information vital to a case--"

"What case? Setting two psychos loose?"

She turned on me, her wizened face threatening to fold into its own creases. Our research said she was in her early seventies, but she looked more like ninety, her wrinkled skin yellowed by tobacco, the stink of the cigarettes blasting on her breath.

"I don't know why you're here to see my girl, but you're not going to. She's barely been out of her room since you turned up in the news, reminding her of all that mess. Do you know how long it took to get her right again? After what you people did?"

"You people?" I said.

"Your parents, murdering the man she loved. After that, she wasn't right for years. Years. And now you pop up in the news, upsetting her again. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?"