Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“It’s just not like him not to answer,” Tom explained. “Usually, if he’s busy, he’d text back.”
He pulled in front of a white, Spanish villa in a sleepy cul-de-sac in Huntington Beach, a stone’s throw from the ocean. “He has a pretty strict routine, especially since his wife passed away.”
We both got out of the car and made our way to Ian’s front door. Only two more immaculately taken care of houses lined the cul-de-sac. Upscale neighborhood, for sure.
Ian’s front door had three days’ worth of rolled up newspapers in front of it. The first telltale of trouble.
Tom frowned and picked one of them up. “Not a good sign.”
“Does he have any living relatives?” I peered around, craning my neck past his garden’s gate.
“One daughter. She lives in Modesto, up north. She calls him once a week. Rarely visits. Some daughter she is.”
Tom didn’t always have a judgmental attitude, but fatherhood did that to him.
“Hey. Some parents don’t deserve the respect. Maybe he went to visit her?”
He shook his head. “He’d have gotten one of his neighbors to take care of the newspapers. He’s no rookie.”
I checked my watch. I did not like the idea of leaving Brat without proper supervision. Even though my main job was to scare her off from pulling any stupid shit, I still took it seriously. For all I knew she could be filming a sex tape right this second.
With whom, ass-face? Lisa?
“Problem is, we can’t just break into the place,” Tom murmured somewhere to my right.
Couldn’t we? Why not? If anything, we’d be helping the old man. He was obviously not doing too hot if he hadn’t picked up his newspaper in three days. Elderly people—especially sick ones—told people when they left town. Ian never did.
I took out a bobby pin from my lockpicking kit and bent it to a ninety-degree angle, tampering with the door lock. I pushed it open in less than twelve seconds.
“Problem solved, I guess,” Tom deadpanned. “You like skirting the edges of right and wrong, don’t you?”
I shot him a look, shouldering past him inside. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
We saw no obvious break-in signs. The house looked relatively neat—considering it belonged to a retiree widower, anyway—and it didn’t appear ransacked—as if someone had been looking for something to steal. The place was modestly decorated, but even the belongings worth a dime or two were intact. Vases, paintings, an especially hideous decorative golden bowl. Nothing was out of place.
I ran a finger over the fireplace. No dust. “Been cleaned recently.”
Tom threw the fridge door open. “That may be, but half the food in here is expired. I’m going upstairs to the bedrooms.”
I nodded. “I’ll check the garage and backyard.”
Tom took the stairs while I opened the garage. An old school black Jeep was parked inside. Wherever Ian went, he hadn’t taken his car.
I strolled along the garage, which was jam-packed with hardware, including weapons. Everything appeared untouched. This was not your run-of-the-mill burglary case. If someone hurt or took this man, they didn’t want anything that belonged to him, just the guy himself.
“Coast is clear upstairs. All the rooms are empty,” Tom shouted from the second floor.
I ambled from the garage to the balcony doors. I stopped cold when I noticed what should have stood out to me from the beginning—a slight gap in the glass door. It was open. Rather than using the handle and fucking up potential fingerprints, I curled the fabric of my sleeve over my fingers as I pushed the door gently open. The garden’s layout was simple. It was a square space with a patch of grass and some outdoor furniture arranged randomly on one side.
And smack in the middle of the garden, arms and feet poked out of the ground.
I repeat—human feet.
Well, shit.
“Tom,” I barked, “Don’t come out here. And don’t touch anything on your way down.”
He knew the drill and it was unlikely that he would, but I wanted to err on the safe side. I flicked my phone, about to call 911. And Tom, who never was very good at taking orders, stood beside me five seconds later, his face screwed in repulsion and agony as the horror show in front of us became clear to him.
“I told you not to come here,” I hissed out. No part of me desired to see him emotionally destroyed by this.
“And you thought I’d listen? I wanted to see wha… Oh, shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
There was a long beat in which he digested what had happened.
“They half-assed the burial.” He swallowed.
“Or deliberately botched it.”
Tom took his phone out and called 911, and our local FBI friend, Chris. This was definitely retaliation.
The arms and legs were purple and blue—and unmistakably those of an elderly male. Ian had been this way for over twenty-four hours.