Every Kind of Wicked (A Gardiner and Renner Novel Book 6)
Every Kind of Wicked: Chapter 13

Snow drifted down the back of Jack’s collar and melted, sending tiny streams of icy water down his neck. They’d only been outside for perhaps forty-five seconds and he could already feel the cold moving up through the soles of his shoes. He stared at Shanaya Thomas, wondering only what to ask first.

She didn’t give him a chance. “I saw you guys talking to Mr. Hawking. What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”

“You work here?” Riley asked, which somewhat, and inadvertently, answered her question.

“Yes.”

“Why did you leave your apartment?” Jack asked.

Her eyes widened. She couldn’t have known they’d gone back. “I was afraid. I mean, after what happened to Evani—it’s probably stupid, but I couldn’t stay there alone. And,” she admitted, “it was the final day of the rent period. I figured I’d save money if I left before midnight. About Evani—”

Except she had left before noon, and what rental period ended midweek, in the midmonth? “Where did you go? Where are you staying?”

“With a friend of mine . . . until I can get my final paycheck and go home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Tennessee.”

Riley said, “You left all of your boyfriend’s stuff at the apartment.”

She held up bare hands, telegraphing helplessness. “I could only take what I can carry. His stuff was just—stuff. Nothing sentimental, so—I have to be practical. I’ve learned to travel light.”

Riley handed her his notepad and a pen. “Write down the address. We have to be able to get hold of you, in case we have more questions about Evan. You can’t bail like that.”

She took it but didn’t write anything. “You have my phone number.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“We’re not allowed to take personal calls at work. Look, this”—she gestured toward the building behind her, then wrapped the sweater around herself more tightly—“is a sweatshop. A decent sweatshop, but still a sweatshop. I’m going to be docked pay for coming back five minutes late from break. But I need to ask about Evan’s—”

“Did Evan work here?” Jack asked.

The question plainly surprised her. “No.”

“Did he visit you here?”

“No, never.”

“Why did you tell us Evan worked at the movie theater?”

Her eyelids flickered, but she didn’t skip a beat. “He did.”

“He worked at A to Z Check Cashing.”

No hesitation. “He used to. He quit there and went to the theater.”

“When?”

“About a month ago.”

“No, he didn’t. He still worked at A to Z.”

She bounced on her toes, probably to keep the blood flowing rather than any concern at his statement. “Well, that’s what he told me.”

Jack ground a tooth in frustration. He couldn’t challenge her on this, because they hadn’t asked Ralph exactly when he had last seen Shanaya at A to Z. She had purposely lied to them about the movie theater, just as she absolutely lied to them now. But why did she want to steer them away from A to Z? “Are you sure Evan never worked here? We found evidence from this building on his clothing.”

Bafflement that wasn’t a lie, for a change. He thought he could see the wheels working in her head, the spark of interest in how they managed to trace a person to a building, then the spark ground under her heel in the need to move forward before she got docked another five minutes. “That’s not possible. He’s never been here. Mr. Hawking doesn’t allow personal visitors.”

“What is it you do here?”

“Customer service.”

“Computer interface issue support?” Jack knew vague, non-answers meant to befuddle him when he heard them. He’d invented enough for himself over the years. But this girl could give him lessons.

“Yes.”

The stuff had probably come off her clothes, and transferred to Evan’s when they hugged, made love, hung their coats in the same closet. Still, Jack now distrusted nearly anything the young woman uttered, so he filed that denial away as she finished by asking a question of her own.

“Evani’s stuff—the things he had with him when he died. Can I have them back?”

Jack’s mind went to the key.

“He had a ring—I bought it for him when . . . well, it’s silly. But I’d like to have it. I’d like to have one single thing to remember him by.” Her voice broke, tears welled up and threatened to spill. It would rend hearts, her standing there shivering in the snow with her cheeks turning red, a picture of young love in all its fresh, tragic beauty.

“Of course, we can get you his ring back,” Jack said. “Come to our office when you get off work. You still have my card?” No, he knew, because she’d abandoned it in her old apartment along with her boyfriend’s clothing. He handed her a new one. “Call anytime, to make sure we’re there. Then you can come in and we’ll sign Evan’s property over to you.”

Except maybe for that damn key, he thought. He itched to ask her what it opened, but even if she answered he wouldn’t believe what she said. Patience. Come into my parlor, little fly, drawn to the bright light of that winking little key.

She nodded miserably, then turned without another word and trotted back up the sidewalk, a precarious pace on the icy walkway. One foot slid too far as she turned the corner, but she recovered, incentivized by either the warmth of the call center or the hope of getting back to her cubicle before her supervisor noticed her absence.

Jack and Riley exchanged a glance but didn’t waste time with conversation that could be had inside the shelter of their vehicle. It had cooled to the same temperature as the outdoors, but at least it kept more snow from sneaking down Jack’s collar. As the engine warmed up, Riley said, “Okay. Now I’m really confused.”

“Not so much. The stuff on his clothes came from her. Evan Harding’s link to this building was his girlfriend, that’s all.”

“Which means we’ve spent an hour without getting a whit closer to who killed Harding.”

“What is a ‘whit,’ anyway?”

Riley ignored this. “I’m confused about why she bolts the second we leave her apartment, but then flags us down when we had no idea she worked here.”

“She didn’t know we had no idea. For all she knew, we came here looking for her.”

Riley said, “Preemptive strike. The most direct explanation for her fleeing their apartment is that she’s afraid. She and Harding were faking status to get cheap rent, maybe the check cashing place isn’t totally on the up-and-up, and who knows what the hell they’re doing in there, but I’ll bet it isn’t guiding customers through warranty claims or telling middle managers how to access their e-mail. Everything about her is shady—but then she seeks us out.”

Jack said, “So whoever it is she’s afraid of, it’s not the cops.”

Friday, 7:10 p. m.

Maggie had been tying the last bow on a gift for one of her nieces when the phone rang. She wanted to get the box in the mail so that Alex and Daisy could nestle the toys and dresses under the tree for Christmas morning, or whatever sort of tree or wreath or candle sufficed as tradition in the life of a traveling musician. Her brother usually tried to fit in a visit to Cleveland around the holiday, or she would go to them. But this year he had a gig too lucrative to pass up in Idaho, where at least the landscape of snowy mountains would be picture-perfect on December twenty-fifth even if their family had to stop at only its nucleus. Maggie didn’t feel able to take time off—Amy had been so looking forward to opening presents with her toddler, Carol had her granddaughters, Josh faced the first major holiday as a newlywed, and Denny’s house would be a damn Norman Rockwell painting with his kick-ass wife and three gloriously vibrant kids.

Still, the idea of pristine snow—not the slush grayed by city streets—in what she imagined would be the quiet wilderness of Idaho made her wish she could fly out and meet them, take a quick vacation outside her life, not to mention reconnect with the only family member she had left. Maybe remember who she used to be. It would be good for her. She had felt unmoored after that first violent conflict, when she learned who and what Jack Renner was. That had been April. It was now December, and she got herself to sleep every night by telling her brain how she had made her peace with it. She had done what she had done and nothing remained to be said about it. They were both doing good work now, functioning firmly on the side of the angels for the protection of society.

Then she would wake up each morning and know that peace remained an illusion, a pretty picture from another world, as far away as the snow-capped mountains of Idaho.

And Alex might see that, the unease, the change in her. He knew her too well.

Best to leave well enough alone. She put the ribbon down and picked up the phone.

“Has Dispatch called you?” Jack asked, which immediately let her know he had not called for personal reasons—which would have been unusual.

She said no, not looking forward to going out to a crime scene for reasons that had nothing to do with Jack Renner and the conflicts he represented. It was freakin’ cold out there. “What’s up?”

“Remember that woman in the video, the one your ex had interviewed?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to need you to come to her apartment.”