Kissed by Darkness(24)

Chapter Seven





Sometimes life so totally sucked. I mean, big time.

I’d had the brilliant idea to confront my client, possibly former client, about the Sunwalker’s claims and the photograph. It made sense at the time. Barge in. Demand the truth. Blah, blah.

Unfortunately, things didn’t always turn out quite the way I pictured them in my head. This was definitely one of those times.

After Jack left, I’d gone over to Brent Darroch’s house. I’d knocked on the door, really I had. Nice and loud, too. Rang the doorbell, even. No answer. So I tromped around the house peeking in windows and trying doors. Just in case. I mean, he could be lying wounded or something.

All the doors were locked, the windows mostly curtained. And then I found it, a small window high up in what appeared to be the pantry. It was open just a crack and I honestly didn’t think I’d fit. Kabita would have fit, but me, I had hips. Hips that were not designed to squeeze through tiny pantry windows. So imagine my surprise when I was actually able to wiggle through with only a couple of minor hiccups.

I hauled myself up onto the sill and swung my legs through the open window. I didn’t know why I sucked my stomach in. My stomach wasn’t the problem. As I suspected, my hips were just a tad too wide to fit through the window horizontally. I wriggled myself around to the right a bit so my body was slanted and my hips slipped right through.

Unfortunately, my ribs got a bit of a banging as my side scraped along the window frame on the way in. It left a lovely little welt from waist to armpit. That was going to sting.

I hit the pantry floor with a rather audible thud and managed to stagger to my feet without crashing into anything. The pantry was dim; the only light came from the security lights outside filtering in through the small window I’d just crawled through. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves filled with every imaginable food item. He even had half a dozen jars of marshmallow fluff. I was seriously tempted to steal a couple. Or at the very least, open one and gobble about half of it down. I resisted. Barely.

I knew I was breaking every rule in the book and Kabita would no doubt kill me. You just didn’t go breaking into your own client’s house searching for clues. It’s rude. But I had to do it. Darroch had given me the creeps from the start and I was determined to find the truth one way or the other.

I edged the pantry door open and stuck my eye to the crack. Darroch’s kitchen was truly impressive with dark granite counter tops, rich wood cabinets and enough stainless steel to build a skyscraper. It was also empty. I slid out of the pantry and into the kitchen keeping my eyes peeled for Darroch or one of his goons, ah, bodyguards.

There were several doors leading off the kitchen. The first one led into a large family room with a glass door leading to the patio. It was dark and empty like the rest of the house. Another door led straight out into the backyard. And behind door number three? I found a short hallway with a staircase leading up.

I’d gotten the distinct impression on my last visit that the downstairs office was just for show. You know, the sort of place you jammed full of expensive furniture and fancy doodahs and only cleaned when you had someone you wanted to intimidate. I mean impress. The real important stuff was somewhere else and that amulet was nothing if not extremely important to Darroch, so I headed up the staircase.

In my experience, most people kept personal stuff as close to their personal space as possible. And there was nothing quite as personal as one’s bedroom.

I’d just found what had to be Darroch’s bedroom and had started poking around when I heard a car pull into the drive. I froze as I heard the car door slam, then I tiptoed to the bedroom door, debating whether or not to head back down to the pantry, before I realized there was no time. Whoever it was already had a key in the front door and the stairs, unfortunately, could be clearly seen by anyone entering the house from the front. I stepped back out of the line of sight.

The front door opened and I heard the unmistakable voice of my client. Even worse, he was headed up the stairs toward the bedroom. Damn.

Not good. Oh, so very not good. Not only would Darroch probably have me arrested, but Kabita would be seriously pissed off. Darroch gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I’d seen Kabita pissed off before and she scared me to death.

Kabita was not the type of person to get all mad and stomp around, issuing threats. Kabita was the type of person to go completely cold and still and then murder you in your sleep. She believed actions spoke louder than words. She’d be right.

A quick glance around the room gave me two options: the closet or under the bed. I opted for under the bed. With my luck, he’d head straight for the closet. I doubted he spent much time hanging around under the bed. I shimmied under just in time for Darroch to walk through the bedroom door. There was only one set of feet in shiny black shoes, so I figured he was on his cell phone.