The Detective (5 page)

She slid a long silver letter opener into the flap of an envelope and sliced it open. “Well, I should be, but I’m not. Are you here because of the robbery?”

I rolled my eyes as I passed by her desk. “I’m here to keep the lieutenant off my ass.”

She smirked. “Good luck with that.”

The office was hopping when I walked through the door. I tried to slip across the room unnoticed, but Reese spotted me from the coffee pot. “McNamara!” he boomed.

I closed my eyes and silently cursed.

He walked toward me, coffee in hand, chuckling to himself.
 

At the same time, Carr’s head popped out of the doorway to his office. “Detective, I’d like to see you,” he called to me.

I knocked Reese in the arm with my shoulder as I passed him. “I hate you, dude.”

“He can smell fear, Nate,” he warned.

Over my shoulder, I shot him the bird.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into Carr’s office. “Morning, Lieutenant.”

Carr was walking back around behind his desk. “Nice of you to join us today, Nathan.”

“I’ve worked almost seventy hours this week, sir,” I said.

He cut his eyes up at me. “Is that an excuse?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. Just a fact.”

“Do you know how many hours I’ve worked this week, Detective?” He folded his hands on top of his desk.

“Nope.”

“More than you.”

I cringed with mock sympathy. “Then I feel sorry for your wife.”

His eyes narrowed. “Get out of my office.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, not waiting for him to change his mind.

Reese was chuckling outside my office door when I walked back out. “Are you trying to get me fired?” I pulled out my key ring.

“If you do get fired, that look on your face earlier was so worth it,” he said. “Where’ve you been all morning?”

“Home.” I unlocked my office door and flipped on the light as Reese followed me in carrying a brown file folder. “I don’t understand why it’s implied that I’m not doing my job if I’m not here twenty-four hours a day.”

Reese sat down in the chair. “You know it’s just politics. Lots of money and press putting pressure on this case.”

“So, what’s the story on this one?” I turned on my laptop.

 
He crossed his boot over his knee and used his leg as a desk. He rifled through the papers in the folder. “Our latest victims are Max and Juliette Carrera. They own the Chevy dealership out off of Riker Boulevard. Thanks to the little bit of rain yesterday evening, our guys confirmed two sets of muddy footprints in the foyer of the home. Size ten and size ten and a half. The thieves stole $7,000 from a wall safe inside the home office.” Reese leaned forward. “They also took an antique 1853 engraved Remington revolver valued at ten G’s.”

I sat back in my seat. “Really? That’s new.”

He nodded. “The owner said it was stored in the safe with the money. I think Max was more upset about the gun than anything.”

I blew out a sigh. “I would be too.” I looked up at the clock on the wall. “Wanna take a ride out there?”

Reese closed the folder and nodded. “Sure.”

Standing up, I put my keys in my pocket. “You can drive.”
 

I rode shotgun in Reese’s unmarked sedan across town to the Carreras’ home and went through our database files on his mounted laptop to see—again—if I’d missed anything. While I searched, I filled him in on the details of my evening with Shannon and the ensuing morning after.
 

He grinned over his shoulder as he pulled into the golf course community. “So what I hear you telling me, is that you have a girlfriend.”

My eyes rolled involuntarily. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

He cringed. “You cuddled, man. All night. You definitely have a girlfriend.”

“Whatever.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You gonna see her again?”

I looked out the windshield. “I’m probably going back to Asheville to meet with the Bryson family this weekend.”

He laughed. “Isn’t that convenient?”

“Shut up.”

We pulled into the driveway of a three-story plantation-style home with a garage that was bigger than the house I grew up in.
 

Reese let out a long, slow whistle. “I went into the wrong profession,” he said, shaking his head.

I wrenched my door open. “You and me both, brother.”
 

When we reached the elaborate front door, I noticed a sticker in the corner of one of the decorative window panes around the entry. I tapped it with my finger. “Daycon Securities,” I said. “Is there anything about it in the report?”

Reese rang the doorbell. “Nothing other than it wasn’t on at the time.”

“That’s happened before.” I scanned the entryway for cameras. There were none. “Didn’t the mayor use Daycon?”

Reese pressed his eyes closed. “Maybe so. You think it might be related?”

I inspected the broken frame around the door, where someone had used a crowbar. “I think it’s odd that none of these million dollar homes have had functioning security equipment.”

Reese nodded. “True.”

The front door opened and a tall red-head in her mid-forties with a boob job and Botox looked out. She had been featured in many of their car dealership’s commercials. “Can I help you?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

Reese flashed the badge that was attached to his belt. “I’m Detective Tyrell Reese from Wake County Sheriff’s Office. Are you Mrs. Carrera?”

She smiled politely. “I am.” She swung the door wide. “Come in.”

As we stepped through the doorway, Reese nodded in my direction. “This is Detective McNamara. He’s the lead investigator on this case.”

I offered her my hand. “I’m sorry that it’s under these circumstances, but it’s nice to meet you.”

“You too, Detective.” She closed the door behind us. “Come on in. Max is actually on the phone with the insurance company right now.”

The foyer opened up into an elaborate formal living area with a grand piano, white furniture, and some kind of white fur rug, which I avoided with my boots like my life depended on it because I feared it might. We followed her toward the sound of an angry male voice on the other side of the house. Beyond the white room was a short hallway that came to a dead end in the home office. The office doors were made of paned glass squares; one of them was shattered.

Inside the room, Max Carrera—5’9, hair plugs, Italian—paced with a cell phone in his white-knuckled fist. His face was red as he barked something about a deductible. After a moment, he registered our presence and stopped wearing a hole in the carpet. “I’ll call you back,” he said and disconnected the line. He dropped the phone onto the mahogany desk and planted his hands on his hips. “Did you catch them yet?”

I shook my head. “We’re still working on it, I’m afraid. Mr. Carrera—”

He cut me off. “Call me Max.”

“Max, I noticed you have a pretty hefty security system. Was it not on at the time of the robbery?” I asked.

He huffed. “Teenagers.”

His posture indicated that I should know what he meant, but I didn’t. “I’m afraid I’m going to need a little more of an explanation.”

He pointed a finger toward the ceiling. “We have a sixteen year-old son who is currently grounded for leaving the house last night without turning the system on. He does it all the time.”

I sucked in a sharp breath through my clenched teeth. “That’s a shame.”

Max’s frown deepened. “Don’t have kids, Detective.”

“Max!” his wife shrieked.

I had to suppress a smile. “Tell me about the gun that’s missing.”

Max exhaled through his nose so hard I heard his sinuses whistle across the room. “It was a gift from my grandfather who bought it off of a gangster in old New York about eighty years ago. It’s about a hundred and fifty years old or more.” He walked over and handed me a picture of a revolver with a white handle and swirly designs along the silver barrel.
 

Reese looked over my shoulder. “I can see why you’re upset,” he said.

Max looked at both of us. “I don’t care about the money, but I want my gun back.”

I held up the photograph. “Can I keep this?”

He nodded. “Be my guest.”

“It was in your safe with the cash?” I asked.

He stepped away from his desk toward the large built-in mahogany bookcase that lined the wall. A panel had been removed from the back casing, displaying an open and empty safe. It was covered in the remnants of fingerprinting dust. “Reese, did we get any prints off this?” I asked.

He consulted the file. “None that didn’t belong to Mr. Carrera.”

Max held up his hands in defense. “I didn’t rob my own house.”

I smiled and examined the safe door. “No one is saying you did.” I looked back over my shoulder. “There are no signs of forced entry, but these aren’t super complicated to crack if you have the right stuff.”

Max’s eyes doubled in size. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how much I paid for that thing?”

I looked at the safe again. “I would guess around three to four thousand.”

Max looked like he might throw up.

I shrugged. “You did better than most I’ve seen. One guy had a fingerprint reader on his safe that could be disabled if you pressed down too hard when you put your finger on it.”
 

“Well, what kind of safe do you recommend?” He looked ready to take notes.

I slapped him on the back. “I recommend guard dogs and banks.” Then I smiled. “And sometimes not even banks.”

He offered me his hand and I shook it. “Thanks for coming by, Detective.”

I smiled gently. “I promise we’re doing everything possible, Max.”

He sighed. “At the end of the day it’s just stuff, I guess.”

I nodded. “I agree, but we’re still going to try to get your stuff back.”

He squeezed my hand one more time before releasing it. “I’m sure you are.”

The Carreras saw us to the door. Once we were outside, I glanced at the security emblem again. When we got in the car, I turned his laptop back around toward me.
 

“What do you think?” Reese asked.

“I think I want to know more about the security systems. Seems odd to me that none of these million dollar homes have had their alarms set at the time of the break-in. And I want this picture posted at every pawn shop within fifty miles. This gun is going to be easy to recognize.”

He nodded as he backed out of the driveway.
 

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I yanked it out and read the text message on the screen.
Half-way home. Stopped for lunch. Had a great morning. Can’t wait to see you again! <3, Shannon.

A groan escaped my throat. “Oh boy.”

SIX

THE MORE I looked at the files on the break-ins, the more convinced I was that we were dealing with some serious professionals. Out of the seven homes that had been hit, four safes had been opened without any damage, two had been bounced and their hinges warped, and I suspected they took the Kensington’s because they couldn’t get it open fast enough. It was one of the more complex safes on the market, so that made sense.
 

All of the homes had one key component in common: ArmorTech security systems. ArmorTech was the parent company of Daycon Securities, ATR Securities, and HomeSafe Technologies—all of which were used by the victims. I had contacted ArmorTech on Monday morning when I first discovered the connection, but by Thursday they still hadn’t found any data leakage on their end.

Thursday night, with my feet propped up on my home office desk and a takeout container of General Tso’s chicken balanced on my lap, I stared back and forth between the two bulletin boards on the wall. The one on the left was all the robbery info I had; the one on the right had the faces of eleven missing women tacked to a map of North Carolina.
 

Neither case was going anywhere.

My phone rang. It was Shannon.

I answered it on speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Nathan. It’s Shannon.”

“Hi, Shannon.” I popped another bite of chicken into my mouth. She had called twice that week and had texted me steadily since she left town. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it—definitely not sure enough to postpone my dinner for the duration of our conversation.

“How was your day?” she asked.

I swallowed. “Not too bad. Still working. What’s up?”

“I wanted to let you know that I spoke to Caroline Bryson today. Leslie’s mom.”

My boots landed on the floor with a thud as I sat up straight in my office chair. “Oh, really?”

“Yes. She said she would be happy to speak with you, since you’re a friend of mine,” she said. “She wants to know if you can come back to Asheville this weekend.”

Sure she does.
I could talk to Caroline Bryson on the phone and we both knew it.

I thought for a second. “Yeah, I could drive back tomorrow after work.”

I swear to God, I could hear her smiling.

“Great! I’ll let her know to maybe plan for Saturday,” she said.

“Awesome. Thanks, Shannon.”

“Hey, Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you… um… Do you want to stay with me?” Her voice cracked on the other end of the line.
 

If I were a better detective, I wouldn’t have been surprised by the question. I thought for a second.
Free place to stay, probability of sex…
“Sure, I guess.” Then I remembered her damn dog and almost winced audibly.

“Great! I’ll text you my address in case you don’t remember how to get here,” she said, her voice bubbling over with excitement on her end of the line.

“Fantastic. I’ll head that way tomorrow after work,” I said. “Thanks, Shannon.”

“My pleasure. Bye, Nate.”

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a long minute.

Reese was right.
I have a girlfriend.

* * *

It was dark and the sky was spitting snow by the time I pulled up in front of Shannon’s apartment building Friday night. My door creaked as I slammed it shut and slung my backpack over my shoulder. On the walk up to her door, I continued my internal deliberation over how I wanted this weekend to play out. ‘The Talk’ was coming. I could feel it in my bones.