The Sin Collector (7 page)

“Don’t worry Lily I will take good care of him.” She smiled warmly and kissed me on my cheek. She said goodbye to Billy and left with Valentine. I sat down next to Billy on the couch quietly for a good twenty minutes before I sighed heavily and spoke.

“So breaking and entering then?”I asked not looking at him.

“It’s looking that way, how are you at crime?”

“Pretty sucky.” I sighed again.

He let out a loud laugh. “Well prepare to be schooled.” He gave me a wink and pulled me off the couch.

We pulled up in front of Jimmy’s tiny ramshackle home just before ten. It was pitch black inside and we crept around the side of the house. His car was in the garage. We circled back around the front and stood on the porch. I grabbed Billy’s arm to get his attention in the dark.

“What do we do now Danny Ocean?” I couldn’t see his eyes, but I sort of felt his glare. I heard a hard sigh and he knocked three short hard raps on Jimmy’s door.

“Wow, criminal mastermind, I should have brought my steno pad.”

There was no movement inside and after a minute Billy dropped down to his knees and pulled a lock picking kit from his pocket. As he unzipped it, I absentmindedly reached out and turned the knob letting the door fall open. I was giggling quietly as we both stepped into the small foyer. It took the length of a heartbeat to feel it. I heard the sharp gasp in my chest, and I felt Billy become rigid beside me.

“Billy….”

“Lily stay here.”

The way he said my name so formally disrupted my trapped thoughts and I moved forward. Now I heard the soft noise that was breaking the silence of the still house.

“Don’t look…” But he said the words too late. My eyes were locked on Jimmy. A rope, the kind hikers used to scale hills and the sides of mountains was wrapped around his neck. He swung softly from the exposed rafter in his living room. On the floor beside him was a scrawled note, something about how he couldn’t take the stress at work. It would have looked simple; it would have never raised suspicions. There was a stool near where Jimmy was hanging and the note on the floor, no police jurisdiction in the country would have asked questions. That would have been the case if anyone but us had found him, but
we had found him
. The pressure in the room weighed on my chest, to the point of discomfort. The word on the tip of my tongue oozed from every fiber in the room. Murder. It was the darkest sin there was. Even unintentional murder left a heavy black feeling in its wake. It was as if the room was seeping the blackness of the sin itself.

“Billy?”

“I know Li, I can feel it. It’s like the walls are dripping with it.” His voice was barely a whisper and he looked at me with dark eyes.

“
We should get out of here.” I was whispering too, as if there was anyone left to disturb. “No one would believe it wasn’t suicide. Billy we have to go.”

I pulled his arm and he followed me back to the porch. He looked a bit dazed, and I realized his face was probably the same mask of horror that I was wearing. I shut the door and rubbed the knob off with my sweatshirt.
Don’t leave prints, you watch enough TV to know that.
I was on the last step when I stopped. The traffic light across the street had turned red. Billy looked up at me with confusion and anxiety.

“The day Jimmy left the library. I was with the kids, so he left the message with George.” My thoughts were racing a mile a minute. “George said all Jimmy took with him was a big red folder. Did you see a red folder in there?”

Billy’s eyes seemed to be pleading to leave the house as soon as possible.

“I didn’t see a folder, but I wasn’t looking for one. Why does it matter?”

Because
, I was sure I was right now. “The only focus Jimmy had since you emailed him was a focus on Sin-Eaters. The folder could have had information in it. What if Jimmy found out something he wasn’t supposed to know?” I was already back in the living room before Billy processed my words and I felt him behind me. His eyes were hard now. They were alert, he knew I was right and he moved into the bedroom to search. We went through Jimmy’s entire house but there was no red folder. In fact, there wasn’t a notebook, or even a pad by the phone. I checked every room again and realized his laptop was gone too.

“I’m going to check the garage.” Billy was out the back door quickly and I looked at Jimmy’s face one more time. He hadn’t deserved this.

“LiLi I found it. Let’s go.”

I was flying out the door now and was in the passenger seat of Billy’s SUV in two seconds. He was a millisecond behind me and we drove fast, back to my apartment.

Billy had been staring at the piece of paper for three hours. Occasionally he would type words into a search engine he had designed and it would return no results. When that happened he would shift angrily in his chair and go back to staring at the piece of paper. He had found the small folded piece of paper on the floor of Jimmy’s car. Whoever had killed Jimmy had clearly missed it, or maybe they knew it didn’t matter and left it. Either way the dirty piece of paper was our only lead. All it contained was a name.

Robert M. Doyle.

I finished packing as the sun was rising. Billy was sitting in the same chair he’d been in all night. I showered and got dressed, comfortable clothes for a long flight and finally went to sit beside him. I touched his arm gently.

“Billy, we’re going to be leaving in under twenty-four hours. You should get ready.” I felt like I was instructing a child. He nodded and turned off his computer, putting it in its travel case. I took my bags down to the SUV to give him some privacy. I had to remind myself that Billy wasn’t used to this sort of thing. Sins barely touched him and he hadn’t been prepared to feel the strongest one mankind could offer. I found myself wanting to hug him tight and tell him it would all be ok, but I didn’t. For all I knew, nothing would be ok.

Chapter 5

I was sick of the sun. I felt like we were chasing it, or it had been chasing us. Our flight left LAX at six-thirty that next morning. We had to catch a connecting flight in Chicago and we made our plane with plenty of time to spare. Eighteen hours later we arrived in Dublin at eight-thirty in the morning. We didn’t look out of place; except for the fact that neither one of us appeared jet-lagged. I had to admit Billy was a much better traveler than I was. I was always worried I was going to forget something or accidentally board a plane intended for Iceland.

The flight had been nothing out of the ordinary. Billy was very quiet through most of it, which worried me. He fidgeted a lot, playing with the zipper on his bag, putting his worn grey jacket on and then taking it off. My insecurities surfaced fast and I was worried he had changed his mind. Did he regret me coming along? It seemed more likely he was still thinking about the thick cloud he’d felt in Jimmy’s house. He seemed content to click away on his laptop while I pretended to read a book. I tried to focus on the words in front of me but all I could see was Jimmy’s face. He had been a crappy boss, but he hadn’t deserved to die. He especially didn’t deserve to die because of us.

“It’s not your fault.” I had finally whispered to Billy around hour nine of our flights. He looked at me bitterly and grimaced.

“If he died because searching for that book put him in the crosshairs it
is
my fault.”

It was all he would say the rest of the flight, and I let him be. It had taken him a bit longer to suspect what I had put together almost instantly after seeing the paper from Jimmy’s car. It seemed obvious to me that Jimmy had found the ancient book Christopher Owens had requested. It seemed even more obvious that Jimmy would have noted the importance of such a find, and his greed had pushed him to seek a higher bidder. And it had gotten him killed. We retrieved our suitcases and went outside, I grumbled at the sun some more while I put on my sunglasses and was surprised when Billy started to load our things into a waiting black car. I looked at him quizzically.

“A gift from Clara. She wouldn’t want us riding around in some old taxi.” He shrugged and held the door open for me. I climbed in, settling myself into the cool leather seat. It was a shame to say I had nearly forgotten all about Clara, seeing as how she was the reason we were here. It made me sad that I couldn’t meet her and between that and the memory of Jimmy I was in an awful mood. My grumpiness was offset by Billy’s sudden exuberance as we pulled onto the highway. He must have missed his Mother very much.

“Are you excited to be in Dublin?” I asked. The silence was driving me a bit crazy.

“I like coming home.”

Home, it seemed a strange word to me. I’d never had a home, not in real life anyway. I had a dream home though.
I had first seen it in an ad in the paper.  It was an old Victorian house.  It wasn’t very grand, but it was beautiful.  I remember looking at the picture and thinking there was something magical about it.  The teal green exterior with the pink shutters and lavender latticework made it look like something out of a fairytale.  More than anything, I remember thinking that it looked safe. It felt like nothing bad would ever happen to you there.   I never dreamed of course, so I would lie in bed, in my comfortable pajamas and I could imagine a million scenarios.  Strangers I would meet, lives I would change. I would have neighbors who knew me, and friends who trusted me. A life without secrets, a life with shared dreams and endless hopes. I imagined myself a girl who would sleep sound at night, deep in weightless dreams, loved and content within the protective walls of her teal green house. I shook my head as if the act would shake the memory from my mind. The longing must have still been visible on my face though as Billy slid over and put his arm around me getting very close so he could speak without the driver hearing us.

“I’m not being a very good friend am I? I have become so used to traveling alone. Don’t look so sad LiLi. We will check in at the hotel, I will go visit Clara and then I promise we will have a good time. We will forget the other night, even if it’s just for a few hours.”

“It sounds like a date.” I smiled weakly. I was just happy he was talking again. “Why do you consider Dublin home?” I didn’t want to talk about being sad. I didn’t like talking about my feelings. Maybe there was more human in me after all.

“We moved to Dublin when I was fifteen and we lived here until I was twenty. When I became of age, we traveled around, with Clara performing the ritual all over Europe and Russia. No matter where we traveled, we always ended up spending a few months a year in Dublin. Then Clara settled down here. It’s our touchstone.”

“That’s nice.” I tried to give him a large grin but all I could manage was the same weak smile.

“You’re not alone now you know LiLi.”

I was about to respond with words I hadn’t chosen yet when the car stopped and the driver turned around to inform us we were at the Fitzwilliam Hotel. It was very large and grander than anywhere I had ever stayed. Billy handed the driver something, money I assumed, and he helped load our bags onto the dolly. A bellboy appeared out of nowhere and greeted Billy as Mr. Owens. I couldn’t help the smile that escaped my lips and I arched my eyebrow at him. He shrugged nonchalantly and we followed him to our room. It seemed as if the Bellboy knew Billy, which confused me. I had assumed Billy normally stayed with Clara when he was in Dublin, but now that thought seemed silly. He was over one-hundred years old for cripes sake. He wouldn’t want to shack up with his mom. The bellboy’s engraved nametag read “Connor.” Now that I was face-to-face with him, I had to agree that he did indeed look like a Connor, if a person can look like their name. Connor pushed our door open with the swipe of a card and I felt the stunned look that took place in my features.

The room was exquisite. The living area had a large overstuffed, yet elegant couch with two similar armchairs across from it. A glass coffee table sat in between. On the farthest wall was a large fireplace with a fire already burning and a long window flanked either side of the mantle. The room was decorated in variations of a soft silvery grey that was instantly calming. I liked the room at once. It felt open and inviting. I wandered away from Billy and into the large bedroom. The fluffy white bed was huge and had at least a dozen pillows in the same grey fabric as everything in the living room. I followed a pleasant flowery smell into the white porcelain bathroom where a vase was overflowing with fresh lavender cuttings. A baby elephant would have fit comfortably in the whirlpool tub, which had a remote with several settings displayed.

Screw living under the radar. I am never staying anywhere without a therapeutic massage option again.
I was still dazed but suddenly overwhelmed with excitement. I took the memory of Jimmy that had been crushing my chest since we found him and shoved it to the back of my mind. Everything was so beautiful and so new, I was grinning from ear to ear. I spun around to see Billy leaning against the door jam.