The Hell Yo - lanyon Josh. Страница 67

“What’s going on is that I quit. That’s all.” She was stuffing her personal possessions in

her knapsack as fast as she could jam them in.

“But why?”

She glared at me. “But why? Why? Because of that!” She beckoned toward the front of

the shop and the street now empty of bell, book, and candle. “Because every day is

Halloween around here.”

I stared, perplexed.

Wrong again, Adrien. Apparently she was not a foot soldier in the shock troops of The

Damned. What did I know? Maybe she really was just a freaked out and much put-upon sales

associate in a bookstore.

“Hey, but that’s over. From now on it’s strictly business as usual.”

As I told her this, I mentally crossed my fingers. I was pretty sure Jake would get a

search warrant, and I was pretty sure what a search of the Hobb Street building would

reveal.

“This is your usual business,” she said acidly. “I’m not stupid. I watch the news. The

first guy you had working here was murdered by a serial killer. The next guy was a serial

killer.”

“But –”

“Not only that, you’ve got reporters and detectives and police and all kinds of people

asking questions about you.”

“What kinds of questions?” I asked, distracted from my original argument.

“Who knows! I mean, I can’t get anything done without some weirdo walking in here.”

She was not rude enough to say so, but I had a feeling she was including me in that

category.

“Velvet,” I coaxed. “I know how it seems, but really, usually it’s not like this at all.

Usually it’s so quiet you can hear the dust fall. Truly. Hang in for a while longer. Life will be

back to normal.”

She straightened, slung her bag over her shoulder, and gave me a long, level look. “No

way. I don’t want to wake up dead one morning. Oh, and Adrien? Get some more help in

here!”

With that, she marched out.

* * * * *

So apparently Velvet White was just nosey and nervous – and maybe made more than

her share of personal phone calls. I’d been wrong before. I’d no doubt be wrong again.

I didn’t expect to be proven wrong quite so fast though. After a hellacious day of

serving irritable and tired holiday shoppers, I closed up, went upstairs, kicked off my shoes,

and dropped down on the sofa. I was drifting into an exhausted sleep, when the phone rang.

I rolled off the sofa and dived to grab it before the machine kicked in.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Jake said dryly. “Satan’s Grotto was a wash.”

I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand, trying to focus. “You didn’t find anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you –”

“We tore the place apart. We sprayed with luminol. No blood stains of any kind

anywhere.”

I was trying to absorb this as Jake added, “And we dusted for prints. It’s going to take

awhile to get the complete results on those, but so far none of the victims’ prints have turned

up. Neither did Gordon’s.”

“I see.” I didn’t though. Not at all.

“Also there was no indication that anyone had been held prisoner there at any time.”

“Oh.”

He sighed. “So whatever your pet nutcase told you, it was a sack of shit.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I really thought there might be something to it.”

“Yeah. Well. Now we all know there wasn’t.” He was silent for a moment.

“Thanks for checking.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Right.”

He hung up.

I put the phone down.

Don’t think about it, I told myself. You’ve got much bigger problems than that.

If my position had been precarious before, it was all the more perilous following a

police raid. Like all good sales people, Garibaldi believed in his product, and he had believed

that I was in the market for that product; he had been sincere during our conversation. But

now…I could always plead that I had, all unknowing, led the cops to their hangout, but I

was pretty sure any doubts Garibaldi and/or the Fifty-sixth Duke of Hell may have had about

my dishonorable intentions were gone.

I could come clean to the police, tell everything I knew, but it was so pitifully little. I

had zero proof of anything. The proof I had been counting on hadn’t turned up.

Did it even exist? Maybe I was letting my imagination run wild, reading threats into

innocuous conversations, jumping to the same bigoted conclusions about what I didn’t

understand, what didn’t fit into my preconceived notions of religion and spirituality.

The phone rang again. I ignored it and went into the kitchen. I hadn’t eaten all day. No

wonder I felt like something the cat dragged in. I opened the fridge.

The machine picked up.

Silence.

I felt a ripple of unease, but then Guy spoke, sounding reluctant. More. He sounded

grim. “Adrien, apparently I was wrong. Peter is not in Germany. I’d like to….” I missed the

next word or two. “Call me. Please.”

Dial tone.

Chapter Twenty-five

I called Guy. Unsurprisingly, he was out.

I tried him again in the morning. No answer. On impulse I called the university, and

was informed by an uncomfortable-sounding secretary that Professor Snowden was in his

office. She put me through.

“Snowden,” Guy said, sounding weary.

“It’s Adrien,” I said. “I tried to call you last night, but –”

“I was out last night.”

He sounded like that was my fault.

I said, “Well, one good thing. It looks like the university has cleared you of

wrongdoing.”

“Hardly. I’m here to clear out my desk.”

I didn’t know what to say. Into the silence that followed his words, he said, “Look, I’ve

reason to believe that Peter lied to me. I don’t know if that matters anymore. Angus has been

released.”

“Do you know where Peter lives?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know how to ask. I was aware that Guy was torn over this apparent defection

by Peter Verlane. Assuming that Guy was on the level.

Instead I said, “Did you need help?”

He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

So I closed the shop and drove to UCLA. I found Guy in his office, surrounded by boxes

and stacks of books.