Chapter 24 Tallus
Tallus
Diem went to meet Aslan for his nine o’clock meeting, leaving me alone with Darcy. The kid planted himself on the couch and was about to turn on the TV.
“Nope. Don’t get comfortable. We’re going out.”
“What do you mean?” Why was he so whiny?
“Your employer owns several properties. Not all of them are in the city, but a few are close enough that I’d like to check them out. One in particular is in Mississauga. Didn’t you say he took you to Mississauga last night?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, aren’t you curious?”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Diem?”
“I just want to look around. We can visit a few locations and report back with our findings. Plus, my research told me Luke owns a seven-million-dollar house on Old Forest Hill Road, but his driver’s license put his home address as a penthouse in the Eglinton Park area.
I’m curious where he spends his time. A little recon is in order.
If you don’t want to join me, I can drop you off at home. ”
“You can’t.” Sudden panic flared in his eyes.
“Well, you’re not staying here unsupervised. Diem might trust you, but I don’t.”
“Diem said I can’t go home. It’s not safe.”
“Then I guess you’re coming with me. Get your coat and shoes on. We’re leaving.”
“I lost my coat.”
Gritting my teeth, I found an old one of mine for him to borrow.
It took a thousand years to commute in Toronto traffic at rush hour. The congestion was so thick that we moved at a snail’s pace. Darcy didn’t say much, which was nice. He leaned his head against the window and watched the world go by, radiating teenage glumness.
As I drove, Memphis called. We typically connected daily to share about shopping deals, Hollywood gossip, and chat about our favorite TV shows. Lately, conversation was all about the new boy toy Joshua.
Since I was driving, I put the call on speaker.
When Memphis detailed his recent exploits with his sexy new boyfriend, I didn’t stop him or tell him I had judgmental company.
He happily shared about the copious dick sucking and ass fucking that had gone on the previous night.
In typical Memphis fashion, his delivery oozed flair.
Darcy shrank in his seat, drawing the hood of his hoodie and pulling the strings so tight only his nose poked out the hole like it might somehow eliminate sound. It was so juvenile.
An evil voice in the back of my head told me I was equally juvenile, and Diem wouldn’t approve, but I couldn’t help it. Darcy rubbed me the wrong way.
By the time we arrived at Lukyan’s seven-million-dollar mansion, shame sat heavily on my lap. Darcy looked as miserable as I felt. Since when had I become petty? The kid was nineteen, for fuck’s sake. I was twenty-nine. He had a reason to be moody. I didn’t.
So what if Diem paid attention to someone else.
It wasn’t even romantic attention.
God, I was pathetic.
I parked on the opposite side of the road from the mansion, wanting to apologize to Darcy but unable to admit I might have been out of line… or that I was jealous.
Instead, hoping to break the tension, I whistled as I sized up the property. “Not Hollywood Hills fancy, but I’d live here.”
Darcy shed the hood like Baby did her skin, and glowered. “You’re so gay.”
I sighed and prayed for strength. “Listen, kid. You’re beating a dead horse. It’s 2026. Make peace with it.”
“Yeah, but… What I mean is, you act gay.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was not a walking stereotype. Even if I was, who cared? Memphis and I together tended to be… effusive, but that didn’t excuse Darcy’s commentary.
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Diem doesn’t act gay.”
“Except he is, Darcy. He’s as gay as me. Maybe you need to stop judging people by the way they look and talk and act.”
“You do it.”
“Do what?”
“Judge people.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You judge me.”
“That’s different. I’m judging your pissy attitude and petulant behavior, not your sexuality. And for the record, every time you make those comments, you sound homophobic.”
“I’m not.”
This was a battle I wasn’t in the mood to fight.
Instead of arguing in circles, I turned back to the three-story white stone mansion across the street.
It sat on a slight rise with generous windows, a multi-peaked roof, an arched French-door entrance, and a winding flagstone path that passed through raised garden beds still in winter slumber.
A mature maple stood sentry on the front lawn.
During the summer, it would provide decent shade.
In March, the buds had only begun to form.
The sun reflected off the windowpanes, making it impossible to see inside, but for no logical reason at all, I sensed no one was home. The house had a vacant feel about it, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.
My attention moved to the sloped driveway that ended at the door to a lower-level, single-car garage. Without blueprints, I couldn’t determine how big the space beyond was, but it was hard to believe it would accommodate the man’s four luxury vehicles.
“Why are we just sitting here?” Darcy asked.
“I’m thinking.” And because I was sick of butting heads with the brat, I shared my thoughts aloud, hoping it would win me points or steer us in a new direction.
“This is Lukyan’s biggest personal property.
The other being his penthouse in Eglinton Park.
Otherwise, he owns investment properties.
Commercial plots and buildings he’s remodeling.
I did research this morning and learned he owns four luxury vehicles and a boat. ”
Darcy pffed. “Must be nice.”
“Right? He rents dry storage at a marina, so that would be where he keeps the boat when it’s not in the water, but what is he doing with his four fancy cars?”
I motioned to the garage. “He can store one here. Two, if the space beyond is accommodating, but I highly doubt it. Most condos, including high-priced ones with penthouses, would include an underground parking spot for a fee. He could perhaps pay for two slots, but I somehow doubt the owners would allow more. Even so, who in their right mind would park multiple vehicles all worth more than one hundred thousand dollars in a publicly accessible lot? Even if the building had decent security and restricted access to residents.”
“No one.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe he leaves them at one of his investment properties?”
I considered. “Not a bad thought. Let’s see.”
I reached into the back seat for the iPad and my notebook. Darcy leaned over the middle console as I searched Lukyan’s properties one at a time. I wanted to drive around to each, but this would tell me where to begin.
First, I studied the overhead satellite view to get a feel for the buildings in question, then I switched to a street view and examined their exteriors.
None of them yielded the results I was hoping for.
“What kind of cars does he have?” Darcy had dropped the attitude and seemed genuinely interested.
“The Bentley, which he drove when he picked you up last night. A Maserati, a Jag, and an Aston Martin.”
“Fuck. That guy must have a small dick.”
A laugh burst out of me unexpectedly. “A fine assessment. We can ask him the next time we see him.”
Darcy smiled for the first time, and the hostility between us came down a few degrees.
“He’s definitely compensating for something,” I added. “Should we move on?”
“Yeah.”
We drove to Lukyan’s penthouse but couldn’t access the underground car park in the Jetta without a permit, so we parked a few blocks away and walked past the barricades, avoiding the security booth.
After passing among rows and rows of cars and trucks, we concluded that Lukyan’s luxury vehicles were not there.
Although the Google searches hadn’t been promising, we aimed for the closest of his investment properties.
“What kind of meeting did Diem have?” Darcy asked when we were halfway to Mississauga.
Although sharing was a breach in confidentiality, I knew Diem wouldn’t care if Darcy knew, especially since he had wanted to drag him along. “AA.”
“Oh.”
“He wanted to bring you.”
“I’m not an addict.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t label people, Darcy. If you say you aren’t. You aren’t.”
Strangely, he didn’t seem happy with my nonchalant dismissal.
The property in Mississauga was a bust. The site was under construction but empty of workers on the weekend.
No secure parking structure anywhere. I wanted to get out and circle the building.
Peek in the ground-floor windows, check the security.
If Lukyan was running a huge scam operation, it would require an accumulation of data.
What if Lukyan used the site for other means?
Where would he keep documents? Would he trust digital records over paper?
Did he have staff? If the scale of this scam was as big as I suspected, proof would exist. I needed to find it and hand it over to the police.
Where had he been taking Darcy the previous night? Not here. He didn’t have any lakeside properties that I saw, but Darcy claimed they had been traveling along the lake.
I checked the time on the dashboard. “Diem will be home soon. How about we call a timeout for now and see what he thinks.”
Darcy didn’t respond. His entire body had gone stiff, and his attention was stuck somewhere in the distance. I followed his gaze to a U-Stor a block and a half away, where a familiar Bentley pulled into the street.