Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
GABE – THURSDAY MORNING
“I’m heading out,” Casey announced as he walked out of the bedroom.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe saw him grab his empty cup and carry it into the kitchen.
The water turned on, and Gabe knew he was rinsing the cup out and setting it in the dish rack.
Casey was much tidier than Gabe, who just stacked dishes in the sink during the day and washed them all at night.
Sometimes Gabe wondered if Casey was bothered by his messier habits, if this was going to be a sticking point if—when—they moved in together.
He looked up from the laptop and frowned. Casey had put a shirt on, dammit. His sexy, bare chest was always a pleasure.
“Alright,” Gabe said, instead of complaining about the need for clothing when one had a real job.
“I’m going to keep at this for a while longer, then I’ll give Elton a call and see if he learned anything interesting yesterday.
So far, the big news I’m finding is Ted Bundy’s second arrest, but that was in Florida, and I doubt Heidi had anything to do with it anyway.
She was more likely to have been a victim. ”
Coming back around the kitchen counter, Casey stopped in front of him, gently looming.
Gabe dragged his gaze up Casey’s body and decided for the hundredth time that his well-filled-out ranger uniform was as good as a sexy, naked chest. A happy sigh escaped him.
There was almost nothing better than his man in uniform.
“If Heidi or her”—Casey seemed to be picking his words carefully—“relations were generally on the wrong side of the law, maybe that was an inciting factor? At the very least, I think we can assume she ran away from home. Since she may have been a minor, those records might not be readily available. I don’t even know where you’d look. Maybe call the Westfort police?”
“Yeah, nope.” Gabe set his laptop to the side and rose to his feet. “Anyway, have a great day at work, honey. Make good choices.” The last bit he chanted, his voice pitched higher than normal.
Casey snorted, and Gabe leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips.
“I feel like I’m the one who should be reminding you to make the good choices.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gabe said absently as he sat back down and returned his attention to the search.
Once Casey and Bowie had departed, the house was quiet, and Gabe wasn’t sure he liked it that way.
After a lifetime of moving around with Heidi and then living by himself for the most part, he was realizing how much he enjoyed companionship, how much he just plain liked Casey Lundin.
What he felt was more than like, but he wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud.
Three coffees and one trip to the bathroom later, Gabe abruptly stopped typing and stared at the screen. “What do we have here?”
At Casey’s suggestion, he’d logged in to the public library site. After a steep learning curve, he had eventually figured out how to search the electronic archives. He also had developed an even healthier respect for librarians and archivists.
Keith, who’d curled up next to him to use Gabe as her personal heater after her breakfast, did not have an answer for him. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all.
Westfort, WA., August 2 (AP) – No Arrests In Local Gallery Art Heist.
The newspaper article wasn’t even on the top of the page.
He’d almost missed it because Gabe’s eyes had started to water, and, frankly, his search for something interesting during the late 1970s had begun to feel futile.
But then, there it was, the kind of news he’d been looking for, just below the fold on the front page.
The 201 Gallery, at 201 Water Street in downtown Westfort, was broken into sometime over the busy summer weekend, and several valuable paintings stolen.
“We don’t know how the thieves got in,” gallery employee Carla Pritchard attested. “We locked up after close on Sunday evening, and they were just gone when we came back Tuesday.”
Noting the name of Pritchard, Gabe scanned the short article. The exhaustion he’d felt from getting up before 4 a.m. evaporated.
The paintings were the creation of world-famous Pacific Northwest-born artist Martin Crevan.
Brilliantly talented, Crevan is best known for his moody landscapes that ask the observer to question man’s purpose on earth and in the universe in general.
Crevan is also known for his artistic female nudes.
Notable for being part of the Lost Generation of Paris expatriates in the 1920s, Crevan was an associate of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Modigliani, among others.
“Could this guy be more pretentious? Barf.”
Crevan, eighty-five, could not be reached for comment.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen in our little town,” Police Chief E. Jackson told the Gazette. “We’re asking that anyone with information please step forward.”
As if. In the real world, thieves did not step forward and admit to their crimes.
The 201 Gallery is widely known for hosting some of the more famous artists who live in our midst, and Martin Crevan is one of our own. “This is a tragedy,” said one local artist. “Who can we trust? How did this happen?”
When asked if they had any suspects, Chief Jackson confirmed that they did not have anyone in custody or any clues. “As for a motive, we imagine it is nothing more than greed and money. The paintings will likely be sold on the black market and never again be seen by the public.”
Gabe sat back. “Huh.” Then he did a quick search and was not at all surprised to find there was no longer an art gallery or any shop in Westfort called the 201 Gallery. Also, as far as he could discover, there was no follow-up story mentioning any recovery of the artwork.
“Huh,” Gabe repeated. But also, so what?
Maybe this Carla Pritchard was related to Heidi, but the theft had happened almost fifty years ago. Carla could be dead by now. She could have changed her name. Gabe briefly shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead. This search was giving him a headache.
What business was at 201 now? Gabe typed in the address and was rewarded with Windward Kite Shop. His phone chose that moment to vibrate against the coffee table, alerting him to an incoming call. His heart skipped what felt like several beats. Snatching it up, he saw that it was Casey.
“What?”
“Did you call the Sheriff’s Office and let them know about the shooting? Don’t think I didn’t notice that you distracted me from doing so last night.”
Gabe didn’t tell Casey that he’d never intended to call Eagan.
Involving law enforcement in his life was not on the top of his to-do list, wouldn’t even make an appearance on page two.
There would be questions he didn’t have the answers to and no reason to think that TCSO would have better ideas. Best not to include them at all.
It could even be that the gunman had been Dirty Socks Randy. Maybe, like Juliet Carter, Randy had figured out who Gabe was and where he lived and had decided to pay him a revenge visit.
“No, I haven’t. What difference is it going to make at this point? It’s not as if the guy hung around.”
“Make. The. Call.”
Gabe smiled at the gravelly, demanding tone. It was nice to know that someone cared.
Still didn’t want to call in the cops though.
“Casey, seriously, why bother?”
Casey seemed to hesitate before answering him. “If something else happens, if you continue to be harassed, they’ll have a record of the instances.”
“Me, Gabriel Karne, call the police, sheriff, whatever? I don’t think so.” At this point, he was arguing for the sake of it. And to keep Casey on the phone with him a little longer. The house felt too quiet without him there.
“Too bad for you.” Casey sounded smug now. “I called them a few minutes ago when I figured out that you weren’t planning on it. One of the deputies will be out to take pictures and talk to you later today. And no, I’m not sorry about it.”
Well, at least that was cleared up. Casey had already called TCSO and had no regrets. Nice. That was a very Gabriel Karne move of him, act and ask forgiveness later.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah, but hey, check this out. I found an article about an art gallery heist that happened in late July of 1978. And guess what? As an aside, heist is one of my favorite words.”
“Of course it is. What am I supposed to guess?”
“One of the employees was named Carla Pritchard.”
“Pritchard?”
“Yep,” Gabe said, his tone smug.
“So what’s the next step going to be?”
“As far as I can tell, there’s no other mention of the theft. So next up is searching for Carla Pritchard. And, duh, I need to see if I can get a hold of Holly Pritchard’s birth certificate. The issue, of course, is that I’m still not sure which year she was born in.”
“Be careful, Gabriel. You seem to have ruffled a lot of feathers this week, and it’s only Thursday morning. Personally, I like you best in one piece.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Why do I feel like you’re saying that just to appease me?”
Gabe sighed and stared at the ceiling. “Okay, I will try to be careful, but obviously, I can’t make any guarantees.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Casey said quietly.
“It’s the best I can do, Ranger Man.”
Casey paused for so long that Gabe checked his cell phone’s screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “At least send a text if you decide to head into Westfort today or talk to anyone in person.”
“I can do that.”
“You mean a lot to me, Gabriel. And I’d like you to stay alive and in one piece.”
“Yeah—”
There was a knock at the door, followed by a voice saying, “It’s Deputy Eagan.”
“Look, I gotta go, Eagan’s is here already.”
“Take care and talk soon. And don’t forget to give Elton a call.”
Making a mental note to talk to Elton, Gabe closed the lid to his laptop and set it on the coffee table, then walked over to the front door to let Bree Eagan inside, narrowly missing Keith as she ran to the bedroom once again.