Chapter 20 #2
“Do you think it’s possible that David first met Heidi”—he wasn’t ready to reveal that she was likely born Holly Pritchard quite yet—“as early as 1977? She would have been sixteen or so.”
While he waited for Claribel to answer, Gabe tucked the phone under his ear, stacked up the notebooks, and slipped into his Crocs.
Then he took the books and his laptop out to his car and tucked them under the back seat.
Paranoid much? Perhaps. But he still thought someone had been in his house on Monday, and if that was the case, the notebooks might be safer if he stored them at Casey’s or Elton’s.
Claribel snorted. “Sixteen years old? Of course, it’s possible.
He often preferred younger girls, the asshole.
Probably because they fell for his line of bullshit.
Older, more experienced women were more likely to see him for who and what he was, a damn predator.
The more I learn about him, the more disgusted I am. ”
That made sense, although Gabe was disturbed to think that his sperm donor was a predator. Just as he was about to say something, a spatter of raindrops splashed against his face.
He hurried back inside, saying as he did so, “Do you think he could have been involved in an art theft?”
Shutting the door against the coming storm, Gabe was thinking about Heidi’s scribbles.
I got the job and found the door. Was it possible that she had worked at the 201 Gallery and was part of the theft?
What about Carla Pritchard? Where did she fit in with all of this?
Had this Carla person—a possible relative—gotten Heidi a job at the gallery or had Heidi worked somewhere else?
Then the most important question of all, what had happened to the artwork?
Heidi and Gabe certainly hadn’t lived a life of luxury.
He’d done a quick search on Martin Crevan, and even his sketches were worth thousands these days.
The Heidi he knew wouldn’t have let that kind of income get away from her.
And… what kind of business had a secret door anyway?
Apparently, the kind located in a one-hundred-year-old building in Westfort, Washington.
“David?” Claribel sounded thoughtful, and Gabe wished he could see her face. “Why not? He was involved with problematic moneybags people and set fire to his own property for the insurance. Seems to me that art theft is just a hop, skip, and a jump from that. Why do you ask?”
Gabe kicked off his shoes and plopped down on the couch. “It’s a long story, and I don’t know the end of it yet. Conceivably, there’s stolen art involved, but that could just be me projecting.”
It nagged at him that he’d only found the single story about the paintings taken from the 201 Gallery.
Crevan was a big artist, big enough that the theft should have been a huge deal.
What had really happened? They’d probably never learn the whole story.
If Gabe hadn’t witnessed his mother coolly removing paintings from an art gallery in Laguna Beach all those years ago, he might not have stopped scrolling.
But he had, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Stolen art is certainly a possibility. The asshole was always on the prowl for his next big scheme. But if he was involved, I don’t know if he ever reaped any benefits.
Certainly not an influx of cash. He was quick to brag when that happened.
” Gabe thought he heard a gagging sound on Claribel’s part.
Good grifters don’t brag. They take the money and move on.
“If I learn anything worthwhile, I’ll fill you in,” Gabe promised.
“See that you do, young man. Keep me updated and let Shay know if the situation changes. I need to get back to my bingo card.”
Young man. Gabe snorted. He had to admit that he enjoyed Claribel’s roguish outlook on life.
“Enjoy fleecing your friends!”
There was dead air for a moment and then Shay was back. “Do you need one of us to come down to Heartstone and throw our weight around for any reason?” he asked.
Fuck no. The last thing Gabe needed was Shay and Claribel showing up and sticking their noses into whatever was going on. He was fond of Claribel, but from afar. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or something like that.
“Jesus Christ, no. I’ve got enough people minding my business. Not to sound ungrateful or anything.”
Shay laughed. “I don’t know, I might agree with Claribel on this one. You’ve been on your own for too long, it’s time you let family give you a hand. Heartstone is just a hop and a skip these days.”
Gabe’s phone beeped, letting him know someone else was calling. Glancing at the screen, he saw it was Elton.
“I gotta go, there’s someone pinging me.”
“Sure there is. We’ll talk later.”
Did Shay practice sounding ominous in the mirror on a daily basis? Filing that thought away for later, Gabe quickly pressed Accept.
“Elton, what’s up?”
“Calling to let you know I asked around at the boat shed yesterday.”
“And? Did you learn anything new? Did any of the old codgers think they might have known a Holly Pritchard?”
“No,” Elton said. “No one remembered the name. I could go back with a copy of the page from her yearbook with her picture and show it around.”
That wasn’t a bad idea at all, except Gabe hadn’t told Elton that the mystery girl had been found dead, although Althea had likely said something to him.
Instead, Gabe asked, “Did you ever hear about an art robbery? Summer of seventy-eight, an art gallery in Westfort was robbed and several paintings went missing.”
“No, but we didn’t have the internet following us around back in those days, recording everything sunrise to sunset. And like I said a while back, Heartstone and Westfort don’t feel as geographically separated now as they did back then. Do you think Heidi had something to do with the robbery?”
“Honestly, I haven’t found much information on it, just the one article.
There’s no smoking gun proving she was involved, but it seems odd.
However, the employee who was quoted in the paper was a Carla Pritchard, which only adds to my suspicions.
Maybe a sister, an aunt, her mother? I’ll need to head back to County Records now that I have another name. ”
“Pritchard again? The only Pritchard I know of is Denny, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen him that I’d almost forgotten about him. He’s older than me and lives up The Valley, ornery old mountain man.”
Gabe mulled this information over for a moment, adding it to what little he knew and trying to come up with a plausible connection.
When the plausible fails, turn to the implausible, Chance.
“Did you hear that a body was found?” Gabe asked, changing the subject to something even more grim.
“Yep. Police scanner,” Elton reminded him.
Ah yes, he would have learned about the body from his scanner, Althea didn’t have to tell him.
Yes, because everyone but Gabe, and perhaps Casey, had a scanner and knew just about every emergency or infraction before Gabe did. Most likely, Casey did have one; Gabe had never had a reason to ask him about it.
“Right. Did you also hear that it’s an as yet unidentified young woman?”
“Yep, that too. Why?”
“Well, what I do know is that the body belongs to that woman. The one who showed up Monday afternoon claiming to be my daughter.”
There was a long pause before Elton responded. “This is not good, Gabe. Not good at all,” he finally said.
“Yeah.” Gabe had to agree. “I was at the Sheriff’s Office answering questions for a little while yesterday because the only thing they found on her was some piece of paper with my name and address on it. Did Althea tell you any of this?”
“She doesn’t talk much about work. If Deputy Eagan told her not to say anything, she’d have kept her mouth shut.”
“That makes sense.”
Neither spoke for a moment. Gabe’s brain was working overtime trying to piece this last puzzle of Heidi’s together. He and Elton needed to visit this Denny Pritchard person together and ask him a few questions. Denny Pritchard could be the key. What if he was Heidi’s father?
Finally, Elton said, “How about you and Casey come over for dinner? I picked up some chicken noodle soup. It’s a big container.”
“Sure thing. I’m happy not to cook. Casey said he’d be by, and I planned on inviting myself over to his anyway.” Gabe looked at his phone and saw it was after six.
Crap, he’d lost track of time. Where was Casey?
Shouldn’t he have been back from his field trip by now?
“We’ll be by later, around seven? We can lay out this new information, maybe come up with an idea or five.
I’m going to bring the notebooks with me.
I found some possibly interesting comments in one of them. ”
Gabe quickly punched in Casey’s cell number, but it went straight to voicemail. The likely answer was that he was in a dead zone. With a frustrated grumble, he tossed his phone down next to him.
Since he needed to do something that was not just sitting around waiting for Casey to show up, and pacing hadn’t done the job, Gabe hopped up, shoved his feet into his boots, and pulled on a jacket.
Grabbing his keys off the hook—thank you, Casey—he headed out the door. Sometimes just aimlessly driving helped him think more clearly.
Maybe if he’d been paying attention to his surroundings, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard. But he wasn’t paying attention, he was thinking about The Current Fuckery.
About Casey, where was he? About a dead girl, who was she really? And an added nutty topping of What The Fuck had his mother been involved in all those years ago that made her flee her home and change her name?
He wasn’t thinking about being ambushed.
Stepping outside, he turned to push the door shut and was ready to slide the key into the lock when a shuffling sound caught his attention. The scuff of a boot against gravel? Gabe twisted to see what the cause was.
A hooded figure, the lower part of their face covered, had slipped out from the darker shadows to Gabe’s right.
They’d been waiting for him, hiding around the side of the house.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed. “What do you want?”
He hadn’t seen a vehicle, so Dark Hood had arrived on foot or parked elsewhere, just like the shooter the other night had. “Are you the asshole who took a shot at me?”
An unyielding object slammed against the side of Gabe’s head.
“The fuck.” All Gabe could do was try and breathe through the pain. He was seeing stars, which wasn’t good.
Dark Hood rushed him, and Gabe instinctively raised both arms to protect his head; he was already doubled over from the pain. Fuck. Someone from behind him walloped him a second time, and Gabe’s world went black. His last thought before losing consciousness was that Casey had a point.
He was, in fact, breakable.