Chapter Eighteen
Chapter
Eighteen
Wyatt, it turned out, was even more skilled at picking locks than Theo.
I had only a few seconds to admire the deft movements of his strong hands before he had the door open.
That was probably for the best, since my mind was tempted to stray into X-rated territory, imagining what else those skilled hands could do.
It’s the champagne, I lied to myself again. Blame it on the champagne.
I handed the tool case to Wyatt and slipped into the apartment, but not before glancing up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching.
It was a good thing that the Mirage didn’t have security cameras in the hallways.
In fact, the building had only two cameras, one in the lobby and one outside the rear door that led to the alley. I wasn’t even sure if they worked.
Wyatt followed me inside and quietly shut the door behind us.
My fingers tapped nervously against my leg, and I had to fight to still them.
Maybe it was for the best that Wyatt and I were working together—at least for now.
With two of us to share the task, the search would take half the time, and I definitely didn’t want to spend a second longer than necessary in Rosario’s apartment.
I really wasn’t good at breaking laws, or even rules.
Sure, I’d sneaked out of the house a few times as a teenager, but I’d always required a couple of swigs from Jemma’s flask of liquid courage before I could actually climb out the window, and that was only partly because I had a terrible fear of jumping from any height greater than about four feet.
Not that we’d ever jumped from the second-story window, just from the tree outside the window.
“So, who lives here, and why are they a suspect?” Wyatt asked in a low voice.
I gave him the lowdown on Rosario as I pulled on the purple disposable gloves I’d stashed in my clutch. Wyatt watched with what I thought might be respect. He, I observed, hadn’t come so prepared.
“What kind of pets does she have?” Wyatt asked, surveying the kitchen and living area. “I don’t see or hear any.”
“Huh,” I said. “I’m not actually sure. I’ve never seen her walking around with a dog or taking a cat to the vet or anything like that.” I slid open a kitchen drawer, took a peek inside, and shut it again.
Stopping in front of the combination fridge/freezer, I opened the fridge and studied the very ordinary contents. Would Rosario’s penchant for expensive ketchup tell me anything about her persona as a possible killer?
Doubtful.
I shut the fridge and yanked open the freezer.
I stumbled backward and slapped my hands over my mouth, suppressing a scream that instead came out as strangled garbling.
Wyatt was at my side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
Too horrified to form coherent words, I simply pointed at the freezer.
The door had drifted shut when I’d let go of it, so Wyatt opened it warily and got an eyeful of what had freaked me out.
Inside the freezer, between a pint of ice cream and a bag of peas, Rosario had a stash of frozen mice and lizards.
Wyatt seemed a little surprised, and maybe slightly disgusted, but he remained calm.
Me? Not so much.
I stumbled out of the kitchen and collapsed onto Rosario’s couch. “Is she a psychopath? A serial killer?”
“A serial rodent killer?” Wyatt shut the freezer.
“Those could be trophies.”
“She only kills owners of rodents and reptiles and freezes their pets as trophies?” He sounded more than a tad skeptical.
I shot to my feet. “Maybe! How would I know how a psychopath’s mind works?”
“Interesting…” Wyatt now stood with his back to me, staring at something on the living room floor, over by the wall.
My curiosity overrode my lingering disgust and my annoyance with Wyatt. When I reached his side, I saw what had caught his attention.
A hand-drawn portrait of Freddie lay on the floor, half hidden behind a credenza. It was a good likeness, done in pencil by a skilled hand. At least, that was the impression I got. It wasn’t easy to tell for sure, considering that holes had been pierced through his eyes and other parts of his face.
I raised my eyes to the dartboard hanging on the wall above the credenza. I tugged out one of the darts and picked up the paper. The point of the dart was a match for the size of the holes in the portrait. Someone had used Freddie’s picture for target practice.
“Well, that’s”—I struggled to find the right word—“freaky.”
“I’d agree with that assessment,” Wyatt said.
He took a picture of the dart-pierced portrait with his phone, prompting me to do the same before I set it back on the floor where we’d found it.
I realized that Theo would want pictures of the frozen mice and lizards too.
Not that I reported to a seventeen-year-old.
If she wanted photos of frozen dead things, she could break in and take them herself.
I imagined the scathing way she’d look at me when I didn’t supply her with photos of everything. I cast a sidelong glance at Wyatt, who was now searching the drawers of a nearby desk.
I absolutely could not ask him to take the frozen-dead-things photo for me.
You’re an independent woman, Emersyn, I told myself. You’re brave, not squeamish.
Or you can at least fake it till you make it.
I straightened my shoulders, mustered all my courage, and returned to the kitchen.
I got the freezer door open, but I couldn’t bring myself to look inside again.
Instead, I turned my head away and scrunched my eyes shut while I blindly snapped several photos.
Then I opened my eyes a crack to check the results on the screen without actually looking at the subject matter too closely.
Good enough, I decided with a shudder before I slammed the freezer door shut.
I spun around when Wyatt let out a low whistle.
He stood in the doorway to what I assumed was the bedroom. “I think I found the pets.”
He ventured across the threshold, and I crept after him, entering the dimly lit bedroom with cold apprehension slinking along my skin.
“Oh, this keeps getting better and better,” I said, fighting the urge to run screaming from the apartment.
Several large glass tanks lined the walls of Rosario’s purple-and-black-themed bedroom. Inside each tank was a snake with red, black, and yellow stripes. The biggest was maybe a little less than two feet long. Still, that was two feet too long for me.
I took a step back. “Are those things deadly?”
Wyatt moved closer to the tanks to study their reptilian occupants.
I, however, stayed put. Although I didn’t suffer from ophidiophobia, I didn’t exactly love reptiles and felt no particular urge to get up close and personal with them.
Besides, I had to put a hand to the doorframe to hold myself steady.
I was feeling a little wobbly all of a sudden, and it didn’t have anything to do with the champagne.
No, it had everything to do with the fact that I was now imagining one of Rosario’s snakes escaping, slithering its way through the building, and harming my sweet, beautiful niece.
I’d once read a news story about a child getting crushed to death by a boa constrictor. And what if these things were venomous?
I clutched the doorframe harder, worried I might be about to lose my profiteroles all over Rosario’s parquet floor.
“Well, are they?” I prodded, desperate for him to respond.
He took a close look at the last snake and shook his head. “Nothing to worry about. They’re harmless.”
“How can you be sure?” I demanded, not at all ready to simply trust his word. “They’re so…”
“Scary looking?” Wyatt finished for me. “They do look similar to coral snakes, but these guys are scarlet kingsnakes. They aren’t venomous, and they’re harmless to humans.”
I would have sagged against the doorframe with relief, but I wasn’t keen to show any further signs of weakness in front of Wyatt.
“Are you a closet herpetologist?” I asked.
He laughed. “I went through a snake-crazy phase in my teens. Anyway, this explains the frozen mice and skinks in the freezer.”
I released my grip on the doorframe and wiggled my fingers to get the feeling back into them. “Snake food?”
He nodded.
I backed out of the bedroom, so ready to be done with this whole search thing. I’d had enough surprises and adventure for one day. Probably for the entire year.
But, of course, the universe disagreed with me.
Wyatt had just joined me in the living room when we heard voices outside the apartment door.