CHAPTER TWENTY #3
As I schooled my features into an expression that I hoped read friendly, I slid my identification back into my pocket and said, “I was hoping you could help me with a case I'm working. A man was brought here twenty years ago. You—the funeral home—handled his services.”
With a deep breath, he lifted his head and brought the cigarette to his lips for a puff, then stopped and met my eye with a raised brow. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
I shook my head. “Go ahead,” I said, eyeing the thin white cylinder in his hand. “Actually, would you mind if I bummed one off of you?”
“Not at all,” he said, then slipped the cigarette between his lips and held it there while his hand tucked between the lapels of his suit jacket and produced a pack of smokes and a lighter. “Be my guest.”
He flipped the pack open and offered it to me. I selected one and held it to my mouth as he flicked the lighter, bringing it up to set the end of the cigarette alight.
“Thanks, man,” I said, taking a pull and relishing in the taste I often missed but never gave in to. I wouldn't have now, but I wanted … no, needed this guy to trust me and to stop questioning my motives.
Even if I didn't quite trust him.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Damn, that's good,” I muttered. “Been a long time since I've had one of these.”
“A long time,” he mused beneath his breath. “You're, what, twenty-three? How long could it have possibly been?”
I laughed. “Twenty-six. But I quit when I started at the academy, and that was … God, five, six years ago, I guess?”
I was divulging a little information, but nothing he wouldn't have known already from looking at my ID.
He grunted with acknowledgment, slowly nodding as he took a long drag, then sent the smoke swirling to disappear beneath the cover of rain.
“Twenty years ago,” he muttered, returning to my inquiry. He exhaled again. “I'm not sure we have those records. You'll probably have to speak to my associate. He's more involved in keeping the books than I am.”
I hummed with a nod, pulling the cigarette away from my lips and emptying my lungs. “What do you do around here, … sorry, I don't think I caught your name.”
He slid his gaze toward mine, and I noticed the scar slicing through his left brow.
It went past his eye—but barely—and disappeared into the layer of stubble on his cheek.
It was jagged and ugly, likely caused from an even uglier injury.
Dad had a scar on his cheek, too, but his had come from protecting Mom an entire lifetime ago, before his time in prison, before he came to River Canyon.
Somehow, I wasn't sure this man had acquired his from protecting someone.
Somehow, I wasn't sure he was capable of protecting anyone at all.
Somehow, I knew it was him people needed to be protected from.
A shiver ran up my spine, and I had to remind myself that I didn't know this guy. For all I knew, he'd gotten that big, nasty scar from an unfortunate mishap on a playground when he was a kid.
But I doubted it.
“Abraham,” he said, holding my gaze. He nudged his head toward the door of the old Victorian. “I own this place.”
“So, you're a funeral director?”
“Yes,” he answered simply.
“How long have you been in the business?”
A low sound of contemplation rumbled through his chest as he slowly brought the cigarette to his mouth. His eyes moved toward the parking lot, looking out, as if to gaze into the past.
Then he said, “I guess it's been … huh, twenty-six, twenty-seven years now.” He glanced at me sidelong and added, “About as long as you've been alive, Officer Noah Mason.”
That comment. His tone and the way he looked at me with malice glinting in his steely eyes.
It took me aback, made the breath in my lungs stutter. Made me take half a step backward before I could catch myself.
“What do you, um … do around here?” I asked, regaining control over my composure.
I held the cigarette between my lips as I pulled a notepad and pen from my pocket.
If Abraham had noticed my minor slipup, he didn't let on. Instead, he returned his gaze to the parking lot and said, “A little bit of everything.”
“But you don't keep the records?” I asked as I scribbled down the few bits of information I'd learned about him.
Abraham.
Forties.
Funeral director.
Freaky as fuck, but wouldn't trust Meg to not drool in his presence.
“I don't handle paperwork. My associate does that. Shawn.”
“Shawn. Is he around today?”
“He's always around.”
I swallowed at his tone. “Would it be all right if I spoke to him?”
He shrugged as he took another puff, then leaned over to crush the remaining cigarette out in a planter housing dirt and about a thousand old butts.
Then, without another word, he began to walk toward the back door of the house, holding it open and waiting for me to follow with a warning glare.
I stamped my cigarette out and left it with the others in the planter slash ashtray as I frantically questioned if I should follow him or not.
My gun was in the car, and all I had on me for protection was a cell phone and a pocketknife.
I could put up a reasonable fight if things happened to go awry, but this man had several inches and about thirty pounds of muscle on me—and that was just him.
Who the hell knew what this Shawn looked like?
What if there are more guys in there as big as Abraham?
I didn't have backup. Nobody but Meg knew I was here. Fuck. Suddenly, this entire plan seemed stupid and harebrained, and I had no idea—absolutely no fucking idea—what I was getting myself into.
Yet … despite every iota of intuition telling me to excuse myself and leave … I followed him and went inside.