Chapter 23 #3
“You know I’ve heard my mom call Devin, Vinnie, before, but I thought it was a weird nickname De-Vin, you know. But if they kept calling my dad Jules, then it’s probably short for Vincent.”
“Those guys were murderers, though,” I say. “Who would want to be like them?”
“They were cool, Brandon. They had all those badass lines. A lot of girls wanted to be the Bride from Kill Bill, but that didn’t make them serial killers.” Spree killers, technically, I think, but don’t say out loud.
“I didn’t say they were murderers, just that they seemed to identify with them.”
I find an empty envelope on top of a stack of boxes and give it to Deja to put the photos in.
I turn back to the boxes, my subconscious nudging me to look for something my conscious mind missed.
There are two stacks of boxes. One, the one the envelope was on, has a thick layer of dust. The other is dusty, but not evenly or as thickly as the box next to it.
I move the dirty box onto the slightly less dirty box and see a fuse box.
I’m a little disappointed, but my brain is trying to help me again.
Something feels not right, and it takes some careful observation to put it together.
The handle of the fuse box looks shiny, the paint right under it rubbed off.
Someone has opened this box often. I beam my flashlight across the room to double-check, but I’m remembering correctly.
There is a much larger and newer fuse box over there, so what is this one for.
I pry it open easily to find a large metal lockbox jammed into a little alcove that’s been carved out of the wall.
My heart pounds with excitement. It’s about a foot long, maybe one or two inches more on one side, and four inches high.
It looks sturdy, but the padlock keeping it closed is flimsy.
It will be so easy to open I wouldn’t say it even qualifies as lock picking.
“What’s that?” Deja asks, shining her flashlight towards me.
“It was hidden in the wall. I don’t know what it is, but I’m really curious.”
“It’s probably a sex tape,” she jokes.
“Yuck,” I say, curling my lip in disgust.
“Why don’t you go ahead and order dinner,” I suggest. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
I rummage around until I find a small screwdriver and a paperclip.
With minimal effort I open the lock and look inside the box to find DVDs.
Each one is nestled in a jewel case and labeled with a letter and date.
There are ten or fifteen that say L and a date, all within a year of each other.
One says L and D and a date and the last four, the most recent one dated six years ago, has just D and a date.
I have no idea what these could be. I know people used to store data on these things.
Could this be evidence of some other scheme Devin was involved in? It’s not likely to be relevant to his current activities, but I still want to know what’s on them. My laptop doesn’t have a disc reader. I don’t know if they still make computers with those built in.
I text Anton requesting he intercept the surveillance cameras again even though he’s getting more and more impatient with me, I think this may be worth the risk of annoying him.
I pack the DVDs into an old kids backpack that might have been mine back in the day.
I lock the box and put it back in the wall, putting everything back the way it was.
On cursory inspection, everything looks untouched.
You can see my footprints in the dust, so I scuff them a bit and move one of the cardboard boxes, so it looks like I was standing there to search through it.
Once Deja confronts them about the pictures, they’ll think nothing of it.
While I wait for an acknowledgment from Anton, I type up a summary of what’s happened on my phone and send that to him as well.
Fortunately, Anton doesn’t keep me waiting long.
Once I get his go message, I leave the basement to find Deja.
She’s in the kitchen, staring out the back window.
I don’t like the crease forming between her eyebrows.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, but she looks sad and angry, the emotions seeming to battle each other on her face.
I see it when she turns to look at me, a silent yearning for this to go back to making sense.
I think she’s bothered more by the lying than by the discovery of a shared history between Devin and her parents.
For me it’s the opposite. I never expected honesty from Devin and Tanisha, so the question that’s plaguing me is whether this has something to do with Anton’s quest. No obvious connection comes to mind, but people don’t lie for no reason.
“Do you wanna go out?” I ask, tucking the backpack next to my leg where the cameras can’t see it. Anton’s guy could probably edit it out, but why chance it.
“Maybe. Where to?”
“Dinner. Did she leave enough cash for Olive Garden?”
She shrugs, scooping the money off the counter and jamming it into her pocket.
“I’m gonna change into a warmer coat and be right back.”
“That’s a great idea. I should do that too.”