Chapter 23 #2
Elton shook his head. “Hard to tell. Could be from a deer.”
A deer, yes. He should have thought of that too.
They looked around inside the house but didn’t notice anything that Casey and the responding deputies hadn’t seen last night. The house was trashed, the boxes were still missing, and Gabriel was not there. Alfred glowered at them, entirely out of place in Gabe’s minimalist—his word—living room.
“Oh, Gabe is not going to be happy about the coffee maker,” Elton commented, noting the machine had been shoved onto the floor and maybe stomped on.
Casey stared down the remains of what had been Gabe’s pride and joy. “Yeah, not happy at all.”
Casey headed back outside. Gabe’s house was small, the whole search had taken them maybe fifteen minutes tops, but he couldn’t be there any longer. Not without Gabe.
Gabe was bigger than life—which Casey’d thought was one of the stupidest sayings he’d ever heard until he met him. Life was fucking huge, how could a human being be bigger than life itself?
And then Gabriel Karne materialized in living color, exploding Casey’s preconceived notions, filling in every bit of space in his vicinity. Demanding Casey’s attention. Courting him—fucking wooing him. Charming Casey, of all people.
The rock that had been squatting in the pit of his stomach since the night before morphed into a boulder, making it difficult to breathe.
He’d gone from being perfectly happy on his own to accepting Gabriel Karne into his life.
To loving the whole package.
“Dammit.”
It was mildly irritating to fully realize you love someone when they’re not around so you can’t tell them. And now he didn’t know if he’d get the chance.
“Stop it.”
Casey snapped out of his thoughts. “Stop what?”
“Stop catastrophizing in that head of yours. It won’t help us figure out what the hell is going on. Come on, let’s get out of here before a neighbor decides to talk to us.” Elton stomped out the door and back to the car.
“Nice bedside manner you have,” Casey called to his back as he shut the door behind him. “Very comforting. I feel much better now.”
Elton didn’t even turn around. “You don’t need kid gloves.”
Casey automatically glanced inside Gabe’s car as he eased between the Wagoneer and the Honda to reach his door. Had anyone checked it last night? He couldn’t remember. Reaching down, he tugged the handle of the passenger door, and it opened easily.
“I’m just going to see if there’s anything in his car,” Casey said.
Unlike his home, Gabe kept his car tidy, no empty to-go cups or crumpled fast food bags littering the floors. Because Bowie rarely rode in it, there was no dog hair either.
A spiral-bound detailed Washington State map was tucked between the driver’s seat and the center console, and a few random coins were in one of those holders that never fit anything useful. Why did car manufacturers bother?
Casey moved to the back but didn’t see anything of note at first glance, then swiped a hand underneath the seat.
He wasn’t expecting to find much, and it wasn’t as if Gabriel himself would fit in the small space, but his gut told him to be as thorough as possible right now.
Thus he was shocked when his fingers bumped against something cold, something that was not the floor rug.
“What have you found?” Elton demanded.
“Jesus, Elton, scare the shit out of me, why don’t you?” Casey straightened, cradling his find in his hands. “Gabe’s laptop. Here, hold it while I check under the other seat.”
Leaning across the back of the car, Casey shoved a hand under the driver’s side back seat and pulled out several decades-old spiral notebooks, protected by a plastic bag. Heidi’s notebooks.
“Why are these in his car?” Casey wondered.
“Remember? You two were coming over for dinner last night. Maybe he was getting ready to leave. We’ll ask when we find him.”
Casey had to appreciate Elton’s certainty. Gabe was coming back, and Elton wasn’t considering other options.
They’d been back at Elton’s just long to fire up more coffee—Elton’s words—and for Casey to get as comfortable as was possible on his sofa in preparation to dive into Heidi Karne’s past. The spiral-bound books waited for them on Elton’s puzzle table, along with the laptop.
For now, the laptop was going to remain powered off. Casey didn’t know what the password was and risking being locked out of it seemed foolish. Plus, he still hoped that Gabe would show up soon and they wouldn’t have to break into the thing.
Casey had just picked up one of the notebooks when there were several sharp knocks against the front door. Bowie leaped to his feet and began barking.
Rising to his feet, Casey glanced out the window. A glossy black SUV was parked behind Elton’s truck. It was a big vehicle, with capacity for at least seven passengers.
“Expecting someone who owns a Lincoln Navigator?” Casey asked. “Bowie, quiet.” Bowie stopped barking but not before he got one last snarl in.
“Nope. Pretty darn early for visitors though.” Elton started to stand up.
“I’ll get it.” Casey cut past Elton and his chair to check out the window again. A man who wasn’t Gabe but looked a great deal like him waited on the stoop.
What the hell was Shay Delacombe doing on Elton’s front porch at this time of day?
“It’s Shay Delacombe,” he told Elton. “What do you wanna bet Claribel is in the car?” He couldn’t really see through the tinted windows, but there appeared to be a diminutive figure waiting in the front seat.
“Might as well open the door, then. Claribel’s released her flying monkeys.”
“I heard that,” Shay said with a sardonic grin as he stepped across the threshold. “I have to say, I’ve never been called a flying monkey before. At least, not to my face.”
“Why are you here?” Casey demanded.
“Gabe called yesterday.” Shay waved a hand that included the Navigator. “We both thought it sounded like he could use a hand. Claribel tried calling him several times last night, there was no answer, so here we are. Would have come last night, but the rain.”
Casey appreciated that Shay was making it sound like Claribel was the one worried, that Shay was merely tagging along.
“Claribel is in the car?”
Shay nodded.
“If we tell you that we have everything under control, you won’t just go away, will you?”
“Nope. We drove by his place on our way here, it looked like there was a break-in. You try getting the old woman to leave now.”
“Let ’em in,” said Elton. “Might as well.”
“Actually, Claribel had me rent a house last night in preparation. It’s on the backside of the island.
Fair warning, Claribel is calling it a command center.
It’s large enough that we’ll all be comfortable there.
” Shay rattled off an address that Casey recognized as being close to Greta and Abby’s place.
Casey resisted rolling his eyes. He wasn’t going to do it, he refused, but the urge was close to overwhelming.
Shay and Claribel Delacombe were incredibly presumptuous.
Renting a house even. However, the fact was Elton’s house, The Barbara, and Gabe’s place at Smitty’s were all too small to host any kind of extended family gatherings, even one centered on finding Gabe.
A thought that had been banging around in the back of Casey’s mind made itself obvious.
He was done with separate addresses. When this was over, he and Gabe would look for a place together if Gabe was agreeable.
A place where occasionally, emphasis on the O-word, they might host family and friends like Gabriel would want to.
“Casey, your phone is going off,” Elton said.
“Just a second.” He turned back and grabbed his phone but didn’t recognize the number.
Gabe was missing. He answered anyway.
“Hello, Casey Lundin.”
“Casey,” said a man’s voice. “Paul Allard. I know it’s early, but I thought you might want to know that there’s been unusual activity up here since you left.
A truck or large van barely made it up the road last night.
We could hear their engine struggling. We think they may have stopped at Denny’s place.
The dogs have been going crazy all night, barking and wanting to get out.
We’re going to check on Denny, but Etienne insisted on letting you know first.”
If Gabe hadn’t been missing and Denny’s last name hadn’t been Pritchard, Casey might have disregarded the call. Calvin Perkins could wait. However, this was a red flag Casey wasn’t ignoring, even if he wasn’t sure how Denny Pritchard the hermit might fit into this current situation.
“Thanks, Paul. I’m on my way.” To Elton and Shay, he said, “There’s been activity at or near Denny Pritchard’s place.”
“What are we waiting for?” said Elton.
“Lead the way. We’ll be right behind you.”
Casey decided that arguing with Shay was not worth the lost time, but he sure as hell wasn’t stopping to dig the Navigator out of the mud if they got stuck.