Page 32 of Buried Too Deep

Cora sighed again. “I’m really tired. I guess this morning’s caught up to me. Would you mind if I rested for a little while?”

“Of course not. Kick off those torture-shoes and rest your feet. I’ll start checking doors and windows and make a list of the supplies I’ll need to make the house intruder-proof.”

“Torture-shoes is definitely true today. Thank you, Phin. I really appreciate it.” She sank down into the sofa closest to Blue and kicked off her shoes.

Her toenails were painted neon pink with white smiley faces, which made him want to smile, too.

Instead, he clucked his tongue to call SodaPop and began checking entry points to her home. He’d nearly completed the first floor when Antoine came down the stairs, glowering.

He held out his hand, revealing five small listening devices the size of pebbles. He dumped them in a Faraday bag to keep them from broadcasting.

“And I’m not close to being done yet,” Antoine said. “Sonofabitch bugged every bedroom and her bathroom, too.”

Phin clenched his jaw. “Cameras?”

Antoine shook his head. “None that I can find yet. I’m going to my car to call Burke. I’ll be back in a few. Stay here with her.” He looked around with a frown. “Where is she?”

“On the sofa, hopefully asleep. I’ll stand watch.”

Uptown, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2:45 P.M.

Sage slipped into his grandfather’s home study, confident that he hadn’t been seen. He knew every nook and cranny in this monstrosity of a mansion, having grown up here.

He took a moment to look at the photographs on his grandfather’s desk, a familiar sadness pressing at his chest. His father’s photo was prominently displayed, one of the last formal photos they’d had taken.

The photo captured three generations: his grandfather; Sage’s father, the firstborn son; and Sage himself, his father’s only child.

Sage, his father, and his grandfather posed for the camera, their suits dark, their ties perfectly tied. Their shoes had even been shined, which Sage hadn’t understood as a five-year-old. Their shoes wouldn’t even be in the picture, so why did they have to shine them?

His father had laughed, that booming sound one of the only things that Sage truly remembered about his dad. He’d murmured that his grandfather liked things a certain way, and it wasn’t a lot of trouble to shine their shoes. Why not make him happy?

But Alan didn’t look happy in this picture. He looked…sad.

And guilty. Sage had always thought his grandfather had looked guilty and didn’t know why. He still didn’t know why. The sadness he’d understood. His grandmother had recently died in a car accident, the car catching on fire. His father had been sad, too.

Sage didn’t remember his grandmother. He and his father had lived in Mobile until he was two. That was when his parents had divorced and he and his father had moved back to New Orleans. He didn’t remember the divorce, either, but he remembered the shouting every time his father dropped him at his mother’s house in Mobile for the occasional weekend. He remembered his mother crying when his father returned to pick him up.

And he remembered that his grandfather had hated his mother. Still did.

Which was why Sage’s mother still lived in Mobile.

And…wow. The realization that they’d gotten divorced twenty-three years ago was like a slap in the face.

Apparently, a lot of things had happened twenty-three years ago. He wondered if there was a connection between any of them.

But the clock was ticking and he had to start searching. His grandfather was waiting for his network guy to arrive at the central offices to try to get information off Broussard’s laptops.

Good luck with that. Sage had already tried on his own. Whoever ran Broussard’s IT department was good at their job. The machines had been wiped.

But it would take the IT guy a while to figure that out, so Sage had an hour or two.

From his backpack, he pulled three small cameras, wishing he’d done this years ago. That he hadn’t was only because he hadn’t been curious enough to bother. He’d already known all the information his grandfather kept, because Sage had gathered most of it for him.

That had changed when Cora Winslow had come onto the scene.

The cameras were the same kind that he’d planted in his grandfather’s adversaries’ homes and offices all the time, so he knew their capabilities well. He placed them so that he’d get a view of all areas of the study.

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