Page 30 of Ruthless Riches
Fernandez frowned and flicked through some paperwork on her desk for a minute. “I knew that name sounded familiar,” she finally said. “Mr. Hawksley actually called our information hotline a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to tell us about the Penthouse too.”
“And?”
“We told him the same story I’m telling you now. There’s no evidence that it’s real.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So you won’t help us look in Central Park?”
An exasperated expression appeared on Fernandez’s face. “We have every available officer conducting interviews and following up tips from the Butcher hotline right now. We can’t spare people for a wild goose chase through a park based on hearsay.”
“Not even one officer?”
“No. Sorry.” She rose to her feet. “You should go home, Alexis. Stop trying to insert yourself into the investigation. It’s not your job, and it’s not something you should be doing. Especially while you’re recovering from an injury.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and nodded. “Okay. Thanks for your time, Detective.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
Nate was waiting for me on a wooden bench in the police station’s reception area. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he saw the thunderous expression on my face and pressed his lips into a thin line.
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me out to the car. When we were both inside, he turned to look at me. “Didn’t go well, huh?”
I shook my head and filled him in on what Fernandez had said to me. He let out an irritated sigh and turned to look at the busy road in front of us. “I guess we need to go and start looking ourselves.”
“Yeah. The police are never going to believe us. Not unless we find some sort of proof.”
“Will you be okay to do it?” Nate asked, turning his gaze back to me.
I nodded. “As long as I don’t run or try to lift a two hundred pound barbell, I’ll be fine.”
He turned the car on and steered us through the streets until we reached my old apartment, which was right near Seewald Avenue. We walked the rest of the way to the park.
The main entrance on the Seewald Avenue side of the park was made up of two stone pillars that stood between a wrought iron gate. Old-fashioned lights sat on top of the pillars, and a towering iron arch went over the gate with ‘Central Park’ picked out on a crest surrounded by intricate scrollwork.
We stepped through the gate and cast our eyes around. The park was filled with lush greenery, thick groves of trees, hedges, meandering paths, and countless gardens. Some of the gardens were walled off with stone—so-called secret gardens for kids to explore—and part of the southern end of the park was taken up by an enormous sunken amphitheater that contained more gardens and terraced lawns.
It was going to take forever to search the place.
We couldn’t just sit around on a bench and wait to see who showed up, either. There were multiple entrances around the perimeter, and we couldn’t keep our eyes on every single one of them. Also, the park was so big that there was no way we could see every inch of it from wherever we were sitting or standing, so even if the Butcher used an entrance that lay somewhere within its bounds, there was a good chance that we’d miss them, especially after dark.
“I always forget how big this place is,” I said, shoulders slumping glumly.
The corners of Nate’s mouth tipped downward. “Me too. It’ll take fucking ages to check every garden.”
I spied a stick on the ground nearby and picked it up. “I guess we should get started.”
Nate nodded. “Our best bet is to look for any bare patches of soil in the gardens,” he said. “Henrik made it sound as if the hatch is quite close to the surface, so I don’t think any trees or flowers could grow on top of it. There just wouldn’t be any room for the roots.”
“Good point.”
We spent the next few hours searching through the gardens and poking the soil with sticks to see if anything hard lay just below the surface. It was fairly easy work, but it was also slow and tedious.
Just after six o’clock, twilight came to steal away the colors of the day, leaving the park shrouded in shadows. Menacing clouds scudded in the distant sky, and the air took on a distinct chill.
The back of my neck suddenly prickled, and I whirled around, eyes wide with panic. Nate noticed the sudden movement and stepped over to me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said in a tremulous voice, casting my gaze around the darkening parkland. “I keep feeling like someone is watching me. I felt it this morning as well.”
He took my hand and squeezed it as he turned his head to look around us. “I don’t see anyone.”
