Page 80 of GAF Factor

“And peanuts,” I added, my knee bouncing out of control. Damn, I was a freaking mess. Was it always going to be like this with IKE? Would I always be nervous when he had to work?

“Oh, God. What if he doesn’t work for OPS? What if he keeps doing whatever he does now?”

“Yeah, we’re going to need a bottle of vodka and a big bag of peanuts up here. Room 318.”

She was just about to hang up the phone when I grabbed her by both arms and shook her. “What does that say about me that it doesn’t bother me that he kills people? Does that make me a bad person?”

With wide eyes, she lifted the receiver to her ear and said, “You’d better bring some cake, too. We’re having a bit of a moral crisis here.”

20

IKE

I liftedthe crime scene tape and quickly picked the lock on the back door. Being the middle of the night, we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on us, but it wasn’t a certainty. As the door creaked open, the stench instantly hit me, making me wish I was anywhere but here.

“This is seriously the most fucked up thing I’ve ever done,” IRIS hissed.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said, stepping inside. I slowly moved my flashlight over the kitchen where the bodies once were. There was still a good amount of blood coating the floor, enough to make Isla vomit if she were here.

IRIS covered his nose with a cloth and walked over to the desk attached to the counter. A few small piles of paper lined the sides, but there wasn’t much to search through.

“I’ll see if there’s an office,” I said, pressing the inside of my elbow to my face. Once I was far enough away, the smell wasn’t nearly as bad. With the bodies carried away this morning, at least the worst of the stench had gone with them.

I had no luck finding an office, so I headed to the bedroom. My eyes immediately scanned the wall for a safe, but there were no pictures hanging to cover one.

“Anything?” IRIS asked, coming in behind me.

“I don’t see a safe.”

“Of course you don’t. Normal people don’t have safes.”

I hid them in floorboards or under loose pieces of linoleum, but somehow, I doubted there were any of those around here. I went to the closet and searched for any hiding places, but all I found were clothes and way too many boxes on the shelf. And a lock box.

I grabbed it and pulled it down. “IRIS, did you find any keys that might fit a lock box?”

“Nope. You don’t think they’d hide anything in there, do you?”

“Maybe they weren’t hiding it,” I answered, looking around for a good hiding place. I walked over to the dresser, setting the box on top, then opened the drawers and rifled around. The key was shoved in the back behind the underwear.

“Here we go.” I quickly unlocked it and pulled out a pile of paperwork, passing a stack over to IRIS. Holding my flashlight between my teeth, I rifled through my own stack, searching for anything that could be of significance. Titles to cars, the deed to the house, birth certificates…all important documents that they would keep in a lock box in case of a fire, but nothing that would lead us to Shawn.

“Hey, look at this.”

I set the papers back in the box and took the flashlight out of my mouth, shining it on the paper IRIS was looking at. “What is it?”

“It’s a deed to a property.”

“Where is it?”

“Up north.” His finger trailed down the paper and tapped at the bottom. “No, this is the sale paperwork. They don’t own it anymore. The deed was transferred to Lee Mitchell. Dead end.”

Sighing, I looked around the room again, hoping for any last clues. “I knew it was a long shot. Let’s get this cleaned up before they figure out someone was here.”

IRIS snorted. “Unlikely.”

After cleaning up quickly and wiping everything down, we slipped out of the house, leaving no trace that we’d ever been there. But as soon as we stepped outside, I felt a shift in the air, like we were being hunted. I drew my weapon at the same time as IRIS.

“Do you think it’s Shawn?” IRIS asked.

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