Page 49 of What's Left of Us

I wanted to ask how this tied into locksmithing but I knew Soto – she would have a point or she wouldn’t have called.

“At the end of his classes he gave each student a custom key. He would paint them and cut different designs into each one.”

I think of the picture Serenity handed me with Porscha wearing a gold key, like the ones similar to the keys found at some of the crime scenes. That’s a detail that never carried over to the new cases. “Send the pictures of the keys to the team.”

“It’s not the individual keys,” Soto says. “They would take a group picture at the end of the class as part of their celebration for passing. He took tons of these pictures. Even with the inmates. He obviously couldn't give keys, decorative or not, to the inmates. But he did give them to the students in his classes. That’s how I can tell Porscha knew James before he disappeared.”

“That’s good work, Soto,” I tell her. “Now take the day off like you’re supposed to. Let the system keep running everything and see if we can find any other crossovers. We can look into it tomorrow.”

“But, sir,” she says, and I pause before standing. “Ylonda Artemis is why I called you. She took the class, too.”

“Right?”

“She was also in Illinois briefly with Porscha when she was going by Char Rowths-Spurig.”

I grit my teeth. “Wonderful.”

“The other little thing I figured out,” Finley says, and she sounds sheepish as she speaks. “Looking at their files, Beverly Heather is Ylonda Artemis’s niece.”

By the time I start to leave my mind is fried. I asked Dad more questions, but I fully expected that he would dodge most of them. If he’s still hiding anything about the case, he's not giving it up. I don't know if he is or not, but the fact that Porscha slipped away from the FBI all this time when her death was this much of a mess bothers me. How did she fool people that hard?

“Honey,” Mom says, stopping me in the kitchen. “This came. I think maybe it came to the wrong address.”

Glancing down, I eye the envelope.Agent Gideon.There's no return address.

“Mom, someone dropped this off.” I glance up at her, at the stack of papers. “How long has it been since you collected the mail?”

Mom hesitates, ringing her hands. “Well, I don't know. The medical bills and everything else is automated so it's mostly just junk. But it doesn't make sense that it would be for your father. He hasn't been an agent in years.”

“People will seek someone out if they are determined enough,” I grumble, looking up the steps. All it says is Agent Gideon, so they had to know where Dad lived.

“Open it,” she says, reaching up to press a hand over her mouth. I don't know if Dad's ever gotten weird mail like this before, but neither of my parents ever mentioned it.

I tear open the envelope, and part of me hopes it's mine. If it’s Dad’s, I worry about what that means. Inside there’s a single page of college ruled paper, and only a few words scrawled on the folded page.

I couldn’t live with it anymore. Lance

Chapter 14

“You’re sure being here is a good idea?”

Xeno shoots me a grin over his shoulder as we step into the house. He asked if I had a little bit of time today after I told him we’re planning to go back home soon. A couple days… a week at most. Being here is tearing us apart, and Jo’s nightmares are severely messing with her.

When she calls out for Alastair in her sleep… I don’t know how to help her. There’s nothing I can do to remedy it when my heart hurts too. At least in Colorado we’re away from the toxicity of Citrus Grove and all the bad memories.

“Massimo’s not coming to the house,” Xeno says with certainty, leading me through the doors to the kitchen. Mama isn’t in here, which strikes me as odd, and I follow my brother through the house to Papa’s office.

I hate everything about this room. When my papa needed to share his frustrations with me, we came in here. I don’t come into the office unless I absolutely have to, and seeing Xeno here without Massimo feels strange.

“I heard Papa called you,” he says, and that call feels like a lifetime ago. He was complaining, trying to get under my skin, and that was before Alastair died. Massimo’s words slide off my skin now because they mean nothing, and I’ve simply ignored allof his calls since. “He’s hurt that his firstborn won’t return to the family business.”

“How disappointing for him,” I grumble.

Xeno smirks, moving around the desk to sit in our father’s seat. My brows lift and his smirk widens. “Things are changing down here, Vinny.”

“Good or bad?”

He chuckles. “Good, I think. Massimo burned a lot of bridges getting where he is. He’s made enemies. He taught Mama to alienate herself from everyone in town, and now no one wants to be her ally.”

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