Page 86 of A Breath of Life
I stared at Tallus as I absorbed that piece of information, unsure how to react. “Explain.”
He shifted his laptop so I could see the article that filled the screen. The header read,Woman Killed During Home Invasion. I frowned and dragged the computer closer, reading with a furrowed brow.
According to theToronto Sun, thirty-two-year-old Janessa Audraine, wife to Clarence Audraine, was killed during a random burglary at the couple’s home in the Rosedale-Moore Park area. The police believed Janessa interrupted the perpetrator after arriving homeunexpectedly one evening. Janessa had been stabbed repeatedly and was already dead by the time her husband found her several hours later.
I glanced at Tallus, who waited for my response. A dead wife. I checked the date on the article. One year ago. More precisely, one year and eight days ago. September seventeenth. Why did that date ring a bell?
Fuck.
Tallus spoke my thoughts aloud. “We found Clarence in the alley on September seventeenth. The one-year anniversary of his wife’s murder, Guns. There is no way that’s a coincidence.”
In his own right, Tallus should have been a detective. He had an analytical mind for picking out details that other people missed. Fucking bullshit rules. The department had no idea what they were missing. Their loss, my gain, I supposed.
“They were both stabbed, too,” he added.
“What else do we know about her?”
“I was still going over—”
A knock sounded, and the door down the hall opened, followed by a woman calling out, “Hello? Is someone here? Is this Shadowy Solutions?”
Tallus looked like he was about to pop up and handle it—dealing with random customers was part of his job—but I waved for him to sit. I didn’t trust random strangers walking in off the street. Not when I’d somehow ended up in the middle of someone’s sick game. For all I knew, sending a woman was meant to lower my guard, and that wasn’t fucking happening.
“Stay here. Do more research. I’ve got this.”
The analytical glare was back. Considering I never volunteered to deal with clients, it was warranted. I ignored it and went to see who had shown up.
22
Tallus
The second Diem vanished around the corner, I abandoned my task and slipped Clarence’s notebook out of the way to see what my wily boyfriend had been surreptitiously referencing when he thought I wasn’t looking. I discovered another notebook. Diem’s chicken scratch filled the page. Cocking an ear to ensure he wasn’t on his way back, I quickly skimmed with a furrowed brow.
What the fuck was I looking at?
Ace? The Consigliere? The Bishop?
Were these people’s names?
Diem had jotted descriptions of clothing and physical features beside two of them. My gears ground to a halt, and my skin prickled when I read about the Bishop. A discarded memory from several days ago snuck in. A collision in the street. A man dressed in black. A Roman collar. A hardened stare I couldn’t sort out. The Bishop? It made no sense. Or did it?
“What the fuck,” I whispered under my breath, shifting the notebook out farther to read more.
A detailed layout of a room. Diem had underlined certain parts, particulars he must have found important, many of which focused on the vintage atmosphere. He’d included the word Edwardian with a question mark and multiple circles surrounding it.
Edwardian, like Clarence’s outfit?
Frowning, heart racing, I listened again to be sure Diem was still distracted. A woman’s voice traveled down the hallway, and I recognized the frantic pitch in her tone as she explained whatever predicament she’d found herself in that had resulted in her seeking the assistance of an investigator.
Diem, as was his custom, grunted the odd affirmative or mumbled when conversation required him to respond. I couldn’t make out anything he said.
It didn’t matter. He was occupied.
I removed the notepad completely from its hiding place and turned it around, angling my phone to capture a picture of the text. I turned the page to see if there was more, but the next one was blank.
I skimmed once again before shoving it back into its hiding place. Next, I turned his laptop around. My hunch proved correct. Diem wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. A street view filled the screen, with buildings on both sides. Where was this? In the city? I checked the address of the current location and committed the street name and crossroad to memory before checking the other open tabs. Another version of Google Maps, this one zoomed in on Old Toronto. The third tab displayed an enlarged image of the Toronto subway lines, with a main focus on Old Toronto. The final tab was the login page for TD Bank.
“Something you can switch to in a flash, so I won’t suspect you were doing anything else. Clever. What is going on, Diem?”
