Page 40 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

Tallus

T he 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?”

I heard the woman and Diem exchange goodbyes, so I spun the computer around, ensured the notebook was out of sight, and resumed working.

Diem returned, and I felt the heat of his gaze as he rounded the desk and sat. I didn’t look up, feigning absorption in my task.

“Another job?” I asked, pleasant and innocent as can be.

“Care to wager a guess?”

“Oh, I know this one. Suspected infidelity.”

“Ding, ding, ding. Give the man a prize.”

I huffed a laugh. “Shocking.”

“I gave her an intake form. She’ll bring it back tomorrow. Did you find anything else on Janessa?”

“Not yet.”

Seemingly satisfied, Diem turned to his computer.

Once he was distracted, I opened my phone, pretending I’d received a text from Memphis. I sat back, keeping the device out of his line of sight as I located the picture I’d taken.

I blew it up so I could continue to read it.

Names. Descriptions. The vague impression of a room and its contents. A musty corridor? A concrete landing? A wooden door with carvings?

I had a niggling sense of what I held but read further to be sure. Lower on the page, Diem noted bits and pieces of conversation, and although it didn’t flow, I understood enough for the bottom to drop out of my stomach.

He’d been captured by these people. Kidnapped. Held prisoner. Echo too.

They’d tied him up. Beat him. Threatened him. How? Why ?

From what I could tell by the bits and pieces he’d written, these people wanted Clarence and had kidnapped Diem to secure his help in finding him.

But why Diem? He didn’t know Clarence. Before that night in the alley, we’d never met the guy.

If they wanted a PI, why not contact us through the proper channels?

I was missing something.

No wonder Diem was out of sorts and jittery. No wonder he constantly checked the windows and the rearview mirror when he drove.

I stared at the card looped around his wrist and the deep worry lines marking his forehead.

I stared at the bruises and swelling along his broken nose.

They wanted Clarence. I understood how Clarence connected with the card, but how did these other people fit?

Was it the card they were after? No. If so, Diem would have happily given it to them.

But if the whole ordeal was unrelated to the card, then why did these people want Clarence?

I was running in circles. No amount of straining made it make sense.

I considered the open tabs on Diem’s computer. His recent paranoia. The man who followed us the previous day. My boyfriend’s recent warnings that I was to go nowhere alone. The knife hidden under his pant leg. The gun under his pillow, and yes, I’d discovered that too when I woke up without him.

The Bishop. I’d met the Bishop. When was that?

After we’d come in contact with the card but before the kidnapping.

What other information did I have?

Detailed descriptions of a room, furniture, a hallway, and a wooden door. Subway maps. Old Toronto.

It hit me like a two-by-four to the face .

Diem was trying to figure out where he’d been held. Of course he fucking was. These people had hurt him. Threatened him. They wanted Clarence.

Why Clarence?

Fuck me. My brain hurt.

Before I could consider the consequences of my actions or deduce why Diem might be keeping any of this from me, I blurted, “I ran into the Bishop the other day. Literally. He popped up out of nowhere, and I almost spilled my coffee on him. Now I’m starting to think it was choreographed.

He kidnapped you. Beat you. Who’s this Consigliere?

Why do they want Clarence? How does the card fit into this? Why are you not telling me anything?”

Diem’s entire body went rigid. For a long moment, he didn’t move or breathe.

Silence prevailed, and all I could hear were the birds chirping outside the covered window and the traffic on the street below.

Slowly, Diem turned his attention from the computer.

All the color drained from his face, leaving him a sickly gray under the overhead lighting. I instantly regretted speaking.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but Diem’s hand flew up in a universal sign for stop. The wide-eyed panic on his face was more effective than the gesture.

I clamped my mouth shut as he held a finger to his lips. He moved to stand, seemed to think better of it, and dropped heavily into his seat, gears visibly spinning. Sweat prickled his forehead and upper lip. I’d never seen him so unhinged, so undecided.

So afraid.

He collected both our phones, used his teeth to untie the card from his wrist, and moved to a filing cabinet he kept in the corner.

He touched the drawer handle as though to open it, but stopped short and glanced around.

Snagging a discarded hoodie from the back of his desk chair—it had been hanging there for months—he wrapped it around the items and tucked them away at the back of a cabinet drawer before closing the squeaky door with as little noise as possible.

He faced me, fear painting deep lines beside his eyes. Warily, he glanced around as though someone might materialize from nowhere. At the window, he double-checked that the curtains were drawn seamlessly. When he returned to the desk, he sat cautiously on the edge of his chair. Rigid. Alert.

Again, I opened my mouth to speak, figuring it was safe now, but Diem shook his head. He unearthed the hidden notebook from under Clarence’s and turned to a fresh page.

Don’t talk , he wrote. They might be listening.

I waved for him to give me the pen. Reluctantly, he slid both it and the notebook toward me.

Who are they?

He shook his head.

Frustrated at his stubbornness, I flipped back to the page where he’d compiled notes and pointed at the three monickers he’d written at the top. Ace. The Consigliere. The Bishop. I cocked a brow, asking the question again without the need for words.

Diem’s nostrils flared, but when I refused to back down, his shoulders slumped. He scrubbed a hand over his face before wincing and hissing with pain. Fisting a hand, he cracked his knuckles and looked like he wanted to slam it against the desk but resisted.

His meaningful glare accused me of snooping.

I shrugged, crossed my arms, and waited. Yeah , the gesture said, So what? You lied to me.

Defeat drained Diem’s resolve. He took up the pen. I don’t know who they are.

They want Clarence , I wrote .

Diem nodded.

Why? I asked.

Diem hesitated before writing, He had some kind of deal with Ace and broke it. Ace wants him dead.

I stared at the words, absorbing them. When I didn’t immediately reach for the pen, Diem pointed at his wrist and wrote more.

The card is a tracking device. I’m to keep it on me at all times, or else.

It was planted on Clarence the night we found him.

He was followed and attacked by the Bishop in the alley.

He was meant to die that night. We interfered.

Clarence is in the wind, and Ace wants blood.

If I don’t deliver him by Sunday at midnight, he’ll find a substitute.

It took a hot minute to absorb all he wrote. The card was a tracking device. Intricate fucking tracking device. Jesus.