Page 56 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

Tallus

M y stomach churned. Thoughts of Diem stirred my brain into a vortex, and I was glad Costa was too busy to notice how badly I fidgeted. The more I focused on the disaster that had befallen us, the more trapped I felt in the unremarkable hotel room.

The muffled impact of a solid hit, followed by a miserable groan, played on repeat inside my brain. If it wasn’t that, it was the argument we had before Diem left me in the bathroom at the courthouse.

Or the one at the office before we headed to the courthouse.

Or the one we had the previous day before I went to work.

Or the one in the middle of the night after he returned from captivity.

Pointless fucking disputes that meant nothing in the end. Sometimes, it was simply how we communicated our feelings.

We may not have had a perfect relationship, but it was ours, and I wanted it back. At the end of the day, despite bruised egos and hurt feelings, we always found our way into each other’s arms. We always forgave and forgot.

Our love persevered.

Months ago, during a Sunday family dinner, I complained to my mother that Diem and I seemed to spend a lot of time quarreling, and she laughed.

“Sweetheart,” she had said, “relationships are multifaceted. They’re easy when you get along, but the nature of human beings means that isn’t always the case.

No two people are the same. The true test of love and companionship is learning how to blend the parts of your personalities that don’t always mesh.

Arguments happen, but learning to resolve them is how you grow stronger. ”

And boy, did we have contradictory personalities. I sassed. Diem smothered. I always had too much to say, and Diem never communicated enough.

A rap of knuckles at the hotel room door startled me from my thoughts. It was followed by a woman’s voice calling in a thick accent, “Room service.”

“She’s here.” I lurched from the bed where I’d been impatiently sitting and dove for the door. Before I got there, a firm hand planted in the middle of my chest halted me.

Costa shoved me back on my ass, shaking his head in admonishment. “Amateur. How are you not dead?”

“What? It’s Kitty.”

A dog barked.

“See? And Echo.”

“Or a man with a gun, holding her hostage, ready to paint the wall with your brain.”

“No need to capture the visual.”

At some point, Costa had secured a holstered weapon to his belt. He undid the clasp and rested his hand on the grip as he approached the door, using the peephole to confirm what I already knew.

“What’s on the menu?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. Was this really necessary?

“Top sirloin and pinot noir,” the woman replied, using the code words Costa had insisted on. Any other answer would have alerted us to trouble.

“I was going to ask the question,” I mumbled under my breath, put out that my cousin thought me incompetent.

“Before or after you flung the door open?” Costa undid the dead bolt and admitted Kitty into the room. Echo bounded happily behind her, tongue lolling.

“There you go, darlin’. Go see your daddy.” My co-worker removed her leash, and Echo immediately dashed to me, snuffling my hands as I greeted her. She insisted on bathing me in kisses, and I submitted.

“She’s been to the bathroom, and I found some food for her in the closet like you said. She ate while I waited out the hour.”

“Thanks, Kitty.”

Satisfied with my attention, Echo glanced around the room as though looking for Diem. She huffed a question and approached Costa, who introduced himself and let her sniff his hand, but my cousin wasn’t who Echo was looking for. Her demeanor changed, and she went to the door and whined.

My heart ached. “He’s not here, Echo.”

She pawed as though wanting out, and I wished I could explain so she understood.

Kitty handed Costa a black garbage bag stuffed with crumpled papers—to pad it out and make it look like it was full. The notebooks we’d collected from Clarence’s house were nestled inside .

“Excellent.” Costa drew them out and flipped through the information before sitting at his makeshift workstation.

“Did you see anyone watching the building?” I asked.

“Yes, I did, but they paid this little old lady no mind.” To Costa, Kitty said, “I had a look through Clarence’s bank account while I waited. It confirmed what I suspected.”

I moved in behind Costa as he opened the bank’s homepage and copied the login information from the notebook into the proper slots. “Which is?” he asked, hitting enter.

The screen changed, and a full rundown of Clarence’s financial data appeared before us.

Kitty tapped the screen. “This account is nothing more than a front, or rather, the everyday-use one. Clarence opened a second account shortly after his wife was killed.” From a pocket on her floral dress, she withdrew a sticky note filled with random numbers and letters.

She handed it to Costa and gave him the name of a financial institute.

When my cousin immediately opened a new tab, located the correct website, and inputted the coded information Kitty had handed him without asking her to clarify, I felt like an outsider. I glared at my nefarious co-worker, but the hunched elderly persona she typically wore was nowhere to be found.

Despite her silver curls and wrinkles, a spark of youth gave her an energy I had never witnessed. Gone were the crossword puzzles, knitting needles, and shakes. Kitty Lavender was not and had never been a senile old woman.

She must have felt the heat of my scrutiny and caught my eye. I earned a sly wink. “Something wrong, Tallus?”

“You’re a scam artist.”

“Am I? I thought I was a witch. ”

“That too. A scam artist witch. You’re not human.”

She cackled.

Costa tapped away at the keyboard.

“Here,” she said to my cousin, pointing. “That’s the one.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, but neither Costa nor Kitty responded. Both were consumed with the laptop screen as another account in Clarence’s name appeared.

I moved behind Costa, leaning over his shoulder to be part of whatever Kitty unveiled. Recognizing the typical bank account layout, I swiftly located the spot that indicated the balance.

“There’s less than a hundred bucks in there. I don’t get it.” I glanced between Kitty and Costa. How was this impressive?

My cousin glanced at Kitty, who smirked with that all-knowing expression she sometimes wore.

I narrowed my eyes, whispering, “A time-traveling witch from another dimension.”

“October eleventh,” she said, grinning. “Last year.”

“Is that when you landed among us? I’ve known you longer than that. Are you a body snatcher too? Interesting disguise.”

My cousin elbowed me in the ribs. “Would you shut up.”

“Why am I the only one who sees through her?”

I earned another wink from the Kitty doppelganger.

Costa located the correct month in a pull-down menu and scrolled. When he landed on October eleventh, all humor evaporated. My lips parted. “Holy shit.”

A deposit of one and a half million dollars and change had been made to the account on that day by a company called Sun Life.

“Wait. Isn’t Sun Life a—”

“Life insurance company,” Costa said before I could finish asking the question .

I gasped. “Oh my god. Clarence had his wife killed for insurance money. That is… not at all original. It’s the plot of way too many movies.”

Costa snorted a laugh. “That might be the case, but if he killed his wife for insurance money, this fucker got screwed.”

I guffawed. “I’m sorry, what? How is one and a half million dollars getting screwed? In fact, if that’s the case, I need someone to screw me pronto. Seriously, my wardrobe wish list would love for me to be that kind of screwed.”

No one cracked a smile, and I sneered. “Diem thinks I’m funny.”

Ignoring me, my cousin glanced at Kitty, who filled in the blank.

“That’s not the full amount. Janessa’s sister received the lion’s share.

She got the house, which was in Janessa’s name, the cars, all other major assets, and twenty-seven and a half million dollars.

The will was changed four months before Janessa’s death.

Prior to that change, Clarence was the sole beneficiary. ”

To me, Costa said, “You see? One and a half million may sound like a lot of money, but it was a slap in the face for dear old Clarence. It was not enough to pay whatever his debt was to Ace and have anything worthwhile left over. I’m guessing he counted on paying his bill and walking away with padded pockets. ”

“So he reneged?”

“Not intentionally.” Kitty motioned for Costa to move so she could take over the computer. “I suspect he tried to save himself, knowing the kind of man he’d struck a bargain with.”

Diem had taught me a lot about delving into financial records since it was often part of the job. Companies hired us to do financial breakdowns, audits, or investigations into new hires, but I wasn’t nearly as proficient as Costa or Kitty .

My not-so-senile co-worker quickly pointed out what she’d discovered.

It didn’t take a genius to see Clarence’s steadily decreasing funds as the months flittered by.

Significant chunks, to the tune of tens of thousands, had been withdrawn at notable intervals, often on Friday or Saturday nights.

Apart from the odd, unremarkable deposit, Clarence’s inheritance gradually diminished until there was nothing left.

The pieces clicked. “The Royal Whispering Ace. Memphis said it’s an underground casino.

” I smacked Costa’s shoulder. “And you said the name suggested it was run by this organization or whoever they are. They’re the guys who kidnapped Diem and tried to have Clarence killed.

The same ones Clarence hired to murder his wife.

Fuck me sideways. He was trying to win back enough money to pay off his debt before it came due. ”