Page 7 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

SEVEN

Liam

Two years ago

“Happy anniversary,” Gabriel says as he struts in.

“What anniversary did I miss? Human traditions irritate me,” I respond.

Gabriel laughs like he thinks he’s cute, and maybe he is a little cute, but I would never let him know that.

“It’s been a month since I started here, and you haven’t made me cry yet. So it’s our one-month anniversary of working together,” he says, looking as proud as a peacock.

“Despite the sweet guy routine you put on, you’re surprisingly resilient,” I decide.

“I… I almost feel like that’s not a compliment.”

“Good. Don’t take it as one. Did you get me anything as a prize for surviving my time with you?” I ask.

“Why would you get the prize? And I’m the one who’s survived! I bought myself this little cake,” he says as he reveals a mini ice cream cake. “All… for… me.”

“The next time we need to threaten someone, I’m definitely sending you in. Your… skills at being evil really do make me sweat a bit.”

“You’re sweating because you turned the heat in the office up to seventy-nine just to piss Michaels off.”

“Is it working?”

“If him running out going, ‘Who THE FUCK turned the heat up again? If I catch who it is, their ass is going to the curb’ is working, then yes.”

“That’s the joy of knowing he’d never fire me because if he did, who would clean up all of his messes?”

“Do you ever think about the wonders you could do if you played a little less Minesweeper?”

“The world is not yet prepared for that level of greatness. I need to give them only hints or I’m positive it’ll implode.”

“So the whole world revolves around you so much that it’s going to implode if you show your true self?” Gabriel asks as he pulls a plastic knife out of his drawer and cuts the cake in half with some struggle.

“That is correct.”

“Wow, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a more selfless man. I… it’s like I’m sitting in the presence of a saint. Thank you for keeping the world from imploding.”

I grin at him. “You’re welcome.”

“Because of that, I’m going to give myself the bigger piece.”

“Devious.”

“And I’m going to save the other half for my sweet little Lucille Pawl. Actually… I might let you have this half if you tell me how cute Lucille Pawl is.”

“If I ignore the fact that you gave your cat such an atrocious name, then I have to say that her long hair and multiple colors would be most ideal for humans who like chunks of fur spread everywhere throughout the house. Sometimes I see you pawing at your face like you almost don’t like the taste of her hair in your mouth.”

“I love how you say humans like you’re not also human. What are you? Alien?”

“That would be ideal.”

“She does shed quite a bit. But none of that was a good answer.”

“The way she has… what’s it called? A resting bitch face would make many people think that she is cute.”

“My baby doesn’t have a resting bitch face!”

“What the hell do you consider that expression?” I ask as I gesture at the multitude of photographs that now line his desk. I swear there’s a new one every week, and a part of me feels like he’s doing it to annoy me. The latest one is a gigantic photograph that he’s aimed at my desk.

“The more you talk, the less chance you have of enjoying this cake.” Gabriel dips his fork into it, aims the ice cream with the chocolate gooey center toward his mouth, and practically moans.

It’s like he wants me to whip his pants down and make him beg.

Nah, he’s too innocent. He has no idea that the depths of my mind are fucked up. Or the way my eyes trail down his fingers as I wonder what his fingerprints look like.

Not that I’d ever add them to my collection. No, no. I’m a good boy.

He slides the cake over and hands me a fork.

“Your kindness sickens me,” I say as I take the fork from him.

Gabriel gapes at me. “Why?”

“Because you didn’t stand your ground. You caved, and therefore, I am sickened by your kindness.”

“Then give me the damn cake back.”

“It’s mine now,” I say as I hug it to me and greedily eat it.

“You know, when I walked in this place and someone said my partner was Detective Paige and at least ten heads whipped around to look at me, I was a little bit worried. Someone even gave me a blessing when I was at the urinal. It was the most awkward thing I’ve ever done with my pants down.”

“You must not have done much with your pants down if that was the most awkward,” I say. “You’re young. You’ll definitely have more opportunities.”

“What I’m getting at is that I thought you were going to be a lot scarier and tougher than you are.”

That’s because I have a weird soft spot for him, but I have no damn idea why. Is it that smile that suckers everyone who sees it? The ability to just be goddamn happy all the time? Nah… that just fascinates me. No one can be that happy all the time.

I’m not quite sure what it is just yet.

The door opens and Donna comes in before seeing what we’re eating. “Ooh, you got cake?”

“It’s our one-month anniversary,” Gabriel tells the woman whose very presence irritates me. She didn’t knock. And the way she’s looming over Gabriel, eyeing his cake, irritates me even more.

“Do you want some of it? I didn’t eat off this corner yet.”

She loves this acknowledgment he’s given her. “Ooh, I’d love a piece.”

And now he’s sharing cake with this irritation?

He cuts a piece off for her and she murmurs and makes all kinds of annoying noises about how delicious it is. And while I stomp down the realization that I loved it when he made those noises, I glower at her.

“Did you need something?” I ask, a chill to my voice.

“Oh! Right. Sorry, I got distracted. Penny needs you to check over something when you have a minute.”

And off she goes.

A laugh escapes Gabriel.

“What?” I ask.

“Your inability to play nice cracks me up,” he says.

“I play perfectly nice.”

“No, you stalk around and when someone interacts with you, you act like they’ve asked if they could dip your balls in acid.”

“Is that an option? Like if I choose to do that, do I not have to interact with Michaels?”

“You’re ridiculous. So ridiculous.” Gabriel grins at me. “I’ll go see what Penny wants so you don’t have to interact with her.”

“You are proving to be useful and smart,” I decide.

“Glad I can please you,” he says as he stands up, but before he gets far, we both get an alert.

“Looks like that’ll have to be put on hold,” I tell him as I finish off the cake and grab my jacket.

“I can’t wait for you to solve this in ten minutes while I’m off still trying to get my protective gear on like last time,” he says.

“You could dress up as a cheerleader, cheer me on.”

“Ah yes. So glad I have such an important purpose in these cases.”

“What do you mean? I love praise.”

“You are something, alright.”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” I say as I slip out the door with him right behind me.

When we arrive on scene, the police have clearly already been here for a bit. The moment we’re out of the vehicle, I see a group of people talking to a man who looks frantic. He’s standing next to two cars that are parked in the driveway, making me wonder if one is his and the other is his son’s or his wife’s. He’s waving his arms around dramatically, wiping at his face, and looking like the overall textbook definition of distraught.

“That must be the father. I feel awful for him,” Gabriel says.

“Why? He could very well be the killer,” I reply.

He stares at the man, then looks over at me. “His wife Eleanor and their adult son William disappeared while the father was gone on a business trip that he has an alibi for. There’s enough blood in the living room that we were called in… and you think he did it? Care to enlighten me? Or is this just an ‘I hate everyone, so I assume he’s the killer’ thing?”

“I do hate everyone; you’re learning. And Donna told me you would never learn anything,” I lie.

“Donna did? What the hell does Donna have against me? I thought she loved me. Doesn’t everyone love me?”

I raise an eyebrow at him. He’s rather confident after only having been here a month.

“What, you think you’re like the office mascot?” I ask.

“I don’t know! I think I’m definitely more loveable than you, at the very least,” he teases.

“Even Michaels is more loveable than me,” I say as we walk up to the distraught man. “Let’s hear it.”

The look Gabriel gives me tells me that’s not quite what one should say, and he quickly steps forward to sort of body block me from saying anything else unnecessary. “I’m Detective Hyde and this is my partner Detective Paige. I’m so sorry for making you recount everything again, but could we hear it one more time? And what’s your name?”

The man’s eyes catch mine and I decide that I already don’t like him, and not just because I think everyone is inferior like Gabriel claims. “J-Jon Davies. I was on a business trip at a conference center Friday and Saturday. I traveled there Thursday night and drove home this morning. When I arrived home, I found… I found blood all over the living room. My wife and my son are gone. They’re gone.” He lets out a sob, like he wants to get the right emotions in whenever there’s a lull.

“How far of a drive did you have to get back here?” I ask.

“Four hours.”

“And you never called your wife once or texted her?”

“I sent her a text, but she didn’t reply to it. I can show you my phone log. The last time I spoke with her was yesterday around lunchtime.”

“I see,” I say as I start toward the house.

“Paige, wait, I had more questions,” Gabriel says.

I sigh, not quite sure why we have to waste time with questions when we have bodies to find.

“Can you get us an exact record of the time you left your conference this morning?”

Jon nods, eager to hand over anything. Hell, if he committed the murder, he had quite a few hours to come up with everything. “Of course. I ate breakfast with some other people from the conference this morning before everyone headed out. I already handed over their names and numbers so that could be looked into.”

“Did you share a room with anyone?”

“I actually did. There was a mix-up in scheduling and I shared with a coworker. I’m sure he’d be happy to confirm that, but why? I would never hurt my family.”

“I’m so sorry if I made it seem like I was implying that,” Gabriel says. “It’s our job to check everything.”

Jon looks frustrated as he shakes his head wildly. “Yet all anyone has done since they arrived is question me. My wife and son are out there. They could still be alive. Someone broke into the house and…” He chokes back a sob. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Gabriel says, always the sweetheart.

I can already tell the guy is going to be a pain in my ass, so I don’t even feel like dealing with him or engaging with him. Now, the neighbors peeping through their window could be of interest.

I head off and Gabriel rushes to follow after me. “What are you doing?”

“Talking to the neighbors,” I say as I head over to the next house and knock on the door.

“You don’t want to look at the crime scene first?” he asks.

“There are already multiple people looking at the crime scene and finding nothing.”

“Yeah, but you see shit that’s not there.”

“Because I’m looking places others aren’t,” I say as I knock again.

This time the door swings open a bit too eagerly as the nosy neighbor peeks out with the woman I’d seen in the window behind him. “Hey, what can I help you with?” he asks as he peeps over at what’s going on next door. The woman is practically pushing him to get a better look.

“I’m Detective Hyde and this is Detective Paige, could we ask you two some questions?” Gabriel asks before I can start barking questions at the man.

“Of course!” the woman says. “I don’t live here. I live across the street. But I saw what was going on, so I… maybe came over to see if Tobias knew anything. I’m Becca Gavins.”

“And you’re Tobias…?” I ask.

Tobias smiles and holds a hand out, then looks unsure when I don’t shake it. Gabriel, the kind soul he is, shakes it for me. “Tobias Nelson.”

“We have reason to believe that William and Eleanor Davies are missing. Have either of you been in contact with either of them in the last twenty-four hours?” Gabriel asks.

“I… waved at Mrs. Davies, but that was it. I saw William was home, but it’s not like I interact with them too much,” Becca says.

“Did you see any suspicious activity last night or this morning on the street or on your neighbors’ property?” Gabriel asks.

Tobias shakes his head. “Can’t say that I have, but I’m going to be real honest, I was playing video games with my buddies so I had headphones on. I think we played until, ohhhh, two and then I went to bed. But… I mean…” He hesitates. “Will Jon hear any of this? Like will he know it’s me if I say something?”

“Just spit it out,” I say.

Gabriel whips out his ultra smile as he pushes me back a bit, like I could possibly be the issue and that he could hide the issue by keeping me out of view. “We will keep it anonymous.”

“I just… he’s got some anger issues. Like… okay, here’s an example. I was taking my dad’s dog for a walk and ran out of bags when he took this big shit on their yard. I literally saw Eleanor standing there and was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to run home real quick for a bag.’ And so I go back to my house. I know you’re thinking, ‘Oh, he lets his dog shit in their yard all the time,’ but I really don’t because it’s my dad’s dog that I was watching just for the weekend. But as I was returning with the bag he comes charging over, scoops up that shit and throws it at my front door. Like… if I didn’t have to clean shit off my front door, I might have laughed, it was so fucking ridiculous.”

“I saw it and I did laugh,” Becca says. “But Tobias is right. It was completely uncalled for.”

“Right? So then Eleanor was like, ‘Honey, he said he was coming back.’ And Jon went, ‘I saw you fucking talking to him.’ So… I don’t know what that means… was it ‘I saw you talking to him’ because he thought we were chatting about something other than dog shit or like… I don’t know. He’s just weird and has a short temper. That was a lot of information to say that no, I didn’t hear anything last night, and I don’t know what’s actually going on but if it was like a domestic dispute or something, he’s a bit of a dick,” Tobias says.

Becca nods. “I honestly don’t interact with Jon much. I’ve been here longer than Tobias has—he just moved in, oh… a year ago? But I’ve never liked the guy. I just… kind of always felt like he was watching me or something. I’d get home from work at ten and I’d look over and there he’d be. I don’t know. Maybe we’re making him out to be worse than he is? People can be creepy and have done nothing at all. I don’t know.”

“Do you ever see anyone at the house that’s not a typical visitor?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I work in the city and Jon seems to be home by the time I get home every day. Do I get to know what’s going on now?” Tobias asks.

Ignoring the question, Gabriel passes each of them a card and says, “If you think of anything else, please call me.”

Tobias responds, “Cool. Will do.”

“Do either of you have any security cameras on your house?” I ask.

“I don’t,” Becca says. “I should get one. My mom hates me living alone but I’m a thirty-eight-year-old woman. I have a dog. I’m fine.”

Tobias eagerly answers, “I have a camera! But it’s facing my porch so I’m not sure you’d get much. I had someone stealing my packages, but it stopped happening the second I put the camera up. I mean I can send you what I have, but I don’t think it’ll show much unless they ran through my yard.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel says as I head back over to the Davies’ house. Once we have our protective gear on, I finally enter and walk into the living room where the analysts are busy at work. With the amount of blood everywhere, I have a feeling that at least one person didn’t leave the house alive. It’s not fresh, likely happening sometime during the night, and it doesn’t appear like anyone tried cleaning it up.

I walk around for a moment before heading back outside and over to the car sitting in the driveway.

“This one’s your car?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Jon says. “The other is my son William’s. Eleanor’s car is in the garage.”

“Can I look in your car?”

Jon hesitates. “Why would you need to look in my car? Why does it seem like no one is looking for my wife and son?”

This man is irritating the shit out of me. I have half a mind to ask the neighbor if he has some dog shit I can throw at him. I would enjoy that far too much.

I open my mouth, but Gabriel practically slides in front of me. He is proving quite useful.

“On the off chance that the assailant left something for you, we’d like to check out your vehicle. We need to look at all angles. We’d like to examine your car to make sure everything seems to be in order and in place.”

Jon instantly eases up. “You think someone could have tampered with my car?”

I’m going to fucking tamper with his car. See how far he gets with no brakes.

“We have to look at all angles,” Gabriel sweetly says.

I swear this man was plopped down from the heavens so I don’t fuck up and murder someone in front of others. That really, really wouldn’t be good. Rather hard to wave off too. Like “Whoopsies. Don’t mind the dead guy. I definitely didn’t do that.”

Jon’s all for it now that the idea that his life could be in danger is being waved around. “Yeah, of course. Should I have a mechanic look at it? What if someone like… cut the brakes or something? Is that a thing? I don’t know if that’s just a movie thing or what.”

Well… I could help him find out.

“Let’s see what we find first,” Gabriel says, and the man practically delivers the keys to him.

Gabriel follows me over to the car as I pull open the door.

“Who made you the way you are?” I ask.

The corner of Gabriel’s lips quirks up. “That is such a suspicious question, but if you’re asking why I nicely asked the man for the keys and didn’t threaten to throw dog shit at him like I know you were thinking about, it’s because I knew I had a better chance of getting the keys using this thing called kindness.”

“Sounds disgusting.” I start the car and then grin, overly pleased by my findings. “Alright. That’s all I needed. He’s definitely the killer.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows bunch as he looks around for what made me come to that conclusion so quickly.

“Can you let me at least try to figure it out?” he asks.

“Sure. I’ll cheerlead you on as long as you don’t take more than thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds. Okay… Okay, you like… you didn’t even look at the car. You just turned it on, which means you needed something you could only get with it running. I can’t fathom you could get anything out of the amount of gas it has. I guess maybe we could look at credit cards, but he probably would have used cash if he was heading back after a murder… I mean, we have miles on his car, but do we know the miles it originally had? Am I warm?”

“Oh? We’re playing this like a children’s game now? Alright, alright. You’re kind of warm. Like the warm fuzzies I get when Donna walks in the room and wants us to share cake with her.”

“You ever feel like maybe you didn’t learn how to share in elementary school?”

“I learned that you can’t throw a block at the teacher’s head in preschool. I do remember that. I also learned that pretending like a cheap eraser was the coolest thing ever and then convincing the other kids to trade their snacks for those cheap shitty erasers wasn’t allowed either. I thought it was perfectly fair for me to have all of their snacks and them to all have shitty erasers that smudged the lines instead of erasing them.”

“Is it weird that I find the idea of you as this evil and conniving little preschooler kind of cute? Like were you this short-tempered but like this tall?” he asks, gesturing with his hand before freezing. “OH shit.”

“Did you finally figure it out?”

Gabriel’s eyes flicker over to mine. “There’s an oil change sticker on his windshield. He had his oil changed before he left.”

“Sure did.”

“But do the miles add up?”

“A little over a four-hour drive would be what? Between two hundred and forty and two hundred and seventy miles, depending on the route he took? I believe the conference center is about two hundred and sixty miles away, if I’m remembering right. He could have possibly driven around a bit, but even with wiggle room, he couldn’t have driven an additional five hundred miles unless he drove back here. We’ll get a call in to the place that changed his oil to see how many miles they would have recommended for his next oil change to be certain.”

“On it. I’ll contact them now.”

“Good,” I say as I leave him to it and head off into the backyard while Jon watches me. He’s probably questioning what I’ve seen or maybe wondering if he left something behind that gave him away. Does he realize that of all of these people wandering around here, I’m the one he should be most afraid of?

Nothing in the backyard has been disturbed, so I climb over the fence and keep going. There’s a field just beyond the house, and I wonder how far away the search and rescue or cadaver dogs are. If he hid the bodies last night, he couldn’t have gone far to dispose of them. If he drove here and made it back before his coworker woke up, he had to have been quick. Was it all premeditated or was there something that caused him to come home, kill her and their son, and hastily place the bodies somewhere? The son doesn’t live here, so did Jon not expect William to be here when he arrived?

The techs will search the trunk and look for any sign of their bodies having been in there once we can prove that the miles are off. But for now, we need to focus on finding the victims, whether they’re alive or not.

The field is filled with soybeans and would take me hours to check every inch of it, but someone already has a drone out searching the area from above. I keep going into the cluster of trees behind the field. It’s a bit far for him to lug two bodies but might not be out of the realm of possibility if the coworker fell asleep early.

Honestly, I doubt they’re even near the property since he chose to call us here. My bet is on him storing them for the night, then returning and hiding the bodies before calling us. Or he could have dumped them anywhere between here and the conference center. Hmm… if he did, the miles on his car could tell us how far off the main path he went if it was a farther distance.

He really fucked up. He wasn’t careful enough, but the information about the car likely won’t be enough to prove he’s guilty. Jon could claim he went driving around the city. He could say someone borrowed the car, or that someone recorded the wrong mileage or that they rounded up. There are so many things he could claim that we’d struggle to prove.

It’s not enough, but I’ll find enough.

And if I don’t…

I’ll help Jon find his way back to his family in the afterlife.

Is it wrong that a part of me hopes they can’t convict him so I can take care of him myself?

“Liam!”

I stop my fantasizing and look back as Gabriel jogs after me. He’s like a little golden retriever that was horrified to find that it’d been left behind. “I was going to come back for you… eventually. If I thought about it,” I say.

“I wasn’t worried about you coming back for me, I was worried about you wandering off and then running into a human you’d offend. You need me.”

“I don’t need you.”

He gives me a stubborn look. “You need me.”

I grunt out a reply, which makes him laugh. He’s always so bubbly.

“You have too many bubbles,” I decide.

“What’s that even mean?”

“People are going to take advantage of you. Just like that Donna.”

“You’re soooo mad about the cake! I’ll buy you another cake, even though your half of the cake was not disturbed in any way,” he says. “I think some people already combed the trees here. But I bet they were much inferior people. Probably not even real people in your eyes.”

“Parasites feasting off the air I breathe,” I agree.

That makes him laugh for some reason. “Weirdly, I feel like there’s enough air to share, but I remember now that you hate sharing.”

“You know, Gabriel… what I like about you is that even after a month, you’re already learning. I’ve worked with most of the team for years, and they still don’t understand any of this.”

Gabriel grins at me. “Do you ever think it’s because you’re a bit ridiculous?”

“You like that word, don’t you?”

“Only when it comes to you,” he teasingly says. “There’s an area over here I want to check out.” He hurries over to it as I wander through the trees. I mean… a freshly dug grave would be quite apparent and a search and rescue or cadaver dog could scout the area quite quickly, but I want to make sure someone didn’t miss something apparent. Hiding a body in the daylight when he arrived this morning would definitely not have been as easy as in the dead of night, if we go with that theory.

And just as I’m turning to head back toward the house, I spot something.

Gabriel returns to find me fixated on it. “What are you looking at?” he asks as I kneel in front of the large rock. The ground hasn’t been disturbed, there’s really not much remarkable about it, so I’m not quite sure why it snagged my attention.

I look around and realize that it’s because most of the rocks in this area are a bit mossy, but this one looks clean.

“Is this rock native to this area?” I ask.

“Uh… I’m sorry, I guess I’m not up on my native rocks. Why?”

I run my finger over the rock then push it up, tipping it over so I can look at the bottom of it. Underneath it, something is scratched into the rock. It almost looks like an etching of a bird. “Huh.”

“What?” Gabriel asks.

Has our innocent husband and father actually never been so innocent after all? Were his wife and child not the first to find death at his hands?

Was this his first?

The first is always the sloppiest… but it’s the one you remember most.

I very much remember my first, but I sure didn’t make a shrine of it like this man has. I sure as fuck have never visited the grave and if I ever did, I would never make the foolish mistake of keeping it clean and pretty.

“Have them bring a cadaver dog up here. Do they have one out yet?”

“Am I… missing something? The ground isn’t disturbed here. No matter how careful someone might have been while replacing the dirt, it wouldn’t look like this.”

“Because it wasn’t a recent kill,” I say.

“Wait… you think he’s killed in the past?”

The second kill is easier; you learn from the mistakes you made with the first. How many mistakes did he make that could lead us to him?

Gabriel puts a call in, and I enjoy listening to him try to explain why we need a dog back here. It’s not that I need the body dug up right this second when the wife and son could still be alive, it’s that I need the confirmation. I want to know what kind of man he is.

I don’t have to wait long for the handler and canine to reach us since they were already heading to this address. The dog sniffs his way over to us before rushing to the spot where I stand. He draws in the scent of the area then immediately sits to alert his handler.

“How the hell did you find that?” the handler asks as he investigates the area.

How? Because the man had made a shrine of it. He kept it clean and he visited it often.

“Now we have to find the wife and son,” the handler says.

Others are coming to see what’s been found, so I leave them to it and head back toward the house because time is ticking. I’ll be of no use here while they survey the area and dig the body up.

“That… was impressive.” Gabriel hurries up so we’re side by side. “I feel like only the person who dug that grave could have found it without a cadaver dog, it was so well hidden. You sure you didn’t hide a body there that you forgot about?” he teases.

No… absolutely no one would be able to find the people I’ve killed.

“I wouldn’t be that sloppy,” I say.

He laughs like it’s a joke, but he has absolutely no idea what I’ve done.

As I walk back, I catch Jon’s eyes. I can see the eyes of a killer and wonder if he sees the same when he looks at me.