Page 68 of Skin Game
Althea’s nostrils flared. She stepped close enough that he inhaled a whiff of the powdery perfume she must have bathed in. And he sneezed. Althea stepped away, a look of disgust crossing her face.
“Sorry, my hands are—” He wiggled them, clinking the cuffs against the metal arms of the chair.
“Let’s keep talking about this. What are your next steps? What’s going to happen when he learns that you’re a terrible person? I don’t know where these so-called paintings are, so whatever your endgame is, I can’t help you. Elton is going to meet your real self, and it’s going to be all over. He’s not even going to look back. And to think he said you were going to make us fried chicken.”
He had a figment of a thought that hardly counted as an idea about where the art might be, but he wasn’t sharing with Cruella,and he couldn’t check for himself until he got out of this situation.
“You were at the library, and the librarian didn’t see any reason not to tell me that you were looking through old microfiche. What did you find? You found something, we know it,” Randy said.
Randy was not top-notch accomplice material. Gabe knew from the malevolent glance Althea shot him that she was wishing he would disappear. Or—a hideous icy feeling akin to cold lightning crawled down his spine—she wasplanningfor Dirty Socks Randy to disappear.
Gabe looked toward William, who was also probably approaching his expiration date as far as Althea was concerned. He saw shelves packed with boxes labeledMREin permanent marker lining one wall and began counting them to hide his real thoughts. Without a distraction, he wasn’t sure his best poker face could hide his utter disgust with this person.
No wonder you ran, Heidi.
He shivered, wondering if Carla had really died in an accident.
Gabe hadn’t figured everything out yet, and maybe he never would, but he’d bet Althea’s “idiot sister” Carla had been Althea’s partner in the 201 Gallery heist. Something must have happened between the initial theft and the rest of the plan. Enter his mother.
Holly Pritchard got a job in town. Holly found a door because Holly was a big fan ofHarriet the Spyand liked secrets. Then Holly became Heidi Karne. Neither Holly nor Heidi knew how to get rid of the paintings. She did, however—and Gabe was projecting here—know that Althea Mortine, née Pritchard, was a dangerous person, so after a few futile years of trying to fence them and thus risking exposure, she gave up and left the mystery to her son, figuring that he would be able to fend for himself.
I’m not so sure about that last part, Heidi.
“Who was the young woman who came by my houseMonday?” he asked. “The one claiming to be my daughter. Was she your great-niece or something?”
Gabe recalled the photographs he’d seen hanging in the hallway of Dirty Socks’s destroyed home. Specifically, the one with a younger Randy and a toddler. That toddler could have been the young woman on his doorstep on Monday. Had she somehow been part of this plan or had she struck out on her own?
“Someone killed her and her body ended up in the bay. But you know that already, don’t you? And I’d bet my right nut you knew it before the Sheriff’s Office did.”
He stared hard at Althea. Was he exhausted and fucking cold and in desperate need of coffee? Yes, but also oddly energized with this revelation. He had to get Althea talking more. She’d done such a good job hiding behind the TCSO front desk for years, privy to the underbelly of the entire county, but it was time to get that villain monologue going to help fill in some blanks.
“I’d bet my left nut that having Eli Rizzi exposed was bad for your business. Did it make you a little nervous? You know, Elton and Casey both told me that Bree Eagan and state investigators have been going through all the stored files. Will they find your influence there too? They will, won’t they? I can’t think of a person in a better position to help Rizzi hide what he was up to.”
Althea waved the gun his direction. “Stop speaking now.”
Gabe wasn’t particularly worried she’d shoot him, at least not until she got the information she wanted. And Gabriel Karne excelled at talking a lot but not giving up any information.
“What are you going to do? Kill me before you figure out where the scribbles are? I don’t think so.”
“Auntie, what did you do?” Randy had gone a sickly shade of white. “You told me Mia was busy doing something for you.”
“Should I be calling you Auntie too?” Gabe asked sweetly.
Darting Randy a glance that should have eviscerated him, Althea said, “Don’t worry about your sister right now. And you”—she pointed the gun at Gabe again—“I told you to stop speaking.It’s so obvious you’re Holly’s kid. Always thought she knew it all too, didn’t she?”
“I’m worried, Auntie, very worried. Where’s Mia?”
It was nice to see that Randy cared. Hopefully, Althea was the lone psychopath in the family.
“She panicked, didn’t she? Came to the station when I’ve told you both never to approach me there,” Althea hissed.
Randy stepped backward, his eyes wide and fucking finally, scared. “Auntie.”
“Don’t you fuckingAuntieme.”
In the distance, Gabe heard dogs barking again. They’d been doing so on and off the entire time Gabe and his captors had been inside. They sounded big, ferocious. Seriously, why dogs? The only place locally that he knew of with a lot of dogs was Heartstone Veterinary Clinic, but he thought they were miles from Heartstone.
Eyes wide, Randy bolted. But before he got more than a few steps, Althea turned the gun she’d been pointing at Gabe toward him and squeezed the trigger. The first shot missed but not the second. It hit him high up in the arm, toward his shoulder, and the useless nephew went down like a proverbial sack of potatoes.