Wildfire (Hidden Legacy #3)(84)

I pulled into traffic. “Call Bern.”

The car dialed the number.

“Here,” my cousin said.

“I survived. Where is Cornelius?”

“He just left the restaurant.”

“Did Rogan make it back?”

“Yes.” There was a hint of amusement in my cousin’s voice. “We’re all in the back, in the motor pool.”

“I’ll be there shortly. I need to make a brief detour.” Something Garen said ate at me. It was all about family. If I had a secret, a terrible secret that I didn’t want anyone to know, I would trust my family. Olivia Charles was a Prime. She would trust her family. The ransom had to be somewhere in Rynda’s house.

Traffic was surprisingly light. My escort stayed about a car length behind me the whole way until I pulled in front of Rynda’s house. I stepped out. The doors of the SUV behind me opened and three people jumped out: an Asian man in his early twenties with a faded scar on his left cheek; a dark-haired, serious-looking man in his thirties; and Melosa, Rogan’s personal aegis.

“Why aren’t you in Austin with him?” I asked her.

“Because he considers your safety a higher priority,” she said. “Why are we here?”

“I need to search Rynda’s house.”

“It’s already been searched,” the dark-haired man said.

“I know.” I headed for the door.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Melosa ran in front of me and blocked my way. “Delun?”

“On it.” The Asian man moved toward the door and punched in the code. The door swung open under the pressure of his fingertips. He moved inside, stepping lightly, and paused.

A long moment passed.

“Clear,” he said. “It’s empty.”

He turned and flipped the lights on. I walked into the house. Someone had cleaned the mess. The bloodstains were gone from the tiles and the overturned Christmas tree had disappeared.

I stopped in the living room. Bits and pieces of past conversations floated up onto the surface of my memory.

. . . She was a wonderful grandmother to my children. She loved them so much . . .

. . . It’s not in the computer. It’s somewhere in the house . . .

. . . but Olivia saw it. She adored him. She framed every painting he made . . .

. . . in the end, it’s all about family . . .

I stepped over to the nearest painting on the wall. Two trees, standing close to each other, their trunks almost touching. The lines of the painting were obviously drawn by a child, slightly shaky and basic, but the colors, the vibrant greens and rich browns, drew the eye. The sunlit crowns of the trees almost glowed. It made me want to go outside to breathe in the air and run my hand across the bark. I would hang it in my office and smile every time I looked at it.

I took it off the wall. A plain black frame, rectangular, wooden, the kind you could get in any craft or art supply store. Gently I pried it open and pulled the frame apart. No secret code, no writing on the mat, no piece of translucent rice paper hidden between the mat and the painting itself. I plucked the heavy piece of watercolor paper out and held the painting up so the light shone through it.

Paint and paper fibers. Even if I reached into left field for some improbable spy solution to this mystery, an invisible ink still left traces. A pen would’ve left scratches on the smooth dense paper. A brush would’ve left patterns as it soaked into the texture. Watercolor paint came in varying pH and posed a significant risk to reacting with the ink, not to mention that watercolor painting required a lot of water. Soaking the paper with the hidden message on it was risky. No, the painting was exactly what it pretended to be.

I knocked on the frame, looking for hollow spots. Only solid wood answered.

“What are you looking for?” Melosa asked.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“I’ll go see if I can find more,” the dark-haired man offered.

I laid the painting on the floor and tried the next one. A picture of the house, two adults and two children, and a ghostly outline of a dog. Was the dog dead? Was Kyle wishing for a puppy? I took the painting off the wall, just as the dark-haired man and Delun brought in four more. They moved on upstairs, while Melosa and I took the next frame apart.

Half an hour later all twenty-four paintings lay on the floor. I had gone through every inch of paper and wood with a fine-toothed comb. Nothing.

The disappointment crushed me. I had been so sure.

The paintings ticked all the right boxes, ranking right there with hollow books as a cliché hiding place: most people wouldn’t think of it, so those who did thought they were being really clever and enjoyed knowing that their valuables were hidden in plain sight. It was just the kind of thing I would’ve expected Olivia Charles to do. She framed all of Kyle’s paintings.

“Do you want to look anywhere else?” Delun asked.

“Not tonight.” I’d come back in the morning with an ultraviolet light and give it another go. “Let’s go home.”

The escort faithfully followed me all the way to the parking lot in front of the warehouse, then they veered toward Rogan’s HQ. I parked the car, got out, and walked around the warehouse. It was easier than punching the code in and going through all the doors inside.

I turned the corner. A twisted wreck that might have been a car at some point lay mangled in the street. Someone had taken a car frame, crushed and twisted it, like a piece of aluminum foil, and then tossed it onto the street. Odd.