A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(26)
Levi’s lungs constricted; his stomach cramped. He rested his gloved hand on the safe and saw it trembling as if he were in caffeine withdrawal.
“Any of your guys know how to crack safes?” he asked Denise.
She examined the keypad for a moment before shaking her head. “No need. This brand is built with an internal failsafe code the manufacturer can provide to law enforcement with the proper warrant-which we have. Give me ten minutes.” She pulled out her phone and walked away.
Those ten minutes were the longest of Levi’s life. He stood rooted to the spot, staring at the safe like he could will it open with the force of pure unleaded desire.
He knew what was in there. He knew.
An eternity later, Denise returned, cheerfully punched in the code, and swung both metal doors open.
All of Levi’s breath left him in a rush. He sagged, grabbing Martine’s arm for support; she slid her arm around his waist to help hold him upright.
The safe contained racks upon racks of neatly organized ketamine vials, and nothing else. There were dozens of them. Hundreds.
“God, Levi, you were right,” Martine whispered. “You’ve been right all along. The Seven of Spades found a way to obtain their ketamine legitimately, and they’ve been storing it here.”
Levi made an embarrassing noise, a strangled cross between a gasp and a laugh.
“This is incredible.” Beaming, Denise clasped her hands, looking like she was about to start bouncing up and down. “And this is now officially a crime scene. I’ll get the techs and photographer out here stat.”
She hustled out of the room again. Levi swallowed, trying to work up some saliva in his parched mouth.
“One of the bodies from the desert must be Fowler,” he said. “Probably one of the two that were tortured, since the Seven of Spades managed to get all of his personal information and access to his accounts. That might help Dr. Paquin make a positive ID.”
“I’ll call her.” Martine released him, then arched an eyebrow. “Maybe take a minute to get your shit together before you let anyone else see you like this, okay?”
After he nodded, she left the office, already dialing her phone.
He pressed both hands to his face and shuddered. When he lowered them, he scanned the room, picking up the details he hadn’t noticed when he’d been preoccupied by the safe.
There was a small desk along one wall, its surface adorned with tidy stacks of office supplies that had clearly never been used. An ergonomic office chair was pushed up to it. Against the other wall stood a bookcase full of veterinary reference texts.
And high in the corner where the wall met the ceiling was a security camera with a blinking red light, aimed directly at the safe.
Levi stiffened. The Seven of Spades might be watching now, or they would see this later, but either way, this office couldn’t be used to stage an ambush. The killer would know not to return here.
It didn’t matter, though. Their access to their stash had been cut off. Any other way they tried to get their hands on ketamine would be risky, given that the entire country knew it was the Seven of Spades’s drug of choice. The noose was tightening around their neck.
Vicious glee ripped through Levi, making him lightheaded. He tore a blank page from the notepad he kept in his jacket, grabbed a Sharpie from the desk, and scribbled a message in all capital letters, underlining it twice. Helping himself to a strip of tape, he shut the safe doors and slapped the note on them in plain view of the camera.
FOUND YOU
He turned around, smirked at the camera, and gave it the finger.
Dominic had stopped trying to argue himself out of things he was going to end up doing anyway; it saved a lot of mental energy. And as an additional benefit, staking out Roger Carson’s house was a great distraction from his gambling cravings.
He sat in his pickup half a block down the street from said house. Magnetic decals on either side of his truck bore the name of a fake landscaping company-although that company had a seemingly legitimate website if anyone happened to Google it-and an assortment of landscaping equipment had been thrown into the bed for good measure.
Honestly, he might not have even needed the cover. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where people walked around outside on a weekday, especially not in the heat of encroaching summer.
One of the things he loved most about being a PI was the autonomy. He’d told McBride he’d be working in the field today-which was true, because he could easily manage his other cases from his laptop in the car while keeping an eye on his target.
He’d also been able to swing home to pick up Rebel, who was delighted by a mission so reminiscent of their bounty hunting days. He scratched under her chin, smiling as she thumped her tail lazily against the bench seat, and then looked back up the street to what he was becoming increasingly certain was a Utopia safe house.
After his therapy appointment last night, he’d detoured on his way home to set up a surveillance camera on a lamppost across the street from Carson’s house. The camera was legal, since it didn’t record audio and was directed at the driveway and front yard, where there was no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Between a review of the footage and today’s stakeout, Dominic had established that people came and went from the house at all hours of the day and night-though never in large groups, so it wouldn’t draw anyone’s attention unless they were already watching. He’d used the various cars’ license plates to ID more than a dozen of the visitors.