Page 64 of The Murder Club
“And it’s hard to miss those curtains,” Dom added, his voice hard. He was trying to concentrate on solving how the stalker had known to send Bailey the picture of that particular bedroom. Now he knew that she’d been exposed to the sick bastard while he stood in this exact spot. “If you’d been inside the house, you would know which one it was.”
“It would explain how the stalker knew which room is mine.” She easily followed his line of thinking.
Turning away from the house, Dom walked back to the SUV, studying the sorry excuse of a road. “Where does this go?”
Bailey stood next to him, glancing down the road that disappeared through the trees. “I haven’t been out here much, but I think it eventually goes past the old rock quarry and ends up at the access road that runs next to the highway.”
“Remote?”
“Beyond.”
“So no one would notice someone driving back here and parking?”
“No.”
Dom silently considered what he knew about the security system Kaden had installed.
“The cameras around the edge of the property are motion activated. If someone was here last night, they were either incredibly lucky or they knew exactly where to stand to spy on the house without being caught.”
A strangled sound was wrenched from Bailey’s throat as she glanced over her shoulder. “It’s horrible. I mean . . . I knew I was being stalked, but to think that the creep was so close. Just standing there watching me.”
Dom moved to drop a kiss on top of her head. “We need cake.”
“Immediately.”
Chapter 13
Kevin Hartford unlocked the back door of his grandmother’s house and shoved it open. Oddly, his feet remained glued to the patio that framed the empty pool.
For as long as he could remember, his grandmother had criticized and belittled and humiliated him on a regular basis. She’d used her money as a weapon, trying to control him as she tried to control her own son. At least until he’d put a bullet in his brain just to get away from her. And while he’d resented their love-hate relationship, she’d always seemed larger than life.
Was it any wonder that he was afraid she might be standing inside with a gin and tonic in her hand, waiting to steal another chunk of his manhood despite the fact that he’d been at her funeral less than an hour ago?
“Dammit, she’s rotting in the ground,” he muttered. “She can’t hurt you. Not anymore.”
Annoyed by the realization he continued to let the bitch live rent free in his head, Kevin forced himself to step over the threshold and enter the shadowed kitchen. He grimaced, resisting the urge to tug open the shutters. He’d gone to the effort of parking his car a block away and climbing over the back fence, nearly ripping a hole in his last decent pair of slacks. He wasn’t going to risk being spotted by one of the nosy neighbors now that he was finally inside.
The house belonged to him, of course. Or it would once the stupid lawyer got off his ass and completed the paperwork. He still didn’t understand why his grandmother would use an attorney from Pike. And worse, why she would have made the lawyer the executor of her will when Kevin could have done it all himself. He assumed it was to make his life as difficult as possible. That seemed to be the only thing that gave her pleasure.
But while the house would eventually be his, along with a sizable life insurance policy, he wanted to empty out the most valuable contents before his wife could come in and do her own inventory.
Kevin might be down on his luck but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that Lisa intended to divorce him, that the only reason she’d hung on for this long was to wait for Pauline Hartford to die. She wasn’t going to miss out on her half of the considerable inheritance. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
A humorless laugh was wrenched from his lips as he headed into the master bedroom. It was his grandmother who’d warned him to have a prenup in place before he got married. He should have listened. Just as he should have listened when she warned him about speeding around town on his motorcycle. Five years ago he’d run the damned thing into the back of a semitruck.
The wreck had left him bedbound for two weeks, but while he’d eventually healed, he hadn’t managed to get rid of the painkillers he’d been prescribed like they were candy. He was well and truly addicted.
Since then he’d lost everything. His job, his self-respect, and soon his family. The only thing he had left was the sweet oblivion when he was stoned out of his mind.
And for that he needed cash.
Immediate cash.
Crossing to the far wall, he tugged on the frame of the cheap landscape that looked like it’d been painted by one of his grandmother’s students. The picture swung outward, revealing the safe. Pauline Hartford was nothing if not predictable, he wryly acknowledged. This would be the first place any thief would search for valuables. Her predictability also made it easy for him to guess the passcode. The date she’d been the grand marshal of the Dogwood Parade. She had a massive picture of herself riding on a float, wearing a ridiculous cape and tiara framed in the living room. She told anyone who would listen it was the happiest day of her life.
Punching the numbers onto the keypad, Kevin smiled as the steel door swung open. As he’d expected, there was a stack of folded documents. They were no doubt important but of no use to him. At least not now. Instead, he grabbed the stack of hundred-dollar bills he knew his grandmother kept on hand in case of an emergency, along with her pearl necklace and wedding ring. He could try to pawn those later. Slamming the safe shut, Kevin turned to leave.
His body was starting to shake with a hunger that consumed him. The gnawing, bottomless pit of need was an old friend now, but it warned of worse things to come.