It was just that the world was so interesting, and it was unfair that at any given moment he only had access to a very small part of it. He didn’t understand how anyone could take a look around and not be fascinated by the things and people in front of them. Puzzles abounded, questions were posed, and there was so much out there that sometimes he could barely contain his need to do all of it.
He had sharp memories of that—sitting in the buggy at the grocery store reading about how the archaeologists had unlocked the mysteries of ancient hieroglyphics, fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube while his mother chatted with her friends over coffee, sitting on the grimy floor at the dry cleaner’s with the excavation kit he’d gotten at the museum, and in each instance losing interest as soon as the concept had clicked. It had to have driven his mother crazy, especially when he threw a fit at being told to play with whatever he’d brought, because she didn’t understand that he’d gotten everything he could from it and needed something new.
He was the youngest of five and the only boy; they hadn’t had much money or many toys, so he’d spent a great deal of his childhood playing imaginative games like racehorses and tea party. And while he made an excellent cup of imaginary Darjeeling, if he said so himself, there were only so many times you could appease your sisters by jumping over lawn furniture while neighing before you started to worry that your formative years were being spent on unproductive activities. That was how he’d found the library and Arthur Conan Doyle and, eventually, his life’s work.
When he’d run himself into the ground—took about seven miles, not his best day, but not his worst—he got cleaned up and made his way into the office around nine, where he sat at the table in the kitchen at ASI, listening to the janky fridge complain while he thought about how to work around some dead ends.
He’d gotten pictures of both of the Russians, at least, but he’d had little luck trying to match the faces to any names. He’d spent yesterday doing research into Riviera Condominiums—the complex where Ghost, real name unknown, currently lived in the late Margaret Trudeau’s condo—a process that had been time consuming and ultimately useless.
As far as he could tell, Riviera hadn’t knowingly sold the property to a dead person as part of a scheme or anything. The firm that owned Riviera owned another complex, but after spending twelve exhausting hours looking at the property records for every single condo at both properties, Sullivan had confirmed that they were all owned by living folks. Riviera didn’t have any red flags in other arenas either, not financial or human resources.
The research into the Realtor who’d brokered the sale didn’t give him any red flags either, and the guy, a septuagenarian whose partner had had cancer at the time, unfortunately had no memory of the person who’d fraudulently bought the condo under the name of a dead woman.
The lies were all grouped solely on the side of the condo’s buyer.
Two days down, and zip to show for it.
Which made Tobias Benton, currently in possession of Ghost’s phone, his next best lead.
He was in the middle of wondering how best to go about getting the guy to answer some more questions, when Raina yelled down the hallway to pick up the extension because the guy who’d tried to rat him out for snooping was calling.
Speak of the devil. Sullivan snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Sullivan? This is Tobias Benton. From the condo the other day?”
Sullivan was busy thinking that he needed to avoid sounding like the kind of shady PI who wanted to steal Tobias’s buddy’s phone for nefarious purposes, all while scrambling for scratch paper to take notes on, so it took him a second to phrase an answer. Tobias apparently thought that pause meant Sullivan didn’t remember him, because he heaved a small sigh and added, “The concerned citizen?”
Sullivan laughed before he could help it. “No, I know who you are. I didn’t run into that many law abiders this week. So what can I do you for?”
“Do you have time to meet up? I have some things to talk about.”
“Okay.” Sullivan forced himself to count to three so he wouldn’t sound like a teenage boy getting asked out by his crush. “Here? Where you are?”
“Wherever.”
Sullivan hesitated because Raina had appeared in the doorway, looming like a disapproving parent, and he resented the implication. “Yours, then.”
Tobias rattled off the address of a local motel. “Can you—now? Are you free?”
“I’m on my way.”
“Thank you.”
After he’d hung up, Sullivan got his things together, all under Raina’s watchful eye. “Concerned citizen wants to meet up. Might have some info.”
“So I gathered.”
He told her the name of the motel, and when she merely raised an expectant eyebrow for more info, he said, “I’ve got this. If I need help, I’ll ask. I’ll protect our firm’s reputation and I won’t get thrown in jail, I promise. Just...a little leeway, okay? To do this myself? Tiny bit? Five inches’ worth. You trust me five inches, right?”
She pointed at him with a threatening crimson fingernail. “You better have a comprehensive summary for me in twenty-four hours.”
“So comprehensive you’ll die of old age before I shut up.”
* * *
The address Tobias had given him was an unimpressive brown and yellow structure that looked more like a parking garage than a motel, with rooms that opened onto the lot. Bushes gone brown from the heat wilted in cracked cement planters, and the pool had been drained despite the warm weather. A more politic person might call it affordable. Sullivan would call it a dump.
Sullivan rapped on the
