2
Bridge and Nicole spent the next two days trying to find the private investigator that was working on Abbott’s case. They weren’t having much luck. They were trying to work backwards, going off the information that Abbott had told them, with the information that the investigator had told Abbott. The places the PI said he was going didn’t pan out with any useful leads.
Now, the last place they had to look was the PI’s house, which also served as his office. They were sitting outside the house for about an hour, making sure the coast was clear.
“Why are we doing this?” Nicole asked.
Bridge scoffed. “Because you let your bleeding heart get in the way and promised to look into it. That’s why.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean here. Now. Why are we just sitting outside this guy’s house? We know he’s single and doesn’t have any family. It’s not like we’re gonna run into someone.”
“What if someone knocked him off and is also in there?”
“So you do think he met with foul play!”
Bridge put his hands up. “Now, now, just slow your roll there, Spanky. I didn’t say that. I just said it could be. Didn’t say it was.”
“You gotta admit it’s suspicious that a PI takes a case investigating a murder, then a week later goes missing himself.”
“I don’t have to admit anything.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to go far for this one.”
“If I had to go far, I wouldn’t have gone.”
Nicole gave him a look, then shook her head. “I don’t understand why you’re so negative sometimes. It’s like… you wanna help people… but you don’t.”
Bridge put his finger in the air as if he was making a correction. “No. I want to help people that I can really help. What’s our motto? Helping people that others have given up on. Helping people that no one else can help. That’s what we do. Investigating murders isn’t it. That’s something the police do, and they’re very good at it, so why should we get in their way? If they haven’t found something, maybe it’s because there was nothing to be found.”
“Or they overlooked something. As good as they are, we all know it happens.”
“It doesn’t happen as much as people think. If there was something to be found, they’d have found it.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“One more day and we move on,” Bridge said.
“We don’t even have anything else right now. Why are you in such a hurry to move on to something that isn’t there?”
“Because I don’t like to waste my time on things that have no payoff. There’s nothing wrong with having some rest and relaxation between jobs.” He then looked at his girlfriend, who hardly ever let a day go by without having a bedroom encounter, though it wasn’t always in the bedroom. “Well, relaxation anyway.”
The reference wasn’t lost on Nicole, who raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you saying you don’t get enough rest?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Are you saying that I enjoy sex too much?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Because if you are…”
“It’s not what I’m saying.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of other men—”
“Nicole, it’s not what I’m saying. I love you. I love how you are. I love how you could want sex at the drop of a hat even if there were twenty guns pointed at you. I would never complain about it.” Bridge then thought for a moment. “Well, maybe I would if there were actually twenty guns pointed at us, but you get what I’m saying.”
Nicole grinned, then went back to reading some of the reports they had, none of which Bridge paid much attention to. “Did you read this on how Abbott’s brother died?”
“Killed in an alley or something, wasn’t he?”
“According to the police report, it looked like he was killed somewhere else and dumped there.”
“So?”
“So that would mean it was probably premeditated.”
“Not necessarily. Just means that wherever he was really killed, the person who did it didn’t want his body found there.”
“Did you see what he did for a living?”
“Traveling salesman or something, wasn’t he? Sold encyclopedias or something.”
Nicole put the papers down and gave her partner the kind of look she usually did when he said something so ridiculous. “Encyclopedias? Really?”
“What? Don’t they do that anymore?”
“I don’t think so.”
As Bridge sat there staring at the PI’s house, something else occurred to him. Something he really didn’t want to think about. He hoped he was wrong. But anytime someone said they were an international traveling salesman, his mind immediately went to the agency. Traveling salesman. It was a cover that he used many times in his days at the CIA. He finally let out a loud sigh, drawing a look from his girlfriend.
“What was that for?”
“Nothing,” Bridge replied.
“Don’t give me that. I know your sighs.”
“You know my sighs? Don’t you have anything else to do with your time than analyze me sighing?”
“Oh, this coming from the person who counts how many times someone knocks on a door!”
Bridge let out a fake cough. “Well, um, you know, that’s different.”
“How?”
“Uh, it just is.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. So what are you sighing for?”
Bridge didn’t want to think about—or talk about—anything that would lead him deeper into the rabbit hole. He was trying not to think too hard about this case. If he did, the more he analyzed it, the more he was afraid of what he might find. And he actually would get drawn into it.
“Spill. Now.”
Bridge sighed again. “Fine. I was just thinking about him being a traveling salesman, him being killed somewhere else, his body being dumped in an alley; a lot of things are adding up.”
“What are they equaling?”
“That maybe there’s something deeper in play here.”
“Such as?”
“Well, maybe it’s my old CIA training, but a lot of it is starting to sound familiar.”
“It’s just coming to you now? You’ve had two days to think about it,” Nicole said.
“I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to add
