Damsel in Danger (Danger Incorporated Book 1) (6 page)

Kind of. It sounded like Roger had never really launched into adulthood the way he should have.

“Can we see his room? It might help.”

The couple looked at each other, their expressions dubious, but finally Stuart relented, nodding his agreement.

“I guess it would be okay. We haven’t been up there in several days and it might be messy.”

“That’s fine,” Jason assured the man. “We’re not here to judge, only to try and find some leads.”

Lisa seemed to breathe easier. “I’ll show you up then. If you’ll follow me.”

The couple stood and she and Jason followed them past the laundry room to a set of stairs at the far side of the house. At the top was a closed door that Stuart opened, flipping on a light switch on the wall.

“Here it is. I don’t know how it will help.”

The smell was the first thing to hit Brinley. A combination of body odor and rotting food. She felt her stomach twist in her abdomen and she had to swallow down her rising breakfast that had lodged in her throat.

This was beyond mere clutter.

It looked like Roger had never put away anything in his entire life. Clothes, books, magazines, even dirty dishes were stacked everywhere. The only place that could be considered habitable was the desk area and still it was covered with papers and dust.

Lisa and Stuart looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. They’d probably had no idea of what they were going to find in this hidden room.

“You don’t need to hang around while we search if you don’t want to. We’ll call you if we need anything,” Jason offered.

“Well, if you don’t mind.” Stuart looked eager to leave the room. “We do have some arrangements still to make for the funeral. If you need us we’ll be in the kitchen.”

The couple practically fell over each other as they ran down the stairs. Brinley watched their hasty exit and then looked balefully at the room. “I can’t say as I blame them. This is beyond disgusting. How could he live in this?”

“You should have seen the apartment I lived in with three other guys in college,” Jason chuckled. “It wasn’t quite this bad but it wasn’t good either. We never brought girls back home. They would have run screaming from the building and never looked back.”

Brinley wrinkled her nose in distaste. “It stinks in here.”

“It sure as hell does so let’s get to it so we can get out of here. First rule, don’t touch anything.”

“No problem,” she retorted, eyeing a plate encrusted with something that looked like spaghetti with a layer of green mold. Acid rose in her throat and she shuddered at the thought of what might be buried in these piles. “I wasn’t planning to, believe me.”

Jason pulled a set of rubber gloves from his back pocket. He’d retrieved them from a case in the back of his truck when they’d arrived at the Gaines home. She’d thought it strange at the time but now it made perfect sense.

Evidence. She needed to be more cognizant of that little detail.

“Here’s my phone.” He handed her his cell. “You can take pictures.”

“Of anything in particular?”

“When I ask you to. I don’t have a warrant and I doubt they’ll allow me to take anything, so if we find something interesting we’re going to have to take a picture of it.”

Jason waded through the stacks of laundry on the bed and floor, tossing things aside until he’d dug all the way to the mattress. A white shirt landed on top of the ever growing pile and Brinley froze when she saw a large red stain.

“Wait. Is that…blood?”

Jason frowned and picked up the discarded shirt to examine it more closely. He spread out the fabric and even sniffed at it, making her stomach turn at the thought of doing the same.

“You’ve found something alright.”

Maybe a clue. Something that would tell her why Roger Gaines had her address. She leaned forward over the garment that was laid out on the bed.

“What did I find?” she whispered, her heart beating fast in her chest.

“A ketchup stain. That’s never going to come out. He might as well have tossed the shirt in the garbage.”

Brinley’s head whipped around and her gaze landed on Jason, who was having a difficult time not bursting into laughter. His lips twitched and his green eyes danced with mischief.

This was so not funny.

Slapping his arm, she let out a groan of frustration. “Don’t be an ass. I was only trying to help.”

“I know. And I appreciate it. Really.”

She rolled her eyes and followed him as he worked his way to the desk area. He pointed to the stacks of books and papers. “If we’re going to find anything important it will probably be here.”

Brinley certainly hoped so. So far this entire trip had been a big waste of time.

Jason held up two heavy books. “Now here is something interesting. Books on forensic science. Gaines was a psychology major, so what would he be doing with these? Let’s get pictures of them.”

Brinley snapped each of the books with Jason’s cell as he sifted through a stack of papers, holding up a few.

“Information about handguns and blood splatter. What the hell? It looks like Gaines had more than a passing interest in criminology. Maybe he was using his degree to study criminal behavior.”

She snapped a few more pictures and peered into the bookcase next to the desk. There were several binders and she almost reached for one but pulled back just in time.

“Oops. That was close. Can you see what’s in these? It looks like they are one of the few things in this room that was organized.”

“I thought you didn’t want to touch anything in here.” Jason pulled the three binders from their spot on the shelf, sending up a puff of dust. Brinley sneezed as Jason flipped open the first one and paged through the contents. “It looks like information on a serial killer case in Florida. These last pages show an arrest and an upcoming trial.”

The two other binders held basically the same items except for different cases. Grisly photos and explicit details were not the norm for Brinley in her everyday life. She was used to macaroni art projects and stories about the family pet.

The picture she was getting of Roger Gaines was turning creepy. A young man who had lost his ambition and had turned to absorbing everything he could find about crime and violence instead.

“Do you think someone killed him in self-defense?” she asked, looking around the room again. Had Roger’s mind been as messy and cluttered as his room? “Do you think he stopped reading and started doing?”

“Are you asking if Roger Gaines was studying to be a killer?” Jason shook his head. “I don’t think so. It looks like he was studying to become a profiler. Remember, there was no struggle in Gaines’s room so it’s highly unlikely it was self-defense.”

“This is still weird. He was obsessed with murder. And then
he
was murdered.”

“The question is does one have anything to do with the other or is this a macabre coincidence?”

“My mother once told my brother that coincidences were only facts not known yet.”

Jason quirked an eyebrow. “Interesting observation. What brought it on?”

Brinley smiled as she remembered the occasion. “The parents of Dan’s friends all called our house one Sunday morning before church. All their sons had spent the night with Dan out in the tent in the backyard and were now sicker than a dog and puking their guts up. So was Dan, by the way. Mom and Dad had been out of town the night before so of course they questioned my brother. Dan tried to convince my parents that it was just an amazing coincidence. Mom and Dad thought there was more to the situation that they weren’t aware of. Turns out there was a keg of beer, and a party too.”

“Ah, those pesky facts. They do give our secrets away.” Jason chuckled and motioned to the untouched side of the room. “Let’s see if we can get a few more of those facts. But that story has a good lesson in it. Friends know many more secrets than family ever does. We definitely need to talk to Brad Enright. My hope is that he can give some context to what we’ve found today. Hell, maybe he knows why Roger had your address. He might be the type to confide everything to someone he was close to.”

“Are we almost done here? I’m beginning to get used to the smell and that worries me.”

Jason chuckled, the sound low and deep. “We can’t have that. Let’s get this done and get out of here. I don’t like invading the Gaines’s privacy at a time like this any more than we have to.”

Their visit had only created more questions and hadn’t answered any of the ones they’d already had. Solving this murder wasn’t going to be as easy as Brinley had hoped.

She might never find out why Roger Gaines had her address in his hand when he died.

‡

J
ason climbed back
into his truck with a defeated sigh. A visit to Enright Luxury Cars had proved to be fruitless. Brad Enright was in Denver and had been for the last week at a sales conference. He was expected back late tonight and would be in his office tomorrow morning.

Warning bells had gone off in Jason’s ears when he’d heard Roger’s friend wasn’t in Billings. Out of town was a good alibi. If he’d truly been in Denver, that is.

“So?” Brinley asked, looking at him expectantly.

He had to admit she’d been a good sport today. Other than the whole smell thing at the Gaines home she hadn’t bitched or complained once. The stench
had
been awful. He’d tried to play it off like it was nothing, but he’d had trouble keeping down his pancakes. It wouldn’t have surprised him if they’d found another dead body in that room.

“Brad Enright isn’t here. He won’t be back until tomorrow. We can talk to him then.”

“We’re coming back in the morning?”

“I’m coming back. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”

Jason had also been thinking about the creepy books, papers, and photos they’d found in Roger Gaines’s room. If the guy was violent, he might have equally violent friends. Add in Brinley’s address and Jason was more determined than ever to keep her safe. He wasn’t sure she was actually in any real danger but he wasn’t taking any chances at this juncture in the investigation. Too many unknowns. Too many open questions.

It all came down to one thing. Jason wanted to keep an eye on Brinley until they knew more about this case.

The fact that she was beautiful, smart, and funny was a complete coincidence.

“Of course I want to. I meant it when I said I wanted to find out how I fit into all of this. So what are we going to do now?”

“Dinner,” Jason answered promptly. “Then back home. We both need a good night’s sleep. I’m guessing you didn’t get any more rest last night than I did.”

“Not much,” she confessed. “I can’t stop thinking about Roger Gaines. I don’t know how detectives do this kind of a job. I’d never sleep again.”

“I don’t usually get this personally involved in a case. Most cases don’t have this many unanswered questions also. Most of them are pretty cut and dried.”

Jason wasn’t being completely honest. There had been one case before this that had become personal as hell. It had almost killed him. And it affected his sleep. He still had nightmares, although not as often. It was a small price to pay to be alive.

“There’s a decent steakhouse off the highway. How does that sound?”

Changing the subject seemed like a good idea. He liked Brinley but he wasn’t in the mood for a confessional of any sort. There was something innocent and sweet about her that he didn’t want to sully with the sordid details.

He didn’t want her to know just how fucked up he really was.

*

By the time
Brinley and Jason returned to Tremont the sun was down and she was yawning. It had been a very long twenty-four hours and so much had happened in that short span of time. Her entire life had been turned inside out.

Jason was right. She needed a good night’s sleep.

“We’ll be home in less than five minutes,” Jason said when she yawned again. “How about we get on the road about ten in the morning? You can sleep in. That will get us to Billings about lunchtime.”

Brinley nodded, shifting in her seat. She’d been sitting too long and her lower back ached. A long bike ride would take care of it and loosen up her muscles but that wasn’t going to happen at this time of night. The only thing she was good for was crawling between the sheets and spending the next ten to twelve hours unconscious.

“What the hell?” Jason hissed, the truck accelerating sharply now that he’d turned onto their street. Brinley grabbed the door handle in alarm as the engine growled, throwing her back in her seat.

“What’s wrong?”

But she could see it now even as Jason was muttering under his breath. Red and blue lights flashed on two police cars in her driveway. A crowd of people were gathered on her lawn including her neighbor Fran, Fran’s husband Richard, and Detective Westin Anderson with Huck alongside.

The blood pounding in her ears, she practically jumped from the truck before Jason even had it in park. Slamming the truck door closed she jogged toward her house, frantically scanning it for damage, fire or otherwise.

“Easy there.” Of course Jason had easily caught up to her. His hand wrapped around her upper arm, bringing her to an abrupt halt on trembling legs. “Let’s talk to West first.”