Kelley Armstrong - Broken

As sympathetic as I am to the plight of overworked hospital staff, I don’t think a restaurant is the appropriate forum for airing complaints, especially when those complaints are sprinkled with graphic descriptions of the byproducts of gastronomic upset. When I started showing signs of losing my appetite, Jeremy asked the server to relocate us. We decided on the patio, which was hot enough to bake potatoes on, but quiet enough to discuss our next criminal enterprise.

The upside to our forthcoming home invasion? Having just invaded the same home the night before, we already knew the floor plans, security features and codes. The downside? Having been invaded the night before, Shanahan might have changed those codes.

“Nah,” Clay said. “You get robbed, what’s your first priority? Assessing damage and figuring out how it happened. Making sure it doesn’t happen again comes later, after you remember where you filed the instruction book for your security system.”

“What if he’s a little more organized?” I said. “Or a little more paranoid?”

Clay shrugged. “We’ll deal with it. This is an interrogation. Subterfuge is secondary.”

At eleven-thirty at night, Patrick Shanahan’s house was still ablaze with light. He hadn’t gone to bed yet. Nor had he activated the outside lights, which made sneaking up to the side door very easy.

The side door was locked. Instead of trying Xavier’s key, Jeremy and Clay made the rounds to check the other doors while I was consigned to the bushes again.

They got lucky with the oft-forgotten sliding patio door, and slipped inside. I bounced on my tiptoes, straining to hear voices, wondering whether I could interpret “stay there” as “stay outside,” rather than “stay behind that particular bush.” Just as I decided Jeremy’s command was indeed open to wider interpretation, the patio door moved again.

Clay walked onto the deck and motioned me in. I jumped forward so fast I nearly impaled myself on a marble obelisk. Then I raced to the deck and leapt onto it, ignoring the set of stairs on the far side.

“Don’t laugh,” I muttered as I swept a sweat-soaked strand of hair from my face. “I’ll make you hide in the bushes next time and see how fast you come running.” I moved up beside him. “So what’s up?”

“Not home.”

“Shanahan? But the lights-and the doors-oh, shit.” I met Clay’s gaze. “He bolted, didn’t he?”

“Looks that way.”

There were no signs of foul play, as the cliché goes, nothing to indicate a real Cabal security agent had swooped down and snatched up Patrick Shanahan. We found clothing laid on the bed and a couple of drawers open, as if someone had packed in a hurry. A handwritten note on the kitchen counter told his housekeeper he’d be gone for a few days, and asked her to leave the mail in his home office.

Shanahan must have opted for an impromptu vacation until the mess was sorted out. Either that or he didn’t want to be in the city while a dimensional portal was active.

Clay and I had experience conducting residential searches without the owner’s knowledge, enough to earn a rookie’s spot on a crime scene team. Trouble was, we were used to looking for evidence of a crime, usually homicide. Suspecting a mutt of man-killing wasn’t enough. We needed evidence. Not an unreasonable requirement, considering the death penalty was at stake.

We also had experience searching for clues to help us find a mutt-on-the-run, but we weren’t trying to find Shanahan. What we wanted from him we hoped to get right here: clues on how to close the portal.

Jeremy directed us to search books and files, the first on supernatural artifacts, portals or Jack the Ripper in general, and the second on Shanahan’s collection-assuming, as a careful investment banker, he’d keep detailed records.

Jeremy went in search of hidden books or ones hiding in plain view. Most reference texts on the supernatural don’t need to be hidden-anyone who stumbled on them would just think you had unusual reading tastes.

The file duties were split between old-fashioned and new-paper files and computer ones. I got the computer. While I knew how to recover files from the recycle bin or the “deleted” folder on my e-mail, when it comes to things like cracking encrypted data or finding files that have been wiped clean, I was lost. I read through Shanahan’s e-mail and hard drive files, finding nothing useful. Clay saved me from further digging by announcing that he’d found paper-based files on Shanahan’s collection.

“Where?” I asked, swinging around in the computer chair.

“Right here.” He pointed at the file cabinet. “Bottom drawer.”

“Out in the open? Are they written in code?”

“Don’t need to be. He found an easier way. They’re all listed as fakes-curiosities, not artifacts.” He lifted a folder and flipped it open. “One Baphomet idol, reportedly taken from an unnamed Templar castle in Britain. Later discovered to be a late eighteenth-century forgery.” He thumbed through a few pages. “It goes on to describe the significance of Baphomet in the persecution of the Knights Templar.” He handed me the file. “The usual stuff. How they were accused of worshipping Baphomet, presumably a Pagan deity of some kind. Problem was that no one’s ever found a Pagan deity called Baphomet.”

“So an idol of it would be significant.”

“And valuable, if only from a scholarly point of view.” He frowned and glanced at the doorway. “Where did you say he kept his collection?”

“Uh-uh. No side trips. We have work to do. You can’t get into that room in human form, so you’d have a heck of a time getting a good look at it.” I paused. “Though I could see a few things from the doorway. Remind me to show you when we’re done.”

He nodded his thanks.

I waved the file folder. “So they’re all written up like that? Purported fakes?”

“All the ones I’ve skimmed. Good idea. Most of them, like the Baphomet idol, are historically significant and widely believed to either not exist or not to have the supernatural powers attributed to them. They’re written up as such-a collection of supernaturally-themed curiosities.”

“And the letter?”

He bent to the drawer again. “Still looking. Tried P for portal, L for letter, J for Jack. Nothing yet.”

“Here, hand me a bunch.”

He did. Jeremy joined us about twenty minutes later and took a share. His book search hadn’t revealed anything. Seems Shanahan wasn’t much of a reader. The only hidden stash Jeremy found was a half-empty bottle of rye whiskey, presumably belonging to the housekeeper.

An hour later, we’d gone through every page in every file, and found no mention of the From Hell letter or anything related to Jack the Ripper.

“He’s detailed everything,” Jeremy said. “It’s unlikely that the letter is the only undocumented artifact.”

“Don’t forget,” I said. “It was stolen.”

“So was his copy of John Dee’s Necronomicon, ” Clay said. “According to the pages copied into the file, it went missing in 1934, from Oxford. Shanahan just says he inherited it from his grandfather’s collection.”

“So, chances are, there is a file for the letter. Either he took it or he destroyed it.” I looked around the office. “Does anyone see a shred-”

“Here,” Clay said, heaving to his feet and walking over to it. He took off the top. “Recently emptied.”

“Damn. What about the recycling box? He could have put the pieces in there.”

“Or burned them in the fireplace,” Jeremy said.

Clay nodded. “Or stuffed them in the garbage.”

“Everyone can check out the place they suggested,” I said.