Free 1 Grim Tidings by Amanda M. Lee Page B

sniffed.
    “Yeah, you’re really easygoing.”
    “I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.”
    “Then don’t dish it out.”
    Since this debate was going nowhere, I decided to end it with a little bit of class. I stuck my tongue out and blessed Redmond with a loud raspberry. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Redmond couldn’t help but laugh.
    “And you wonder why you’re single.”
    We lapsed into silence for a few minutes, the only noise the steady drum of Redmond’s fingers on the steering wheel. I don’t have a lot of patience on a good day, so on a bad day I’m practically apoplectic.
    Finally, Redmond put his key in the ignition and turned the car engine over. “Call Braden.”
    “And tell him what?”
    “Tell him to get the information he gathered on that guy … what was his name?”
    “Brian Harper.”
    “Yeah, Brian Harper. Tell him to get the information and meet us at his place.”
    I was surprised, but at least it was forward momentum. “Where is his place?”
    “Right upstairs from where you found him.”
    “We’re going back to the alley?” That didn’t sound like fun.
    Redmond shook his head, his attention focused on pulling into the heavy traffic clogging Woodward. “No. We’re going to the apartment above the alley.”
    That was better?
    Almost forty-five minutes later, Braden, Redmond and I were standing in the apartment complex’s parking lot and flipping through Brian Harper’s file looking for clues.
    “This guy was slime.”
    Braden tugged on a strand of my hair absentmindedly and nodded his head in agreement. “I can see why he was going to Hell.”
    “Yeah, this scam where he put contractor liens on people’s homes after doing substandard work so he could take ownership of them and sell them at a profit is pretty disgusting,” Redmond agreed.
    “I’m more offended with the racism when selling the houses,” I said. “Only whites need apply.”
    “That’s low,” Braden said. “That’s not as bad as the adoption scam he was running, though.”
    “I didn’t see anything about an adoption scam.”
    Braden ran his finger down the page – which was in Redmond’s hand – stopping when he got to the line he was looking for. “It says he was taking $50,000 from each interested family but he only had one kid for every three families – even though he was taking money from every family.”
    “Where was he getting these kids?”
    “That’s a pretty good question. It doesn’t say. ”
    “With as many fingers in as many pies as this guy had, his operation had to be bigger than just him,” Redmond said.
    “Our files don’t go that deep, though,” Braden mused. “We only get the highlights for our specific charge. We don’t get a list of his associates, even though that would be really helpful right now. That’s just not how it works.”
    “I’m lost.”
    Redmond tousled my hair. “We know.”
    I jerked my head away and smoothed down the mess. “I mean that I don’t understand what Brian Harper being an ass has to do with anything. Maybe it was just a crime of opportunity.”
    “I think that would be too much of a coincidence,” Redmond said, shrugging his broad shoulders until we heard an audible crack. “I think there’s something here – something specific about Brian Harper – that we need to know.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “It’s just a feeling,” Redmond admitted. “I think there’s more going on here.”
    “Well, with multiple wraiths in the area, I think that’s a gimme,” I said. “I still don’t understand how Brian Harper’s illegal activities during his life figure into the scary happenings surrounding his death.”
    Braden’s face broke out into a wide grin. “You have a way with words.”
    “I’m an intellectual.”
    Braden pointed down at my DC Skate Shoes. “Yeah, because most intellectuals wear shoes that could be found in a teenage boy’s closet.”
    I screwed up my face in a pointed scowl. “Don’t