Page 8 of Artifacts

Shaking his head at his thoughts, Aldric double-checked that the front door was locked and the alarm set. The blinds were secured, shielding the shop from prying eyes and any illegal temptations that might spring up. The floor shone with a golden gleam and the wooden floors were polished to perfection. Aldric wanted to have a home with real wooden floors someday, and lots of windows.

“And space inside and out…” Aldric turned off the main lights, leaving only the security ones on. He traipsed to the office and picked up the repurposed box from the Buckman sale that contained his goodies, his favorite being the colorful teacups and saucers. Elliot had explained they were a play on words, as the termharlequin setmeant an unmatched set of objects with a theme, so making cups with repeating patterns of contrasting diamonds, and saucers with patterns of elongated squares, no two colors the same, was a silly, subtle joke. All the items from the sale had been equally as light-hearted.

The box was bulky, but not heavy. Aldric was tempted to open it and make sure he’d packed everything well.No.He’d used plenty of padding, so his anxiety was not going to get the best of him here. Though it almost felt painful to do so, Aldric refused to cut the tape and double-check.

He set the box on the desk long enough to fetch his keys from his pocket, then lifted the box up and walked to the back door. TheExitsign glowed in the dim lighting, and for some reason, Aldric shivered. He’d heard the saying ‘someone must be stepping on your grave’ for such instances. He doubted that was the case, yet he couldn’t shake the discomfort that came over him.

He had to put the box down again to unlock the door, prop it open with one foot, pick up his treasures again and exit. He placed the box on the ground and turned to lock the door behind him.

The blow stunned him. One second he was reaching for the box, the next, pain exploded at the back of his head. Bright starbursts bloomed in his vision—then total darkness.

Chapter Four

The San Antonio Riverwalk buzzed as it usually did, but the people strolling the narrow pedestrian walkway or clustering under the colorful café umbrellas barely registered with Darrell. He usually liked to watch the boats on the water, but today he was trying to work out what this summons could be to do with. He wasn’t even sure who’d issued it. It had come from his father to the family group text, as did the usual monthly get-togethers—although this wasn’t one of them—but someone else could have wanted them all to meet up.

There was no family birthday on the horizon. Maybe his elder brother, Travis, had gotten some promotion or other? Or his younger brother Ryan had aced basic training at Randolph and won some award or medal? Darrell snorted. Yeah, they’d be more likely to turn out for that sort of occasion than they would for his commendation at the station. Well, he’d only been congratulated by a captain. And the SAPD wasn’t military.

“You could have joined the military police!”He heard that in three voices, because his brothers copied their father in saying it to him. Only, Darrell didn’t want to be a provost, policing the armed forces. He wanted to ensure the safety of citizens, in San Antonio or wherever else he might possibly transfer to one day.

He crossed the bridge over to the stretch of more individual buildings. Brick’s Tavern was the tallest of the short row, although that wasn’t saying much, and seemed the most solid, at least to Darrell. Tourism sites and pages tended to describe it as traditional and unchanging, although there was nothing rundown or dingy about it.

Darrell took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, heading inside the tavern’s long room. He waved a hand at any bartender or server behind or around the bar running the length of one side, even though the one he really knew, Zé, he couldn’t see. A dark-haired girl waved back and twisted to call behind her, into the kitchen.

Late-afternoon sunlight glinted off the shelves of alcohol bottles and the upside-down stem glasses behind the bar and made the brass footrail gleam. The sights were as familiar to Darrell as the aroma of spicy-smoky grilling meat and salty-sharp melting cheese that filled every corner of the room and clung to clothes. He waited a second and, sure enough, clatters and thuds rang out from the ping-pong and air hockey tables in the recessed alcove at the back.

Enough nostalgia.Darrell ran up the old but well-maintained spiral steps, feeling their thump and give, to the second floor where Jack ‘Chief’ Williams, his father, preferred to sit.

The round table at the end of the balcony, where the big windows opened to the outside, was full of his family. He was last to arrive. He took a moment to observe the table’s occupants. The three guys were dressed in 5.11 pants and had Oakley sunglasses slotted into the vee of their rolled-sleeve outdoor button-up shirts in the approved ‘casual tactical’ style of the special forces, for all Ryan was still in training. Darrel compared it to his own clothes. In uniform, he’d stand out more than he did already.

Darrell looked beyond the surface image, trying to gauge the mood, the reason why they were all there, and thought he’d figured it out from the way Ryan’s girlfriend, Leah, had her chair so close to Ryan’s that she was almost sitting in his lap.

She was the first to spot him, probably because she’d been looking out for him. “Darrell!” she squealed, making Travis’ wife, Ashley, wince. Leah would have to learn to moderate her tone in the Williams family. Ashley had. “Guess what?”

A diamond ring winked on the appropriate finger of the hand she had around Ryan’s arm, but Darrell didn’t need the clue. “Congratulations!” he said, slapping Ryan’s shoulder and bending low to kiss Leah on the cheek. “About time.”

That was appropriate, wasn’t it? Leah didn’t seem to think so, if the speech she launched into about waiting until Ryan was almost through with basic and they knew what he’d be doing, and she was secure in the office of the company she worked in, was a clue.

He nodded in the right places, made the correct “uh-huh” noises and greeted his father. Jack stood and gripped his upper arms while looking him up and down, his version of a hug. “Let’s hope so, Lea-Lea!” he said over his shoulder to Leah.

“Huh?” Darrell raised an eyebrow. He’d missed a bit.

“Your turn next,” Ryan repeated his fiancée’s words.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Travis took the ball from his brother, casting him a glance. “Got something to tell us, bro?”

Darrell wished he could. He would have loved to be able to, but the words needed to say it didn’t exist in the Williams family. He gave a meaningless shrug. “So when’s the wedding?”

“I just finished telling you!” Leah cried, her pitch shrill.

Jack swiveled his head in her direction and raised a finger in front of his face, as if he were going to bring it to his lips, in a gesture for silence. He didn’t have to. The signal was enough. Leah reddened a little, and when she started to repeat what she’d said, both her volume and tone were lower.

Travis started in with his doings at the same time, Ryan asking questions and exclaiming over the answers, meaning Darrell still couldn’t hear the wedding plans. “I got a commendation,” he said, just to see if anyone responded. “For my work on a case. There’s talk of me moving up to sergeant.” Well, Sean had joked about it. “Or moving into criminal investigation.” He had thought about becoming a detective-investigator.

“Darrell.”

“Chief.” The response was automatic, his father’s nickname ingrained. He sat straighter.

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