Page 10 of Act Like You Don't Care
The first read-through, I knew I was on to something here and they were right to have called us in. On the second pass, I pulled a sheet of paper out of one of the desk drawers and started making notes, general impressions, etc. Once that was done, I went looking for the photocopier to make copies for our files, and then tracked down my mother in the office’s breakroom.
“They’re definitely going to have a problem. I’d like to talk to the gate security, see who’s been turned away,” I told her.
She nodded and got up to empty her coffee into the sink. “I thought so. I’ll call them to set up a meeting.”
I took everything back to my office and, once I’d found my login for our secured network, began uploading everything to Laydon’s casefile.
A few minutes later, Dad knocked and walked into my office. My brother Jim followed him, leaning against the wall next to my desk with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Here.” Dad laid a stack of freshly printed photographs on the desk and pushed them across to me, not wasting any time. “Do you see anything that says this isn’t the same guy who sent the letters?”
Whore. Go Home.Too bright a red to be blood, so probably paint. And then the bed, with the sheets pulled back to show the body of a young pig. I didn’t know enough about farm animals to even guess at how old it was, but it was about the size of an eleven-year-old child. And it had evidently been alive when it was brought into the trailer.
Most definitely wasn’t now.
“Any new letters?” I asked, pulling the next image toward me, passing the one I’d been looking at down to Jim. Whoever it was who had done this, he’d laid the dead pig out with its head on the pillow, like it had gone to bed there on its own. Add another tick in the probable psychosis box.
“No,” Dad said. “One of the production assistants found it when he went in to open up the trailer. It was covered up like it was sleeping in Laydon’s bed.”
I made a face and glanced over the rest of the images. “Have you talked to Rick yet?” My oldest brother was the investigations expert, like Jim was the expert on surveillance and alarm systems.
“He was out late last night, he’ll be in later.”
“And this is definitely the first approach he’s made to the client?” I glanced between my father and my brother, but my eyes kept being drawn back to the blackened red of the blood on the white sheets.
“As far as the studio is aware. Rick’s going to look into that too.”
I nodded. “I’ll go over the letters again and see if I can figure out what set him off,” I offered. “I can’t help thinking there’s a few missing though.”
Mom, who’d been watching unnoticed from the door until then, leaned in. “If it’s missing, it’s because it was innocuous enough that studio security didn’t see any reason to either include it or to connect it to our problem here.”
Dad frowned and tapped his fingers on the edge of my desk. “We have a call in half an hour with Elijah Francis, the executive producer. I’ll have more information for you after that.”
I nodded. “You need a preliminary profile for the stalker?”
Dad nodded. “You think you can have one for me before this phone call?”
“Not a good one. But I can give you the broad strokes.”
“That’ll do.”
Jim spoke up. “You have anything for me to do in this?”
Dad shook his head. “Not yet, but if they come to us, we’re going to be recommending increased home security, so you can go through your brother’s client profile and start planning for that.”
Jim nodded and jerked his head at me. “Cough it up, little man.”
I waited until our parents were out in the hall with the door closed before I said, “Call me little man once more, and we’ll see who’s coughing up what.”
He grinned and straightened, taking full advantage of his two extra inches of height over my five-eleven. “Tough guy.” But then he dropped it, like I’d known he would—we didn’t bruise each other, even though we yanked each others’ chains hard enough. And while I was maybe a little out of shape from flying a desk for the past couple of years, no one grew up in this family without learning how to defend themselves.
Something about his expression felt off, though, and I made a note to check in with Mom at some point in case there was something I hadn’t heard about.
Jim haunted my printer while I pulled up the profile. “I’ll send you the stalker’s profile, too, once I’m done. You staying here or are you out on a job?”
“I’ll be back around ten for a while, I’ll pick it up then.” The printer whirred and spat out the first page of the client profile into Jim’s hand.
“I’ll put it in your mailbox here.”
