15. Keelan

Chapter 15

Keelan

P edestrians shuffled out of my way as I drove my horse down the street, weaving in and out of the lazy walkers who clogged the path. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding since I’d left the compound. I knew this was my break. I could feel it. Albrecht was at the center of so much more than I ever suspected, but I couldn’t see past the ledger and magical imprint to see the larger picture.

But kidnappings?

Jorin sat slumped in a stiff-looking wooden chair outside Albrecht’s office. Rough-hewn rope had been fashioned to form an “X” across the door, blocking anyone who might try to slip past him and enter the crime scene. I doubted it was necessary but appreciated his thoroughness.

Until I realized his head was bent over his chest, and his eyes were closed. Snoring, not unlike what I recalled of a mill grinding grain, rose from his heaving chest. I tapped his leg with a boot, startling the man awake.

“Oh, hey. Keelan! Shit. Guardsman Rea, I mean. I’m awake. I’m here.” He ran a hand over his hair, as though better grooming would make up for sleeping while on duty. “Do you need to get inside? I mean . . . of course you do. You wouldn’t be here unless . . . shit.”

“Jorin,” I said, struggling to keep from laughing. “Just open up, will you?”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Whatever you need, inspector, sir.”

“Fuck off and open up already.” I lost my battle and spit out a chuckle. Jorin grinned. We were of similar rank, though the older man had ten years’ seniority on me. Still, as an inspector, I wielded the longer sword, so to speak.

“Nobody’s been in there since you came last. I made sure of it,” he said as he untied the ropes and freed the door for passage. “I mean, even if I had dozed off, nobody messed with my ropes.”

“Sleeping ropes, then?” I needled.

Jorin had the good grace to blush.

The moment the ropes fell to the ground, I grabbed the door handle and stepped inside.

“Make sure I’m not disturbed, all right? I think I’m onto something, though I’m not sure what yet.”

“You got it, Chief.”

I bristled as the door shut. Would that title ever rest comfortably on my shoulders? Did all new inspectors feel so . . . whatever this was?

I shrugged off my mental musing and closed the gap between the door and Albrecht’s desk. The office was dark. The lanterns were cold. Dust had accumulated everywhere.

So quickly? I thought as I watched a trail form behind my finger as I ran it across the desk.

Light bloomed in the cramped space as I lit the lantern, and the acrid smell of burning dust filled my nostrils.

Where should I start? What am I even looking for?

I glanced up at the ledgers packed onto shelves that lined each wall. There were hundreds of them, some thin, others several fingers wide. Each spine bore a code that represented the client’s name.

Client names.

“Dammit.” I buried my head in my palm. I’d been so eager to get here and check out my new line of inquiry that I’d forgotten to get the names of the three kidnapping victims. I knew one’s name started with an “F,” but that was all I could remember.

“Shit.”

There was no way I could find those three ledgers without the clients’ names.

I stepped around the desk and scanned each spine, starting with the top shelf and the leftmost book.

I made it through the As. Nothing jumped out.

The Bs were also useless.

“This is ridiculous. I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” I grumbled, stepping back to lean against the desk. “If Albrecht was involved in something dark, would he keep evidence of that out here, in the open, where anyone could see it?”

I pushed myself off the desk and walked through the doorway to the storage room. It still stood open from my last visit. Nothing had changed in there since my last visit either—except for a thin layer of dust.

I sneezed.

The floorboard creaked beneath my boot.

I glanced down. Bare wood stared back. I wiggled my foot to reproduce the squeak. A round bolt that held the plank down popped free and skittered across the floor.

“Guess I shouldn’t expect great workmanship down near the river,” I mused.

I looked up to stare into another wall of shelves crammed with even more leather books than were in the office.

“Great. More books and more coded names.”

Unsure where else to begin, I repeated my pattern from before, starting with the top shelf and leftmost book.

The first code wasn’t an A. It began with a Q.

The second one was an L.

“What the hell?”

Curious, I reached up and pulled the book with the A label off the shelf. Its cover was dry and cracked, as though it hadn’t been handled in years. When I opened the cover, the pages groaned in the way only dried paper can. I flipped through a few. Albrecht’s now familiar handwriting scrawled across each page in faded black, notes about pottery shipments and changes in inventory.

Riveting stuff.

Oddly, the name at the top of the first page was Bannon, one of the top potters in the city. Why would the code for his ledger start with a Q? I didn’t remember any of the books in the office having that kind of a disconnect. Curious, I grabbed my notepad and scribbled a note.

“Code with wrong letters? Q instead of B?”

Then I replaced the ledger on its shelf.

“This is going to take forever,” I grumbled. “If there’s even anything here to find.”

I considered riding back to the compound to get the names of the kidnap victims but decided to use my newfound Chief moniker and get someone else to do the grunt work. Stepping back through the office, I poked my head out the door to find Jorin sound asleep again.

“Hey, Jor.” I slapped my palm against the wood and grinned when he nearly fell off his chair.

“Oh, hey, Chief. I’m awake. Did you find something?”

I rolled my eyes. “Not yet, but I need you to do something for me.”

“Sure, whacha need?”

“Would you ride back to the HQ and get me the three names of those kidnapping victims Merik’s team is working on? I need their full names, including any initials or titles or whatever. Have him write them down for me, okay?”

“You got it, Chief.” He rose and turned to walk away.

“Jor, take my horse.”

“Oh, right.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “Guess that’s why you’re the Chief.”

I fought the urge to toss something at him, closing the door behind me instead. Some men were lifetime patrol officers, and that was fine. Jorin was . . . who knew what Jorin was. If he got me those names and saved me a trip back to HQ, he was a gem. That’s all I knew.

I walked back into the storeroom and scanned the shelves again. There were so many damn books. My heart sank as I realized how tiny the needle was versus my haystack.

But sulking wouldn’t narrow the search, so I grabbed the next ledger and began flipping through pages.

Jorin returned an hour later.

He’d obtained the requested names, scrawled on a scrap of parchment that looked like the corner of a worn newspaper. He also brought me lunch from the canteen, some sort of meat pie and a flagon of ale. In that moment, with a sea of useless account books before me, I was more thankful for the ale than anything else in Jorin’s possession. We sat outside the shop, watching the people stroll by, while eating and drinking in contented silence.

When the last of my ale had vanished, I stood, patted Jorin on the shoulder, and opened the door. “Back at it. If I don’t come out by sundown, come wake me up. This is brutal.”

Jorin chuckled and raised his ale in salute. “You got it, Chief.”

There was no window in the storeroom. The only light came from the flickering flame of the lantern that was low on oil. Whatever sunlight streaming through the window in the office was gasping for breath as another day surrendered to night.

I rubbed my tired eyes, immediately regretting the act. Dust brought tears. Tears brought a sneezing fit.

I shoved the latest ledger back onto the shelf and stepped back.

Halfway.

I’d been there all day and only made it halfway through the stupid shelves. And what did I have to show for my effort?

Nothing.

Not a single lead or idea or new thought or anything.

I wanted to throw a ledger or two, watched their brittle pages scatter across the floor. I wanted to never see another account log again.

Even the names of the kidnap victims had been a bust. Without some cipher to understand Albrecht’s code system, there was no way to tell which book went with which client.

The whole thing was infuriating.

“Guardsman Rea?” Jorin’s voice echoed throughout the empty wooden shop.

“Yeah?” I called back.

“I’m done for the day. No idea who’s replacing me. They’re late.”

“All right. Go on. I’ll cover you until they get here. I have no life.”

Jorin’s quiet laughter made its way back to the storeroom. Then the door thudded shut, and I was alone with the lantern and a million useless books.

“I need a break. My whole head hurts,” I said, rubbing my eyes, damn the dusty consequences.

As I stepped back toward the office, another screech erupted from the floorboard beneath my boot. Apparently, even the floors hated me that day.

I looked down on reflex. The bolt I’d kicked free before lay nearby. Something about it drew my gaze, so I leaned down and picked it up. It felt cold and smooth against my skin, its point sharp as a razor. I held it up to the lantern, then kneeled and held the lantern to the floor, searching for another bolt still stuck in place.

Four bolts held the next plank down. They were weathered and battered and looked older than any of the ledgers.

Four?

Something slotted into place in my mind.

I held the lantern over the loose board. There were holes for four bolts, but the nails were missing. Only the one in my hand remained. In a dockside office as old as Albrecht’s, I supposed some degree of dilapidation was to be expected. Still, checking nearby boards, none of the others had missing pegs.

I tried gripping the board, but the wood was shoved in too tight. Intrigued, I rapped on the wood with a knuckle. The buildings near the river were built on solid foundations, slabs of rock or sand, sometimes hard-packed dirt. Due to flooding, basements were rare.

But the board sounded hollow when I knocked.

There was no foundation beneath it.

In the silence of the storeroom, one faint tap echoed louder than a hammer on an anvil.

I nearly shat myself right there.

Leaning down, I listened.

Another tap. Then another.

I knocked again.

The taps grew rapid and insistent. More joined the first, a chorus of knocks and bangs sounding well below the shop.

Snatching the dagger off my belt, I pried the board free and tossed it aside.

A small lever revealed itself in the lantern light.

The tapping grew into knocking, then pounding.

“Here goes nothing,” I mumbled, reaching down and pulling the lever upward. It resisted, as though some massive mechanical beast refused to be awakened—but wake it did.

Movement behind startled me again, as the middle shelf, the one whose ledgers I’d just been working through, swung open, revealing a set of stairs that descended into darkness.