Con Artist Legacy

Chapter Eight: The Gray Files

Chapter Eight: The Gray Files

School playgrounds were eerie places at night, devoid of children and full of empty swings that creaked with the wind. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I walked briskly and cursed myself for deciding that taking a shortcut was a good idea.

“Respectable” Gray had bailed on me during our breakfast meeting, so I had no other option than to pay the man a friendly visit when he least expected it. If my memory served me correctly, Gray liked to work late into the night in his dingy office across the local high school.

Old habits die hard.

A bolt of excitement traveled through my body as I noticed the soft glow coming from underneath the front door. Kneeling in front of the keyhole, I placed my little black pouch carefully on the ground and studied the tools.

I could sense my grandfather’s spirit standing behind, tapping his foot impatiently with a stopwatch in his hand. Periodically asking me if I was going to really use that tool or berating me for not being fast enough; less than a minute or you don’t get the prize Olivia.    

 Click.

It was the best sound in the world, inaudible most of the time to most people. I gently pushed the door open and caught a glimpse of a Gray hunched over his desk. Sucking in my stomach, I slid past the narrow gap and inched my way towards the desk. A couple feet away from his chair, I stood up, casting my shadow over the man.

“Gray, so nice of you to make time to meet with me,” I said sweetly.

His head whirled around, confusion momentarily evident in his small features. His beady eyes alternated between me and the exit, clearly calculating if he would be able to make it out. I stood my ground, feet planted a few feet apart, ready for him to try and escape.

Throwing papers in the air to distract me (expected that), he scurried away from me (wasn’t expecting that). The back entrance…I knew I had missed something. Weaving my way around the boxes, I tried to catch up with him, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it.

Thud.

Pain radiated from my knee, and traveled through my body. The dumb table I had bumped into flew down the room, crashing with the back door. Gray stood in front of the table, a look of resignation on his face.

“Tea, Miss. Stone?”

“Coffee, please,” I said pulling the table back into place.

“Just like your grandfather, unstoppable when you decide you need to know something.”

“Oh flattery…it will get you nowhere.”  

He chuckled a bit and busied himself heating up the water. Settling into a chair, I looked around the little office. It really hadn’t changed much from the days my grandpa and Gray had their little meetings or the late night poker games.

“What do you need to know?” He asked, placing a steaming cup of tea in front of me. The joke was on him, because I had acquired a new love for tea…mmm chamomile.

In-between sips of my tea; I explained how the new sheriff had reopened both cases, with a strong belief that the Reynaldi women were the culprits. Gray listened silently and nodded his head in agreement when I declared that it was all complete baloney.

“…then I found your business card in Carlo’s effects,” I finished, not elaborating on how I found the card or what happened afterwards.

“Damien gave him my card,” he sighed.

“Why?”

“Carlo thought someone was following him.”

“Was there?”

Gray rose from his seat, shuffled around the room, randomly looking through his boxes. The fifth box was obviously the lucky one since he brought it back to the table.

“There was,” he said place a series of photographs in front of me. My eyes began to hurt from staring, but I needed to make sure I was seeing the photographs correctly.

There was not only someone actually following Carlo…there were three someone’s trailing him.

The majority of the photographs showed two men, always a few steps behind him. It was clear to me that their intentions weren’t good, since they stayed in the shadows. Despite their obvious desire to stay hidden, Gray was able to capture their faces in a couple of shots. Most of the images were blurry, but it didn’t matter, it was enough to realize that they were outsiders.

The two men were disconcerting, but they were not the worst part of it. The photographs with one man following my uncle were worse, because the third man was my so-called father. Gray had apparently recognized him as well, and had written his name with question marks.

Who was my father…and what did that say about me?

“Why didn’t you show this to the police twenty-five years ago?” I asked incredulously. In that perfect world, the real killer would be in jail and we wouldn’t be going through this right now.

“They didn’t ask.”

“But you kept everything?”

“Of course, I keep copies of all my investigations for insurance purposes,” he stated.

“Good, now we can call the police.”

“We can?”

“Yes,” I said exasperated. I understood his business wasn’t entirely legal, so he avoided the police at all cost, but it was time for him to put his big boy pants on.

This was beyond his business, and it was more than clearing my aunt and mother for murder; I needed to know what happened.

“Okay, let me just clean up a bit,” he said as his beady eyes searched the room for things that should probably be hidden.

“Five minutes, you clean and I’ll make copies.”

Once Nate got there, he probably wouldn’t let me near anything (not officially anyway). I slid my own copies into my work bag and signaled Gray that his time was running out.

Ring…Ring…Ring

“Houston.”

“Stone.”

Silence.

“Ollie you called me, what do you want?”

“Geez, someone needs anger management,” I teased.

“Olivia Stone if you don’t tell me what you want, I am going to hang up.”

“If you hang up, you won’t know about the evidence I found.”

“Where are you?”

I let Nate know where I was and hinted at what I had found. His recommendation was to not be there when the police showed up, but if I left so would Gray. If Gray left, his stuff would probably disappear with him. The only things preventing him from fleeing were his respect for my grandfather (easily forgotten) and his fear of me.

Within a minute the red and blue lights lit up the room, it was a slow night for Rosswood PD. I didn’t feel like I should be in trouble, but felt nervous as Nate, Paul and Sheriff Clark exited the squad car.

“Go home Olivia. I’ll go talk to you later,” Nate said in his official police voice.

Nodding, I hurried out and silently wished Gray good luck. He didn’t need it though; he had been in worse situations.

Left alone with my thoughts, the walk back through the park was even more terrifying.