Page 54 of Brutal
Location field is blank. Request origin is internal. No technician was assigned and there’s no completion report. It was just filed…and left.
I sit back slightly, staring at the screen.
A lock was replaced the same night Victor Halstead went over the edge.
A lock…
Vexley House. The symbol. The key worked into the walls, the railing, the stone.
Clearly it means something. Does it open something? Or close something?
I lean back in my chair. A lock was changed that night, which means…
Something was accessed…or something was sealed.
Or maybe this is insignificant. I mean, locks are changed all the time, right?
Except I can’t let it go.
My heart pounds. I inhale slowly, but it doesn’t stop. I press my thumb to my wrist where he touched me. Like I maybe can override it if I try hard enough, press hard enough.
It doesn’t work.
My body doesn’t care what I want.
It remembers him anyway.
The way he leaned in.
The way he almost?—
I exhale sharply and snap the laptop shut.
“Focus,” I say under my breath.
This is what matters.
The lock.
The request.
The timing.
Victor Halstead didn’t just die that night.
Something else happened.
Something someone didn’t want documented.
I lean forward again, reopen the laptop, and pull the file back up.
Lock replacement.
I sit there and stare at the screen. I’m missing something. Or am I seeing something that isn’t there?
“Christ,” I mutter, closing the laptop again.
I need sleep.
