bottom of the stairs, the room layout he saw offered no clues. He couldn’t even tell which direction to go in, to reach the garage. Utility rooms tended to be tucked away somewhere discreet and close to other utilitarian rooms. Dev guessed he was just going to have to start trying doors.
The familiar tinkling of Butters’ tags came from behind and Dev shined his light on the canine briefly, before greeting her with a good scratch behind her ears and the back of her neck.
“Let’s find it, girl,” Dev said to the dog, who walked obediently beside him as he struck out on his first three tries: behind the doors he opened were a bathroom, a laundry room, a very high-tech-looking office of some kind—peculiar, since he and Shea had made good use of the desk in her glass-walled office upstairs the night before. The space down here was orderly and beautiful, but cavernous given its smaller number of windows. Plus, being on the bottom floor gave the sense of being underground.
By the time Dev reached the fourth door, he wasn’t expecting to hit pay dirt on the generator, but part of being thorough was turning over every stone. All the earlier doors he had opened, he had closed quickly following the simple confirmation that no generator was likely to be found. But the fourth room stopped him. Its contents were baffling. The fourth room gave him pause. Though he could immediately see that it contained no generator, and should therefore have compelled him to close the door, the fourth room found him stepping closer in.
What the hell is this? Dev thought as he bent his elbow upward and raised his arm, moving it from one side to the other as he scanned the room with light. From the bed in the middle of the room and furniture that was just as well-coordinated and tasteful as everything else in the house, Dev could see its intended purpose. But why did every surface and inch seem to be taken up by fancy duffel bags?
For some reason, he wanted to count them. There had to be three dozen. It was weird, how they were almost all the same. Pure instinct caused the hair on the back of his neck to raise and warn him that, whatever this was, it wasn’t good. Because these weren’t unused bags. It was clear that they were in use—that something was inside them. The only question now was, what?
Give her some privacy. It’s none of your business, a voice inside him said. It warred with a different voice that told him to look. He didn’t want to think about that second voice—didn’t want to consider that his duty not to turn away when he saw something suspicious might put him at odds with her.
But a third voice was more alarming than the first and second voices, combined. And it wasn’t his voice—it was that of Delilah. How many times had his sister insinuated or outright said there were things about Shea that he didn’t know?
Yes, Dev concluded, there was something about Shea Summers that was out there to be known. The universe seemed to be nudging him in the direction of finding out. He didn’t feel good about stooping down to one of the bags or taking the irrevocable action of pulling a zipper until he could see what was inside. He felt even worse when he saw the money.
Part III
The Past
30
The Aftermath
Shea
Shea awoke to the morning light streaming through her bedroom windows for the first time in more than a week, astonished somewhat by the presence of a normal event—normal inasmuch as she was in her actual bed rather than on the couch. The night before was the first night she’d been able to bring herself to sleep in her own bed. Though, after where they’d been together, every space in the house reminded her of Dev.
The couch, however, had been her preferred place for wallowing. For one, it had the best TV. It was closest to the kitchen, which meant minimal effort to keep herself and her dog alive. Even someone as listless and unmotivated as Shea could manage to walk a few steps to pour kibble. She was well-stocked on dog food and biscuits and bones, but she needed to sort herself out. She was running dangerously low on human food.
Peering down over the edge of her bed, she found the ever-obedient Butters, not so bad of a service dog after all. Butters had