Chapter 22

We had to solve the mystery. This one act of … of what? Stupidity? Greed? One act, committed so many years ago, was now in its fourth generation. That was three generations too many. It had to stop, and it was up to me to end it. My great-grandfather died because of it; my grandfather died because of it; my father died … well, my father died because he couldn't keep it in his pants, but he was responsible for keeping the whole thing going. He could have destroyed all the material and it would be over now. But no, he couldn't do that. And now, two more people were dead, and my life and Sabrina's life were in jeopardy.

It was too late in the day to go across the state to my father's house, so we stayed in and ordered room service. The good thing, at least as far as we knew, was that Guidry's people didn't know Sabrina's name, so we felt pretty anonymous in the hotel.

We tried to have a nice romantic night, but finally gave up. Sabrina's publicist called four times, and she couldn't ignore him this time. He was putting the finishing touches on her book tour, and there were too many time-critical issues to be taken care of. So I played with my new phone until boredom set in. I finally fell asleep fully clothed, on top of the bed. I had a vague memory of Sabrina taking my pants off at some point and pulling the covers over me. I think she even whispered "sorry," but I guess our adventures out west wore me out more than I knew.

I woke up refreshed, but disturbed. In those early morning minutes, when dead sleep had ended, but I wasn't quite awake, my interaction with Seymour the day before took over my brain. What was it that disturbed me? It was related to his comment about the bullet holes in the side of the house, that much I knew, but it wasn't connecting. It was what finally woke me up—that and the fact that I had to pee.

When I got back from the bathroom, Sabrina was awake.

"Sorry again about last night. I … what's wrong? Are you mad at me?"

I looked at her in surprise, then realized I must've had a scowl on my face. I got rid of the scowl and sat next to her on the bed. "God, no," I said, and kissed her lightly on the lips. "How could I be mad at you for anything?"

She relaxed. "You had such a strange face when you came out of the bathroom. Everything go okay in there?"

"Just dandy. No, the face was me pondering a dilemma. It was something Seymour said to me yesterday when he was telling me why I was an idiot for not carrying my gun. He referred to the people who tried to kill me outside my house."

"And?"

"And why? When the thugs burst into our room in Wahoo, they weren't there to kill us. They wanted the painting. When the morons in the alley in Fairfield jumped us, they were looking for information. So why did they suddenly go from trying to kill us, to trying to pump us for information?"