The corridor ended at a closed door with a brass nameplate that read Tobias Dawson. Just whom I was looking for. I tried the knob. Locked, so I had to form two more Ice picks to open it. After I’d picked the lock, I turned the knob and held my breath, waiting. But no alarm sounded. Evidently, Dawson just secured his office as a precaution—or to keep his staff from snooping around while he was away. I stepped inside the room. The detective followed me.

I paused for a few seconds, taking in the view. Tobias Dawson’s office had just as much personality as the dwarf himself did because everything had a Western motif.

The desk consisted of several old-fashioned wooden barrels with a sheet of glass stretched over the top of them.

The art on the walls featured bucking broncos and Native American designs, perhaps Navajo, from the looks of them. One of the lamps on Dawson’s desk was shaped like a miniature cowboy boot. Another one resembled a curling lasso. I looked up. The dwarf even had a longhorn mounted over the door to the office—its stuffed head and horns at least.

“Somebody really needs to move to Texas,” I murmured.

“Forget that,” Donovan said. “What are we looking for?”

“Anything that might tell us why Tobias Dawson wants the Foxes’ land so badly.” I moved off to the right. “So see what you can find in his desk and in the filing cabinets.”

Donovan did as I asked. But before he started pulling open drawers, the detective stared at me. “And what are you going to do?”

“See if he has a safe stashed in here somewhere.”

Donovan shook his head, but he sat down in Dawson’s oversize chair and went to work, methodically opening, scanning, and closing all the files on the glass desk.

I went around the room and checked behind all the framed photographs, looking for a wall safe. Nothing. I ran my gloved hands over the cheap wood paneling, tapping it in several places. Again, nothing.

I curled and uncurled my hands into loose fists, thinking.

Since Tobias Dawson was friends and business partners with Mab Monroe, I imagined there were quite a few documents—legal and otherwise—he wouldn’t want his underlings seeing. Locking his office wouldn’t be secure enough. He’d need someplace to stash them. There had to be some sort of safe in here. A secret cubbyhole, hell, even a loose floorboard. And I needed to find it—fast.

We’d already been inside more than a minute. I wanted to be gone before the five-minute mark rolled around, if not before. Dawson might not have any obvious security here, but it was better not to take any unnecessary chances, especially since I was going to come back later and kill him.