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“Glass.” The one intact piece of furniture left in here.
“Chair.”
“Leather,” Levi said, spinning it. “Cut.”
“Rug.”
“Rolled up.” Shoved against the wall. Against the?—
“Wall art.”
He gestured at the broken frame propped on the rug. “Also ripped.”
“Well, this is curious.”
Levi spun to face his husband. “What is?”
“There was a wine fridge on the bill of sale to Cousins,” Marsh said, straightening off the doorjamb. “But it was crossed out. Initialed by Cousins and LR.”
“Luis Rivera? He removed it?”
Marsh had already dialed, the call ringing on speaker, by the time Levi reached his side. “Hello,” Luis answered, sounding surprisingly awake for five in the morning. And somewhere surprisingly noisy. Near the water, judging by the boat horns and seagulls in the background.
“Luis, this is Agents Bishop and Marshall, we’re sorry to call so early.”
“Best time of the day to buy fish,” he replied. “Give me just a second.” They listened as he negotiated a halibut purchase, then after a moment, the background noise quieted, Luis having moved out of whatever hustle and bustle he’d been in. “What can I help you with, agents?”
“Did Ward use to have a wine fridge in his office?” Levi asked.
“Oh, yes,” Luis replied. “Eloise was going to sell it to the buyer, but I wanted it for the underbar in one of the restaurants. We worked out a deal.”
“Did you notice anything unusual? About the fridge?”
“No. It worked fine. Some junk behind it when we moved it out, but Ward wasn’t the neatest guy.”
“What kind of junk?”
“Receipts for restaurant supplies. A couple of flash drives.”
Marsh’s eyes grew wide. “Did you check the flash drives?”
“Gibberish,” Luis said. “Just a single file on each. A random string of numbers.”
Marsh hit the Mute button. “They’re passkeys to other files.” He took the phone off mute, asking Luis, “Any chance you also have Ward’s laptop?”
“I do, since he only had his RWK one. I’ve got it in secure storage with the rest of the work files we cleaned out of the house. Backup in case I needed to access anything.”
“Can you text us the address and meet us there?” Levi said. “I know it’s early?—”
“I want to know what happened to my friend,” Luis said. “I’ll text you the address. It’s here in Newport Beach.”
“This time of morning, we can be there in an hour.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“And Luis,” Marsh added, “bring the flash drives.”
Twelve
