AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I meant people hide stuff in fake books. That’s another place you should put on your Super-Duper Private Investigator List, patent pending.”
North was making a sound like the time he’d found the puppy trying to eat one of his boots.
“Let’s just scoot into the kitchen,” Shaw said. “Sometimes North gets in a mood, and he can be a real pills.” He made extra sure to pronounce the s.
Tean probably didn’t search a lot of houses; Shaw could tell from his breathing that he was excited. It was nice, Shaw thought, that people could still be happy about the little things.
The kitchen had suffered the same fate as the rest of the house. Cabinet doors stood open, plates and dishes shoved aside or broken, food dumped out on the floor: dried pasta, pancake mix, rice, bricks of ramen, at least six different types of breakfast cereal, the scree of bag after bag of potato chips. Jars and bottles had been emptied into the sink, presumably, and now stood on the table and countertop: two-liters of Coke, shelf-stable soup, ketchup and mustard and barbeque sauce, even a jug of iced tea.
When Shaw opened the refrigerator, it wasn’t much better. The disorder suggested someone had gone through it as part of the same frenzied search. Individually wrapped slices of American cheese lay fanned out on one shelf. Half of a frozen pizza had been knocked off its plate. Chicken nuggets under a pathetic skin of shrink wrap were shoved into a corner.
“We haven’t been watching this place twenty-four-seven,” Tean said as he toed a small mountain of dried macaroni. “We’ve been trying to find Adam, but we haven’t been here all day, every day.”
“Of course not,” Shaw said. “No one expects you to.”
“Sure,” North said from the next room. “Sit on your thumbs, hit the malt shop, flirt with boys. The rest of us are just busy working.”
“I actually do love a chocolate malt,” Jem said. “But Tean won’t let me flirt with any boys because he says Scipio has a jealousy complex.”
Tean looked like he was trying to adjust his glasses. “I never said—”
“Oh my God,” Shaw said, “the puppy has a jealousy complex!”
North was making that noise again.
“We’ve tried all the normal ways to find him,” Tean said in a rush. “We tried talking to his family, but there’s only the brother, and he’s never home and only picked up the phone once. We tried his social media. We even tried his credit cards—”
“You did?” North’s voice took on fresh interest. “How?”
“Uh,” Tean managed a smile that looked shockingly guilty. “Nothing illegal?”
North snorted.
“Brain stroke,” Jem said, “I’ve got another place you should look—”
“Brainstorm,” North said, “and so help me God, I’ve been working as a fucking private detective for—Shaw, how many years?”
“Fake pipes. Check it out. Maybe he’s got a fake pipe!”
“Like for smoking?” Shaw asked. “Or, like, house pipes?”
“Will you for once in your life,” North called, “please not fucking do this?”
“God,” Jem said with a laugh. “I didn’t even think about a pipe you can smoke. We should check for those too.”
“You’re a scientist,” Shaw said, and he opened the fridge to grab one of the American singles. “What kind of advances has medical science made towards testing for a bovine genetic component?”
The sound of feet came surprisingly quickly, and a red-cheeked North appeared in the doorway. He stabbed a finger at Tean and said, “Do not answer that.”
“North is willing to be a test subject.”
“No, I surely fucking am not.”
Tean opened his mouth.
“It’s his love of cheese,” Shaw said. “That could be an indicator, right? Further testing warranted?”
“Everybody loves cheese.” North swatted the single out of Shaw’s hand. “What in the fuck do you think—”
