“And I wasn’t really thinking of that,” she admitted. “We did see you come out of the building.”

  “Oh, did you?” He laughed. “Hopefully nobody else did.”

  Mountain nodded, otherwise silently listening to their exchange.

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t believe you made that jump.”

  “Once you slide down the gutter,” he explained, “not really much more to it. All depends on how good a job they’ve done with securing the gutters to the wall. Unfortunately shoddy workmanship means that a tumble is more likely than not.”

  She shook her head, as she slumped onto the couch and stared at him. “So, nothing was wrong?”

  “Sure, something was wrong,” he noted. “The cops came. And I didn’t have a whole lot of places to go. I was photographing the material in files that your husband had,” he added, “and it looks to me very much like blackmail.”

  “Blackmail?” she asked in astonishment.

  “Yes,” Aiden confirmed. “I’ve got a ton of photos to download onto my laptop. And I took away a little black book.” He held it up.

  “Wow. Are you allowed to do that?” she asked him.

  “No security was in that building. You, as his widow, technically own the apartment, so I figured that anything inside it should have been fair game too.”

  “Why would I own it? Oh God.” She stared at him in shock. “That’s probably another reason why his father would be fighting hard to make these charges stick.”

  “That’s right. Unless we hear differently, everything in Moscow’s estate is left to you,” he noted, with a smile. “And, if a lot is involved, then Moscow’s father won’t want to share.”

  “No, he won’t. And he’ll make my life very difficult in the meantime.”

  “Yeah, he’s really not a nice guy, is he?”

  She shook her head. “No, he’s not, and he’s all about the money. But then you know that’s how he created a son in his image, so they certainly understood each other.”

  “In this case,” Aiden said, “it’s not always a good thing. But we will get to the bottom of this.”

  “Do you think the cops will keep that evidence?”

  “I didn’t think so,” he replied, pulling files from underneath his jacket. “These were inside his desk. If he had multiple homes, no telling where more of the like could be—or just duplicates for safekeeping.”

  She nodded, then frowned. “I do have a bunch of stuff he left here, but I didn’t even think of it.”

  “Where is it?” Aiden asked.

  “In the garage,” she murmured. At that, she got up, walked to the kitchen, opened up the connecting garage door, and turned on the light. She pointed to a couple boxes put off to the side.

  “And you don’t know what’s in these?” Aiden asked.

  “He made it very clear that I wasn’t to have anything to do with the boxes. He was just storing this stuff for a friend. Had nothing to do with him.”

  “Well, what do you want to bet it has to do with the fact that he may have had a good idea that he was in trouble,” Aiden murmured. “Nice guy to bring that danger to you though.” Both Aiden and Mountain headed to the boxes, picked them up and carried them into the living room.

  With the garage locked again behind her, she said, “I don’t understand what or who he’d be blackmailing.”

  “In a city like this, it could be any number of things or people,” Aiden suggested. As he started to sift through the files, he noted, “This looks like copies of what I was trying to get photos of before the cops came.”

  “Well, that’s good that we have duplicates,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “It means that the cops won’t bury it, and, sure enough, another little black book is here too.” He held it up and tossed it to her. “Do you know any of these names?”

  “There aren’t any names here,” she replied. “These appear to be just numbers.”

  “It’s probably a code,” Mountain guessed. “Remember how your father had that problem in the casino way back when? About this group of young guys from the university who were cheating by using code words or special body language that they tossed back-and-forth in a game?”

  “Yeah.” Toby nodded. “God, I don’t remember how that even worked, but they were doing something shady like that, and that’s how they caught them.”

  “Right. Well, take a look at those numbers. It looks like a code to me.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s connected though.”

  “No. I’m not saying it is,” Aiden stated. “I’m just saying that your husband—

  “My ex-husband,” she corrected him in a firm voice. When he turned his focus on her, she sighed. “Fine, okay my husband. But I’m a widow now so …”

  “Right,” he agreed. “A moot point anyway. He looks like he was making a lot of money off these people.”

  “I just don’t know who these people would be,” she said.

  “What they are now are leads for who would have killed him,” he replied. “Anybody who deals in blackmail makes enemies. That completely widens the suspect pool as to who could have killed Moscow. And whether the cops like it or not, they can’t hide this.”

  “And yet they probably won’t take it into account,” she complained bitterly.

  “Did you ever get that lawyer process taken care of?” Aiden asked. “That’s something where your lawyer will go to bat for you to get all the charges dropped.”

  “They won’t drop any charges,” Mountain said, “not until we have something a little stronger than this.”

  “You mean the fact that he was blackmailing people isn’t enough?” Toby asked her cousin.

  “No. It would just be potentially more motive on your part. You could keep all this money and keep up the blackmail scheme and not have to share.”

  She stared at Mountain. “That’s disgusting.”

  His lips twitched. “Maybe, but that’s how the world works,” he stated. “You are already assumed guilty, so what we have to do is prove that you’re innocent.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not even possible with these dirty cops doing favors for Moscow’s dad.”

  “Sure, it is possible,” Mountain argued. “We’re well on our way to proving your innocence. We just have to keep digging.”

  “I still can’t believe Moscow was blackmailing people,” she murmured. “I mean, I knew he was a lowlife but—”

  “And a lowlife with a very dangerous pastime that brought him a lot of money,” Aiden noted, pulling out bank statements. “He has a separate bank account here, and the income is sometimes $20,000 up to sometimes $50,000 a month.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Did you say, a month?”

  He nodded and handed her the statement.

  She looked over it and shook her head. “I’ve never even seen anything like this.”

  “Well, he also had a big box of money there at his apartment,” he added. “I took photos of it.” He pulled out his phone and held it up for her to see.

  She shook her head. “Could be $20,000 or $30,000 right there.”

  “Yeah, I would say so,” he murmured.

  “Hang on a minute. The guys who were at his apartment, who were they?” she asked.

  “They were supposedly cops, but the older lady across the hall accosted them and demanded to see their badges. She said that nobody was going in there and that she’d already called the real cops, and, if these guys didn’t have ID, they better get the hell out of there.”

  “Nice,” Toby said, with a huge grin.

  “In other words”—Aiden turned toward Mountain—“I did get out of there without her or the fake cops seeing me, but we need to go back to the apartment and clean it out.”

  Mountain nodded. “Good idea.” He checked his watch. “And we’re not leaving her alone.”

  “Right,” Toby agreed. “I have to come with you. Where there is money, people are coming after it.”

  He nodded. “But you seem to have the legal right to it.”

  She winced. “Not only that, I think I have keys.” She got up, walked over to the sideboard, and pointed. “He dropped these in this box a while ago. I didn’t even know what they were for. He didn’t tell me.”

  Aiden studied the keys and nodded. “Looks like a safe deposit box key and also a storage locker key.” He glanced at Mountain.

  “I’m on it. I’ll ask Corbin to get the team on it.”

  She shook her head as she stared at it. “Why didn’t he make things clear?”

  “He knew you would figure it out. And he never really expected to die, but this was kind of a ‘just in case’ backup for him. And he could always pick up the boxes and the keys and take them away from you later. You were already under his thumb enough that, if you didn’t listen, he would just beat the crap out of you again, and then you would listen next time.”

  She stared at Aiden, then nodded. “And you know something? I wouldn’t have touched anything anyway. He terrified me at all times.”

  “However, by being his legal wife, you probably own all this, what with the Nevada inheritance laws, unless some Last Will and Testament says otherwise,” Mountain mentioned.

  Aiden nodded. “I don’t trust people, so why don’t we head over there and grab anything valuable? And make sure you bring your wedding certificate with you.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Why?”

  “Because you have a nosy neighbor,” he explained, with a smile, “and she might want to sit there and give you big congrats on your nuptials.”

  Chapter 8

  As all three of them headed back to her ex’s place, Aiden gave them a heads-up about what he had already found, what they should each look for.

  Toby said, “Doesn’t it seem like we’re doing everything backward?”

  “It certainly never occurred to any of us,” Aiden replied from the back seat of her Jeep, “that the cops wouldn’t have already been there to check out a dead guy’s apartment.”

  She shook her head. “It certainly didn’t occur to me because I was trying to avoid thinking about him at all.”

  “However, we need to strip everything from there while we can.”

  “You don’t think they were really cops?”

  “No, I don’t think they were really cops,” Aiden noted. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they aren’t back now.”

  The trio returned to the apartment in no time. Toby brought out the duplicate keys she had and unlocked Moscow’s apartment. Sure enough, the ever-watchful neighbor came out into the hallway. She looked at her in astonishment, saw the key in her hand, and queried, “Who are you?”

  “I’m his widow,” Toby explained. “And, if I understand correctly from one of the other neighbors, some people were trying to get in here earlier tonight. I had deliberately not cleaned out Moscow’s stuff yet, but now I’m wondering if I should be looking after something in here.”

  The woman immediately nodded. “Oh my, yes,” she replied. “They were trying to tell me they were cops, but they didn’t look like any cops I know.” She shook her head. “My husband was on the force for a long time. I know what cops look like.” She looked at the other two men with Toby suspiciously.

  At that, Aiden smiled gently and said, “Good evening, ma’am. Thank you so much for looking after her place.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met you,” she replied hesitantly, her gaze fell on Toby first, then going from one person to the other.

  “Then you don’t gamble,” she noted, with a smile.

  “No. Of course not,” she stated. “That’s a waste of money.”

  “Agreed, but unfortunately it’s also a place where I needed to work. Moscow and I were childhood sweethearts,” Toby explained.

  The woman’s eyes opened wide. “That’s where I’ve seen you before. I was in his apartment once, and he has pictures of you all over the place.”

  All she could do was to keep smiling. “And it’s been a devastating couple weeks.”

  “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. He was always really good to me, you know?”

  And, with that, Toby swung open the door. Them having the keys seemed to satisfy the older lady, as she returned to her apartment. Aiden walked over to her and said, “You mentioned that they didn’t look like cops. Do you know what they looked like?”

  “I took a picture of them,” she replied proudly.

  He looked at her in fascination. “I don’t suppose I could see those pictures, could I?”

  “Sure, you can,” she agreed. “You’re helping her, so that means it’s her apartment.” The older woman sent a dubious look toward Toby, but she’d already gone inside.

  Toby popped her head outside the door and added, “Yes, it was Moscow’s apartment, and I’m his wife.”

  “Right,” the older woman said. “Sorry. You get to be very suspicious in this world.”

  “And sometimes it’s necessary,” Toby noted.

  “All the time it’s necessary,” she murmured. “It just seems like everybody is out to cheat or to steal from one another. I don’t know what the world has come to.”

  She pulled up her phone, and, with an adeptness that surprised Aiden, she brought up the picture she took. He looked at the photos and then back at her and nodded. “Any chance I could have a copy of these, so I could take it to the police?”

  “I did phone the police, and I did show these to them,” she stated. “But you know? The real police didn’t seem to care very much either.” And between the two of them, they managed to get the photos transferred to his phone.

  He smiled. “Thank you very much, ma’am. Now I’ll go in and help Toby.”

  “That’s right,” she confirmed, the last of her doubts falling away from her facial expression. “It was Toby. I always thought Toby was a male, but he always talks about Toby.”

  “That’s his wife,” Aiden stated. “They have another place, where she’s been staying this whole time. They only got married a couple weeks ago. He was killed soon afterward, which is why you haven’t seen very much of her.”

  “Oh, that poor child!” she murmured in horror. “This is just such a terrible world we live in now. Nobody seems to want to help one another. Everybody is just after money.” She shook her head. “My poor dear Willie would be turning over in his grave.”

  “Well, you’ve done a good deed tonight,” Aiden said, “and we appreciate it.” And, with that, he headed back to Moscow’s apartment. When Aiden turned, the older lady finally seemed satisfied that they were where they belonged and had gone inside her own apartment. As he stepped inside, Toby stood in the middle of the living room, staring at something Aiden had yet to mention to her—a life-size photograph of her on the wall.

  “That is so creepy,” she whispered to him.

  “Well, I can tell you that, whatever feelings Moscow had for you, they were very complex. Nobody does something like this without being very involved, one way or another.”

  “You know what? I think, in his own psychotic way, he probably loved me,” she noted, “but his version of love is not what most people would call it.”

  “No. And that is unfortunately often the way of it,” he murmured. “Now, before we end up with cops and various other entities around here, let’s start getting some of this stuff out of here, particularly the files.” And he pointed to the cases that he had found earlier in the desk.

  At that, Mountain searched the kitchen for some plastic bags and quick loaded up some files and started carrying them out.

  “Where’s the money?” she asked.

  “In the closet.”

  And, with that, they headed to the closet, pulled out the shoebox, but then she pointed to another box farther back. “Can you reach that?” she asked.

  Aiden nodded, pulled it down, and then was stunned. Inside was a weapon—a Smith & Wesson handgun. “Did he have a license for this?”

  She stared at it. “I have no idea. Yet I have seen that gun before though.”

  He stared at her. “What?”

  “He was playing with it and threatening me with it,” she stated, a shudder running through her body. “I forgot all about it until now.”

  “Nobody like Moscow should have a gun.”

  “No. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the way the world works.”

  Aiden nodded. “I’ll take it, and we’ll run the ballistics on it and see if it’s been used in any shootings.”

  “Good idea,” she agreed. “I know I don’t want it. I don’t know if we should turn it in to the cops.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Aiden replied immediately. “We also have a lot of files here we need to go through and need to contact the police about.”

  “You’ll have to do that because you know the cops won’t believe anything I have to say.”

  “Well, the good thing is,” Aiden noted, “we have some contacts. And we’ll find somebody honest within this town who can deal with this.”

  She stared at him. “Do you really think anybody honest is left?”

  He smiled gently, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and gave her a quick hug. “It’s been a rough couple weeks for you,” he noted, “but remember. The cavalry is here.” Matter of fact, he had a lot that he would take to the police. He wanted clearance from Corbin as to who was corrupt and thus safe to go to. Of course nobody ever knew for sure who wasn’t dirty, but Aiden was prepared to put his trust in Corbin to find out.

  Before they left Moscow’s apartment this time, they must have all the valuables and information removed first. Aiden looked around the rest of the apartment and asked, “Any idea what you want to do with the rest of this?”

  She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure Moscow’s father will have something to say about this too,” she stated, “and it won’t be friendly.”

  He looked at her. “Meaning?”

  “You heard me. Meaning that he’ll say it’s all his.”

  “Well, you don’t want any of it, do you?”