He swore because, of course, that’s quite true.Then give me proof of life in your house, he wrote.Unless you live in a tent or something?
I have a house, he replied.It’s a decent one too.
Are you sure you are not renting some squalid little basement?
Nope, it’s my house, been living in it a good thirty years, Nico typed.Bought it a long time ago, when I was still a prof at the university.
“Interesting,” he murmured. He immediately wrote down notes because, if Nico owned a property, he should find out which one it was. How the hell to do this? Pull a few connections. But Nico was not being any more open than that. And was still not being very agreeable on the photos.No money without proof of life, he wrote, then quickly logged off. He called his sister. “Can you get a record of property ownership?”
Her voice was distracted, as she said, “I don’t know, probably. Maybe. I’d have to pull a favor to get it. Why?”
“I’m just trying to find where somebody lives, and he owns a house in Richmond.”
“Why?”
But at least he heard just curiosity in her voice. “Sorry, I guess you are at work,” he said, wishing he’d thought first before he’d called.
“I’m always at work these days,” she said. “You know me.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said. “At least you should be bringing in lots of money.”
“I am,” she said quietly. “But it’s lots of stress, lots of bills.”
He winced. “Bills suck.”
“They suck the life out of you and take your income down to far less than half. Listen. I don’t know about this address thing. Why don’t you just call the cops? You had a couple friends on the force.”
“I did, but I don’t know if I still do,” he said.
“Well, check online first then,” she said. With those words, she hung up on him.
He frowned. He still wanted to drive past her house. Maybe when he was out driving one of these times. He quickly did an internet search about checking property ownership sites, then headed to the county assessor site, looking to see if he found any help there. But his first attempt only allowed him to look up by address.
What he needed was a way to look up by name. It didn’t take too long, and, after a couple phone calls to government entities, he found how to track down what property a person owned. The trouble was, he only had Nico’s first name, and he needed the last name. Where to start? Then he remembered what Nico had said about being a professor.
It took the rest of the day for him to figure out where Nico had been a professor, based on the little scraps of information he knew about him. Over time the little snippets of information added up, and, once he applied himself, he found he knew quite a lot about Nico.
Before long he’d determined where Professor Nico had worked for close to fifteen years. He didn’t know if Nico’s hobby was the reason he got sidelined from that very profitable venture or if he’d actually retired. Nonetheless, now armed with a name, he backtracked and found the property ownership records, including the physical address. A further search led him to discover that it hadn’t been sold in the last several years, and the value on it had his eyebrows shooting straight up.
Three million dollars? Goddammit! What the hell was Nico doing fleecing him for twelve hundred for that little girl, if he had that kind of a house? Furious, he grabbed his wallet and keys, then headed to his truck. With the GPS programmed for Nico’s address, he drove over the bridge to Richmond. It really pissed him off that somebody living in a multimillion-dollar house wanted to be paid for this little girl, whenheneeded her and was broke.
It didn’t take too long, and, after an extra ten minutes or so, he neared the side of the bridge, and the GPS gave him quick instructions, turning left or turning right. Before he knew it, he was going down a tree-lined street, with decent-size houses. This was a much older part of town. All of these were likely to have been built before the airport became such an international hot spot. Richmond itself was reclaimed land, and this area looked to be part of the original settlements.
It was a beautiful area, with huge brick mansions. Very similar to the house where he’d grown up, in the Point Grey area of Vancouver. But this was more regal.
The GPS announced his arrival at the destination address. Stopping, he looked around and found it on the right. He stared at this huge old house, with a big brick fence across the front and a wide iron gate. An alleyway must be at the back for parking because no driveway was in the front. He drove forward a bit more and came around the rear, where, sure enough, he found an alleyway.
He drove around the block a couple times and finally parked one block away, got out, and walked back. No way for Nico to know who he was, what he looked like, or what vehicle he was driving, but that sense, that awareness, that he could get caught, rode him hard. He walked down one way and across up the four sides, then he walked down the alleyway, slowing his steps, as he studied the massive building.
“Christ, he could have a half-dozen kids in there,” he murmured. “How the hell is that fair?”
The more he stared at what this guy had for wealth, the angrier he became. It was all too possible that he might have been the most broke, the most in debt, and the most borderline destitute person in the whole damn group. For somebody who came from such high beginnings, this was bullshit. It was dark outside, and the lights were on inside the house, but there didn’t appear to be movement inside.
The dark alleyway had a garage and a side gate. He tried to open it, but it was latched from the inside. He could probably jump the gate in the front of the house because it was much lower. The one at the back was very inaccessible. He suspected it was also locked, which meant the garage was probably where the vehicle was parked. And he didn’t see any side door, outside of the massive front door and the one rear entryway, to get in either. The fence came right up to the side of the gate and went all the way around the property.
Muttering to himself and getting more pissed by the minute, he headed to the front. In the darkness, he stepped onto the neighbor’s side and studied the fence between the two homes. It wasn’t as high on this side, about the same as the front. However, it was a bit out of the view from the front windows and the house on the sides. No lights were on in the neighbor’s house, and the For Sale sign in the front yard seemed to say that nobody would be home and probably hadn’t been for a while.
Damn, a cop car pulled slowly through the area. Damn. He froze up against the fence. The cop made the block and came by slowly once more. Damn, damn, damn.If he runs my plates… Running back to the alleyway, he watched for the black-and-white. Taking a chance, he jumped in his vehicle and left as fast as he could.