A snort came from Gidget, who quickly covered her mouth, amusement dancing in her eyes.
“Oh God,” Shane moaned, covering his face. “I so did not want to know this.”
“Look,” Abe snapped. “I’m sorry you’re finding out this way. I am. But I’m not some decrepit old man, and Dom is old enough to know what he wants.”
“And he wants your dad, Shane. I knew whoever it was meant something to him. Even you know Dom and how he liked to get around. It would take someone pretty damn special to yank him to a complete stop.” Quinn offered Abe a sweet smile. “I get why he’s so smitten. You’re a great guy.”
“He’s my father.” Even Shane must have known that argument was lame when a rueful smile twisted his lips. “This is going to take me some time to compute. I was picturing someone more like—”
“More like me?” Abe’s chuckle didn’t hold a lot of humor. “Trust me, I’m as shocked by all this as you are. And like I said, I don’t know what it is exactly we have going on. I just know I like it. I like him. And something is wrong. I have the strongest feeling that he’s in danger.”
Quinn jerked his face down to the papers as if he’d forgotten them. “Danger. Damn. Okay, so let me look at these and the one Hollis brought. It has four of the same figures as these other messages. The one he brought had been left on the wall outside the jeweler.”
“I’m familiar with the case. The store owner hired us when the cops brushed it off as a child’s graffiti. Hollis figured between you three, we’d get an answer.” Shane stared at Abe, his eyes a little shocky.
He was still talking, so that was a plus as far as Abe was concerned. Shane had a tendency in the past to go silent when he was angry. Abe knew this was going to be weird for his son for a while, and he had no idea what to do about it. But right then, his concern was Dom and the messages.
Cole stood and walked over to Quinn. “May I?” he asked, gaze on Abe.
“Sure. I’m already deceiving him just by being here. I’d appreciate any help I can get so we can figure it out quickly.”
Shane’s shoulders slumped. “Dad, did he ask you not to say anything about this?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not really betraying him.”
“He doesn’t know I have the pictures, though. The first one was in chalk on his door. He smeared it before I could sneak a picture of it. The second was painted on my garage door the next day.”
“On yours?” This time, real alarm coated Shane’s question.
Abe nodded. “Dom came back—must have been really early in the morning—to paint over it, but I took the pictures after he left my place upset. The third…”
Quinn growled. “The third was obviously carved into his beautiful car. Assholes.”
“You think it’s more than one person?” Abe asked.
“I have no idea and this picture isn’t the clearest image.”
“He was on the porch at the time and it was pretty late. I couldn’t get a clear image without alerting him to what I was doing. I just had this gut feeling the figures were important. And then, the way he’s acted each time—it was obvious he knew exactly what this was about.”
“What about this fourth one?” Quinn asked.
“I found it in his…er, house. This morning.”
“Oh God,” Shane moaned, closing his eyes before snapping them open. “I’m an adult and logical, but this is still…” he trailed off and then snapped his shoulders straight. “Let’s see what we can figure out.” He was suddenly all business as he took one of the pages from Quinn.
Cole was still frowning at the first page when he cleared his throat. “This reminds me of a show I saw years ago. A Sherlock Holmes show. I can’t remember what it was called, but there were figures like these and they were secret messages that came from a gang of criminals.”
“Criminals?” Abe thought about the aborted story Dom had told him last night. He wasn’t about to share any of that, but it would make sense. Someone faking their own death would probably be running from someone bad.
“They’re ciphers.” Quinn nodded. “Let’s take this to the table. We can put it up on the whiteboard.” He grabbed the pages from Cole and Shane and started copying the images on the massive whiteboard in a black marker. Under each image, he placed a little line as if they were playing a game of Hangman. Abe followed the rest of the team to the table as they quickly shoved aside an empty pizza box and a jumble of paper plates and napkins. Shane took a seat beside him and placed his hand on Abe’s, squeezing gently.