We topped the landing.
A thunderous snore slipped under the first door on the right. A familiar rush of hatred flooded by senses. Cairo was on a hunt for the truth, and of course I wanted it too, but as far as I was concerned, there was nothing we would uncover that would sate my need to watch that man carried out in cuffs. Cairo would get over it.
I stroked his back. I’m here for him now.
“In here,” he said, ducking into the room at the end of the hall.
We passed a third closed door on the way. I would see inside it eventually—when Cairo wasn’t raw and prickly from being more vulnerable than he expected to be that night.
Jack Sharpe’s office was a simple space. His desk and computer against the wall, looking out over the window. A liquor cabinet beside it and blown-up pictures of Jack fishing as decor. A few of them with a young Cairo holding his flopping fish for the camera.
Cairo crossed to a photo of him and Jack sitting on the rim of a boat, and swung it open. A green wall safe drew me in.
“Kind of an obvious place to hide this,” I spoke up. “Shouldn’t a sheriff know to be more creative?”
“There’s a world of stupid criminals, Rain, but very few are dumb enough to rob a sheriff. He could leave his money on the hall table. It’s not going anywhere.”
“Fair point.”
I rested my chin on his shoulder, studying him while he studied the lock. “What have you tried?”
“His birthday, his parents’ birthday, my birthday, and Paris’s. I tried his and Nora’s wedding day, and the day they met.”
“Did you try their honeymoon?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Nothing.”
“What about on his phone? I’m not going to lie, I’ve got a few passwords saved in my notes.”
He was shaking his head before I finished.
“His cell is a half-useless brick that he forgets at home or in his office every other day. He’d care a lot more if passwords were on it.”
“That’s true,” I muttered.
I worried my lip, cycling through the options. People were predictable creatures and they liked shortcuts. An important day in your life was easy to remember, and the sentimental liked to link the combination to the precious things inside.
“You said he keeps case files in there. Maybe the combo is related to him being a cop. Have you tried his badge number or the day he joined the force?”
Cairo snapped his fingers. “You’re as smart as that pussy is sweet. Stay here.”
A smile tugged at me while I leaned against the wall waiting for him. He was getting generous with the compliments and the kisses these days, but a rare breed like Cairo Sharpe didn’t bring anything straightforward.
He returned with his father’s badge. Cairo twisted the dial, swinging to the last number, and pulled the handle.
Nothing.
“Shit. I don’t know the date he joined,” Cairo admitted. “I’ll ask him in the morning. How long are we doing this tonight?”
“Till the morning.”
He dipped his chin. “Give me more, de Souza. What else you got?”
I suggested every possible day in the man’s life. I even got Cairo to pull out his yearbook and spin in prom night. All my ideas exhausted, I fished out my phone and we tried the internet for other possible significant moments.
It gave us his first road trip. The day he received his first paycheck. Also, the days he lost people important to him.
We did our best to try them all. Over fifty possible combos, and the safe did not open.
Cairo bundled me in the car the next morning, ignoring my arguing that we had time to try a few more.
“I have to come back and get him up for work,” he said, carrying me to the car. “You can’t be here when I do. He’ll lose his shit if he sees you.”
“You have to get him ready for work?”
I stroked his cheek as Cairo placed me on the passenger seat and buckled me in. “Just how much do you do to keep your father going, baby?”
He said nothing—just removed my hand and went around to his side. And I finally understood what Nora Keller did to him.
Nine years old, she abandoned him to be the only support for his broken, drunken father—crushed under responsibility that grown adults would struggle to carry. And when he naturally had a hard time processing this and the loss of his family, she told him it was his fault and chained her grand mansion gates closed in his face.
Yeah, a mother like that would quickly become “Nora” for me too.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
I wanted to say more, but if I did, I wouldn’t stop. Just imagining the pain that sweet little boy in the picture felt for so much of his life broke me.
“I’m sorry too.” His voice scraped from his throat. “Your grandmother. Sounds like she was one of the few decent people left in this town. She deserved better.”