Charlie waited about another ten minutes, his gaze glued to the small cottage, looking for any movement, any shadows falling across the windows. The place appeared unoccupied but the car in the shed belied that appearance. Charlie moved forward cautiously.
He glanced around but did not notice Riggs crouched behind a stand of thick holly bushes to the left of the house.
Riggs lowered his binoculars and surveyed the area. Like Charlie, he had detected no movement or sound coming from the cottage but that didn’t mean anything. The guy could be in there just waiting for Charlie to put in an appearance. Shoot first and ask questions later. Riggs gripped his shotgun and waited.
The front door was locked. Charlie could have smashed a glass pane next to the door and unlocked the door from the inside, or simply kicked the door until it tore loose from the doorjamb—it didn’t look all that sturdy. However, if the house was indeed occupied, knocking down the door might prompt a deadly response. And, if it wasn’t occupied, he didn’t want to leave any evidence that he had been to the cottage. Charlie knocked on the door, his pistol half out of his pocket. He waited and knocked again. There was no answer. He slid the gun back in his pocket and looked at the lock, a common pin tumbler, to his expert eye. He pulled out two items from his inner coat pocket: a straight pick and a tension tool. Fortunately, arthritis had not yet set into his fingers or he would not have had the dexterity needed to pick the lock. He first slid the pick into the keyhole and then eased the tension tool underneath the pick. Using the pick, Charlie raised the tumbler pins to their open position, and the constant pressure from the tension tool kept the tumbler pins open. Charlie manipulated the pick, sensing the subtle vibrations of the pins until he was rewarded with a click. He turned the doorknob and the door swung open. He replaced his tools in his coat. His State Pen degree had once again worked its magic. All the while he listened intently. He was well aware that a trap could be awaiting him. His hand closed around the .38. If the guy gave Charlie the opportunity to use it he would. The ramifications of such an act were too numerous to analyze; however, at least a few of them would be better than outright exposure.
The cottage’s interior was of a simple configuration. The hallway ran from front to back, splitting the space into roughly equivalent halves. The kitchen was in the back on the left; the small dining room fronted that. On his right was an equally modest living room. Tacked on to the rear of that was a combination mud room/laundry room. Plain wooden stairs on the right made their way to the bedrooms on the second floor. Charlie observed little of this, because his attention was riveted on the dining room. He stared in amazement at the computer, printer, fax, and stacks of file boxes. He moved closer as his eyes swept to the bulletin board with all the news clippings and photos affixed to it.
He mouthed the headlines. LuAnn’s face was prominent among the various photos. The whole story was there: the murders, LuAnn winning the lottery, her disappearance. Well, that had confirmed his suspicions. Now it remained to discover who the man was and, more important, what he wanted from them.
He made his way around the room, carefully lifting papers here and there, studying the clippings, examining the file boxes. His eyes diligently searched for anything that would identify the man; however, there was nothing. Whoever was pursuing them knew what he was doing.
Charlie moved to the desk and carefully slid open a drawer. The papers in there yielded nothing new. He tried the other drawers with similar results. For a moment he thought about turning on the computer but his skills with that technology were about nil. He was about to begin a search of the rest of the house when a solitary box in the far corner caught his eye. He might as well hit that too, he figured.