St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

said. “Wait while I load this stuff into the truck.”
    “You don’t have to go with me.”
    “Yes I do.”
    Carly smiled, hoping she didn’t look as relieved as she felt. She wasn’t a helpless little flower, but the sly violence of the dead rat, the paint-drenched car, and the threatening phone call made her feel angry and sick and more frightened than she wanted to admit. She’d much rather deal with Alma’s brand of in-your-face bitchiness.
    Dan made quick work of the cartons, boxes, bags, and ancient leather suitcase Winifred had gathered. Carly picked up the shirt, sweater, and jackets that she and Dan had shed.
    “I’ll call you as soon as the car is fixed,” she said to Winifred.
    “You do that. And put that man of yours to work. He has the best mind of the lot.”
    Carly didn’t ask which “lot” Winifred meant. She just let herself out of the overheated room with a sigh of relief and went to catch up with Dan. Together they pulled on warm clothes, got in the truck, and drove it around to the guesthouse.
    “Thanks for doing this,” Carly said when Dan parked close to her room. “I know I shouldn’t let that dead rat bother me, but…” She sighed. “It does.”
    “Don’t worry about it. You’re not used to ugly little games.”
    “Can people get used to this?”
    “Oh, yeah.” And a lot worse.
    But talking about it wouldn’t make her feel better, so he shut up and climbed out of the truck. Together they walked quickly through the cold night to the old house. The wide front door stuck as it always did, the gallery was chilly and dark, and there was a light burning in Carly’s room.
    “Did you—”
    “No,” she cut in, her voice low.
    “Same shit, different day,” he muttered.
    “The door is wide open this time, does that count?”
    He pushed her down next to the antique sideboard. “Stay here.”
    “Déjà vu all over again,” she grumbled, but she didn’t get up and follow him.
    Dan walked quietly toward the open door. There wasn’t any noise from the room. He crouched and took a swift look inside.
    The bed was neatly turned down.
    Not a dead rat in sight.
    No living ones either.
    Just to be sure, Dan went through the room and then the small bathroom next door, which served the other guest rooms as well. Clean towels neatly folded. Clean glass in the holder.
    He went back to the hall. “It’s okay.”
    Despite the assurance, Carly hesitated just an instant before she looked at her neat room. “Well, somebody lit a fire under somebody’s butt.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Turn-down service on the sheets. My pajamas neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Everything but a piece of chocolate on the pillow.”
    “The towels in the bathroom looked fresh. Place smelled like disinfectant, too.”
    Carly lifted her eyebrows. “Gee, and I have to leave all this belated luxury.”
    “Life’s a bitch.” Dan went to the tall cupboard that served as a closet. “Where’s your suitcase?”
    “Under the bed, along with my other stuff.”
    He bent and pulled out a suitcase and several other pieces of luggage, including some specialized aluminum cases of the kind made for carrying cameras or guns. Given what he knew about Carly, Dan was betting on cameras.
    “Dan?”
    The quality of her voice brought him to his feet in a single motion. She was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at some boxes that had been pushed into a corner of the small room.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    Carly went to the boxes and looked again. No mistake. The boxes had all been closed wrong.
    “I left them lined up along the bed,” she said. “Now, even if a really helpful maid put them along the wall out of my way, what was the maid doing pawing through the contents?”
    “How can you tell?”
    “I get a lot of boxes of stuff in my line of work,” Carly said. “The first thing I learned was to mark the boxes so that I know what’s inside without having to look. With cardboard cartons I mark one flap on the top and two sides. I close the box so that the inventory flap is on top.”
    He looked at the top box. The overlapping flaps were bare of any writing.
    “Wonder what’s missing. Or added,” Carly said bitterly.
    He caught her hand before she could touch the box. “Let me do it.”
    But instead of opening the box, he pulled off his jacket, crouched on his heels, and studied the two-foot-square carton.
    “What are you looking for?” she asked.
    “Wires.”
    “Wires,” she