Read Online The King of Lies by John Hart - Free Book Online Page B

scuff marks on the leather, but they could have been old. I rolled it off the carpet and listened to its wheels on the wood floor. It was the same noise I’d heard the night before. I replaced the chair and checked the walls of the stairwell. They were scuffed, too, but that could have been from anything. Back at the desk, I ran my hands over the leather and nodded, satisfied that I’d not imagined anything.
    The previous night, I’d caught this chair in the chest. Mills could kiss my ass.
    I looked around the office. Someone had come here for a reason.
    I sat in Ezra’s chair, now mine, and tossed my feet up on the desk. I looked for a sign. What was so important?
    After Ezra disappeared, most of our clients followed suit. Ezra had courted them. Ezra had held their hands. He’d gotten the press, and they’d had no idea that most of the underlying work was mine. “Just business,” they’d said, before taking their files to the first big city firm they could find. Ezra’s death had made plenty of Charlotte lawyers rich, a fact that would kill him if somebody hadn’t already done the job. He hated Charlotte lawyers.
    And I was left on the court-appointed list, bottom-feeding.
    So I doubted anybody was up here for his files. Truth be told, I didn’t care if Mills got the files. There was nothing there. I’d combed through them months earlier, looking for crumbs. I just didn’t want to make it easy.
    Then I remembered why I’d come the night before. I searched Ezra’s desk, his filing cabinets, and even the end tables adjacent to the long leather couch that sat against the wall. Nothing. No pistol. I opened the chest under the window and got down on my knees to peer underneath his desk. I went back downstairs and searched every conceivable place where a gun might be hidden. After half an hour, I had no doubt that my office was gun-free.
    I climbed the stairs again, turned at the top, and walked out onto Ezra’s expensive Persian rug. Immediately, I saw that something was different. It was a small thing, but it leaped out at me. I stopped. I stared at it.
    Across the room, near the foot of Ezra’s long couch, the corner of the rug was folded under. It lay directly in my line of sight: the corner, along with a foot or more of fringe, tucked under. I quickly scanned the rest of the office, but saw nothing else that seemed out of place. I walked across the room toward the folded corner. Seven long strides, then I felt something yield beneath my foot. I heard the low groan of flexing wood. I stepped back, saw a slight rise beneath the carpet. I stepped on it again. Another creak.
    I flipped back the rug and found a section of loose flooring—two wide boards that rose minutely at one end, warped, as if by time or water damage. They were only a quarter inch higher than the rest of the floorboards, but the cut lines did not line up with the rest of the boards. It appeared that the ends had been sawed at some point; they were rough and still pale. The other boards were almost black with age, the cracks between them packed solid.
    I dug my nails into the white, rough meat of the cut ends and lifted. The boards rose easily. Beneath them, I found a safe. I should not have been surprised—my father was a secretive man—and yet I stared at it for a long time.
    It was long and narrow, set between the floor joists. Its front was brushed metal, with a numeric keypad on the right side. I settled onto my knees, considering this new problem. Should I tell Mills? Not yet, I decided. Not without knowing its secrets.
    So I tried to open it. I guessed at the combination. I tried every birthday in the family and every Social Security number, too. I tried the date Ezra passed the bar and the date he married my mother. I tried phone numbers, then I ran everything backward. I wasted half an hour staring at the safe and punching buttons; then I beat on it with my fists. I hit hard. I tore skin. It was that much like my father—hidden,