A Long Time from Home Ch. 25

A quick look behind the closets showed that only one was built into the wall, making it a possible door. I opened the closet and looked inside. As every room needs a door, every door needs a way to open it and I spent some time pulling, turning, and twisting the things in the closet, until there was a click when I turned a heavy looking stone mortar that looked like it had been casually stashed away on a shelf.

Smiling to myself, I gently pushed, and the backside of the closet swung away, revealing a room behind it. It looked like a storage room, with several more closets. At the far end of the room, there was another door.

Since I was looking for people, I ignored the closets, walked silently to other door and put my ear to it, but not a sound came from the other side, so I opened the door as carefully and as silent as possible and looked into yet another room.

This one was larger and reminded me of a prison, since there was a corridor with doors on either side. The doors were made of wood and had small openings in them so one could look into the cell, as well as a flap on the bottom, allowing food to be pushed through.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I walked to the first door and looked through the opening.

On the other side was what looked to be a sick cross between a cell and a children's room, but to my relief there was nobody in there.

Snorting in disgust, I checked all the cells, but as they were empty, I walked back to the first room again and checked the closets to make sure that I haven't missed another secret door. That turned out to be a good idea, because while the first closet contained various equipment designed to restrain people, it swung open when I pressed on a carving, revealing a hidden closet behind it.

The closet had shelves from ceiling to the floor and the shelves were filled with open plastic boxes except the bottom one, which held two bags.

Curious I looked through the boxes. As far as I could determine all the boxes were filled with valuables of different kinds. One small box was filled with jewelry of every kind, from rings to necklaces. Another box held cameras, while a third was filled with watches and so forth.

The biggest of the boxes was filled with weapons. Most of them were handguns, but there were several large knifes in there as well. All of them were finely engraved and while I didn't know anything about guns, the knives were the finest pieces of blade forging that I had ever seen, short of Baylon-crafted adamant blades.

My eyes fell on the bags in the bottom of the closet and kneeling down I opened one of them.

It was filled with clothes, two pair of shoes, a small bag with some plastic bottles, a wig, a fake beard, a handgun, and a leather folder with some papers. It had to be some kind of emergency bag that Curtis had planned to take in case he needed a quick getaway.

The other bag was about half filled with the paper money they used now. The notes looked used, but they were organized in orderly stacks. A closer look revealed that it wasn't even the local currency, but more of the dollars, that the coin-dealer had given me. Apparently, it was a popular currency and if Curtis had it in his get-away bag, it had to be widely accepted as payment.

Looking at the boxes and bags, I decided that it had to be stolen goods, which left me with a choice: Should I take some of it to finance the future along with the items from my value pack or should I leave it and rely on what I already had?

I pondered that for a few heartbeats and decided that I would need the money and some of the other items. Jewelry and precious stones have always been an easy way to carry wealth, since jewels had high value to little weight, so I started with the box of jewelry and took a handful of trinkets with the biggest gems and dropped them into the moneybag. It was obviously stolen and might be recognized, so I couldn't sell it before I had learned more about the world, but it could be a good boost of wealth.

There was no point in taking weapons, cameras or electronics I didn't know how to use, but a good knife is both a valuable tool and a weapon, so I dropped a few knives into the moneybag along with the leather folder from the bag with the clothes. Since modern people were obsessed with time, I decided a watch would be a good idea.

The plastic box with watches contained lots of different ones, but some of them were still in their boxes, exactly as those they sold in the shops in the Malaga. Not wanting to use more time to choose one, I simply took five and placed them in the moneybag as well. Then I closed it, placed it on the floor outside the hidden room and started to clean up.

I carried the dead man down to the cells and dropped him there, which somehow seemed fitting.

As I planned to lock the door after me when I left, I quickly searched the body and found a key chain in a pocket.

Then I used several Ars Mentalis tricks to clean everything in the cellar, as I walked out and closed the secret door. Even with the description of the man that the police could get from Karen, it should take a little while before they found him, as secret doors weren't that normal anymore. At least not according to the knowledge, I had gotten from the women.

A thought hit me, as I walked up the stairs: As they used a local currency in Malaga, it wasn't normal to pay for things with dollars, so either I had overlooked another secret room, or they used one of the plastic cards Alice had used to pay for sodas.

With a sigh, I placed the bag on the floor at the end of the stairs and went through the house once again, this time looking for hiding places for valuables.

I found two. One was a highly ornamented metal cabinet hidden in one of the bedroom closets and the other was a similar metal cabinet, hidden behind a painting in another room. Both looked extremely heavy and as with so many other things in the house, they looked old. Much older than the safe I had seen in the coin dealers' shop, but then again people seemed to be willing to pay a lot of money for old items in this age.

Both had locks, but by simply trying the keys from keys chains one by one, I found the keys that fitted in the locks. The first safe only held a small album, filled with pictures of little blonde girls with blue eyes and underneath each of the pictures was a label with a name and a date on it. There were at least a dozen different names and I felt like vomiting, when I realized that the girls had to be Curtis' victims.

"May the goddesses burn you forever!" I cursed and threw the album into the safe again, before I used an Ars Mentalis trick to clean everything in the room, including myself. I felt dirty just from having touched the album.

Promising myself I wouldn't open anything that looked remotely like a picture album, I walked to the other room and opened the safe there. Much to my relief, there were no albums in there, as it was filled with stacks of money, some jewelry, two more cases with watches and a leather folder that held some papers, including two sets of ID papers.

In the first one, Curtis had brown hair, was wearing glasses and the name on the papers was Diego Chaves. In the other set of papers, Curtis had blonde hair, no glasses and the name was Ivan Kolba.

The passports were in different colours, so I took a closer look and discovered that they were from different countries: Diego Chaves was from Argentina and Ivan Kolba was from Croatia. On both ID's Curtis was listed to be thirty-two, which surprised me, since I thought he had been older.

Along with the passports was a set of other papers including a driver's license, and while I wasn't sure, I guessed that I was looking at two complete set of ID papers Curtis had stored away for emergencies.

Turning around, I spotted a laptop computer on the table in the room and decided to take that as well. I didn't know how to use it, but after seeing Alice, Rita and Karen use theirs, I was aware that people put a lot of information in these things and it might come in handy, if I ever found out how to use one. I fetched the bag from the top of the stairs and placed the content of the safe in it along with the laptop. Then I cleaned the room and walked outside.

After cleaning the courtyard from any trace of the fight, I walked back to the bush, took my backpack, and walked on towards Malaga.

It might not have been the prettiest of solutions, but at least one of the child molesters was dead and as I had the name and address of his partner, I could make sure that he wouldn't come for the Twins, or any other kids for that matter. At least I would as soon as I figured out how the address system worked.

By sunrise, I was in the outskirts of Malaga, when I heard a surprisingly strong and focused mind voice "< Ivan? >"

Recognizing Cyra's mental voice, I smiled to myself as I answered. "< Yes, Cyra? >"

"< Mom said, that you had to leave ... Is that true? >"

"< Yes, but don't worry... I'll find you again >"

I spotted a good-sized stone by the side of the road and sat down.

"< Good >" There was a slight pause before she asked. "< Do you think that the bad man will come back? >"

"< No, I don't think he will. >" I said with certainty.

"< How do you know? >"

"< Just trust me on this >" Along with the thought, I sent the feeling that the 'bad man' was gone forever.

There was a slight hesitation, but eventually she said, "< Okay... thanks >"

I smiled at the mental sigh of relief that followed. "< You're welcome >"

There was a short pause and then I could feel Zena joining the conversation. "< Hey Ivan. Are you okay? >"

I chuckled out loud and sent some amusement through the link. "< Yes, I'm fine. How are you two doing? >"

"< Oh no worries >" answered Zena. "< But I saw you drop you knife during the fight, so I picked up and hid it in our suitcase. How can we get it back to you? >"

Instinctively I patted myself on the small of my back, where the knife should have been, but as Zena had said, it was gone. Amazed that I hadn't discovered it before, I sent. "< I don't know yet, but I'll think of something. Can you take care of it until then? >"

"< No problem > " they answered in chorus and then Cyra added. "< We need to go, Ivan. Can we talk later? >"

"< Sure. Just make certain that you stay focused >"

"< Umm okay... gotta go... Mom Alert >"

I stood up and took my backpack, but discovered that the sword handle was sticking out, so I covered it with some clothes. Then I slung the backpack over my good shoulder and continued my walk, carrying the bag from the house in my hand.

My plan had been to find a place to stay as soon as possible, but as I came nearer the beach, I could feel how tired I was. Besides the lack of sleep, I had used a lot of Vis this night and haven't had a chance to recharge.

It was starting to take its toll and at the very least, I needed some sleep urgently.

Fortunately, some of the beach-bars and restaurants not only served breakfast, but they also rented out sun loungers, so after a small meal, I rented a lounger that was in the shadow, lay down with the backpack under my head and the other back beside me and promptly fell asleep.