Booked to Kill, page 3
Her heartbeat picked up. She tossed the menus and notes on the floor, throwing out other scraps of paper. “I don’t understand,” she said. “The key is always in here. I haven’t touched it in months.”
Detective Stone edged her gently to the side and ran his palm along the lining of the drawer. He picked out bobby pins and batteries until nothing was left inside.
She shook her head, not understanding what was in front of her. “It has to be there. The key not being in there makes zero sense.”
Detective Stone fixed a hard stare on her. “I now have a crime scene that someone had a key to get into. Because if you don’t have this key, someone else does. And that someone might be a killer.”
* * *
Jack swished his closed mouth side to side as the implications of what the missing key meant smashed against him like a tornado, twisting everything he thought he knew about the case upside down. If someone had a key, it would explain why there was no forced entry into the loft. It also meant his assumption the victim let in her killer—that the killer was someone she knew—might be bullshit. Not to mention a possible waste of his time and energy.
“I need a list of everyone who has been inside your apartment over the last month,” he said, annoyance making his skin tight and itchy. He shoved a hand through his hair. “Make it two months.”
Mrs. Hickman’s mouth fell open. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. I need to know who had access to your kitchen. Anyone who could have known where you kept a spare key. Friends, relatives, hell—even a deliveryman who might have brought up a package that was too big for you to carry and placed it near the kitchen while you dug for cash in your purse.”
She shook her head over and over again, as if refusing to see the truth even as it glowed brighter than the lights in Time Square. “No one would have stolen my key. Why would they? If they wanted inside the loft for whatever reason, all they had to do was ask.”
“Mrs. Hickman. If someone had ill intent, do you think they’d make those intentions clear to you? Or do you think they’d wait until your back was turned and grab what they needed?”
A splash of red invaded her cheeks and showed off a smattering of freckles under her eyes. “Call me Olivia, and please don’t question me like I’m an idiot. If I thought someone close to me could kill an innocent woman, don’t you think I’d have told you that already?”
“Olivia,” he said, the name sounding oddly intimate on his tongue. “I’m sure you would have, but in these cases, people are usually surprised to learn secrets that have been tucked away, sometimes festering for years.”
She dropped her chin, as if she couldn’t carry the weight of her head on her shoulders for one more second. “Fair point.”
A strange sensation tightened his chest and an unfamiliar urge to comfort her took hold of him. He’d read about her husband’s tragic accident the year before. Understood how a loss that deep could cut away pieces of your soul until you were no more than a shell of the person you once were. But that didn’t mean he could give her any special treatment.
The opposite was true. The empathy swelling inside him combined with his growing attraction for the woman meant he needed to keep things as professional as possible. “So will you write that list for me?”
“Sure,” she said, the word coming out in a long sigh. “Do you need it right now?”
“The sooner the better, but I understand going through two months of memories might take a while. Tomorrow would be great, though.”
Olivia slumped against the stained wood counter and rubbed circles in the middle of her forehead. “There has to be another explanation.”
Fine. If she wanted to go down this road, he’d play along. Although she’d like what he was about to say a lot less than his first idea. “Okay. Say you’re right and no one you know or who has been let inside stole your key. What option does that leave? One, you misplaced the key.” He ticked this option off the pad of his index finger.
She grimaced. “I mean, I guess it’s possible, but I highly doubt it. I don’t even remember the last time I needed the spare.”
“Then two.” He lifted his middle finger, now displaying a peace sign for a situation that was anything but peaceful. “Someone broke in and stole it.”
She gasped. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
He shrugged. “Someone has that key. How are your locks?” He glanced toward the door and cringed. He could tell that it wouldn’t take much to bust through the flimsy lock attached to the handle.
“The locks are fine. I’ve never had any trouble. It’s a safe neighborhood.” Her defensive tone told him she was trying to convince herself as much as him.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had broken into an apartment in the city where the tenant wasn’t aware. “Have you noticed anything missing? Items misplaced or in weird locations?”
The color drained from her face. “My perfume.”
“What about it?” He took a step toward her, his spiked pulse telling him what she was about to say was important.
She licked her lips, then flicked her wrist toward the skinny stand sandwiched between her bed and couch. “I always wear the same perfume. Have since I was a teenager. A while back, I misplaced my perfume bottle. I figured I must have accidently thrown it away or something.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, kicking himself for not asking about a possible break-in at her apartment earlier. “Is that something you’d do? Accidently throw something away?”
She shook her head. “I’d just purchased a new bottle the week before, and the stuff isn’t cheap.”
“I need you to go through your apartment and see if anything else is missing. Anything you might have overlooked. And what was the name of the perfume?” He grabbed his notepad to write it down.
“La Femme Fleur. I have a bottle on the stand if you want to look at it.” She studied the apartment, her mouth moving in noiseless whispers, as if she was giving herself a pep talk.
He wrote down the name of the perfume, then took a picture of the bottle with his phone. If the killer stole her perfume, finding the missing bottle could help build a case. Tucking his phone and notebook away, he watched Olivia meticulously search the rest of the space, then hurry to the hallway. He didn’t want to creep her out by following her to the bathroom but needed to keep an eye on her.
He walked down the hall, surprised by its length, then took a few steps to the doorway Olivia had disappeared through. He turned into the unexpected room. Beams of sunlight shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows, showcasing the explosion of colors on mounted canvases. Splashes of paint covered a protective tarp thrown over the floor. A narrow wooden table took up one wall and was topped with brushes of all shapes and sizes. Rags huddled on the corner, and hand-drawn sketches were tacked up on a thin strip of corkboard. “What in the world?”
Olivia dug through a thick stack of paintings nestled against the wall. “This is my studio,” she said without sparing him a glance. “The apartment is small, and this should be my bedroom, but the light in here is amazing. It’s the perfect place to paint. My brother is subletting me the place, and he said as long as I didn’t damage anything permanently, I could do what I wanted with the space.”
Jaw dropping, he took a step inside. He didn’t know a damn thing about art, but the deep sea of blues and bold reds splattered on the canvas set on the easel by the window drew him in—reminded him of the grief and pain and loss he’d battled for so long. Sadness overwhelmed him, and he braced himself against the table, unable to speak, his focus glued on the painting.
“It’s not here.” She stood in the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle as if trying to find something she’d missed.
Olivia’s panicked screech pulled him out of his head. He cleared his throat, zeroing in on the ashen tone of her skin and wide, terrified eyes. “What’s not here?”
“One of my paintings.” She dashed to the opposite side of the room and searched through another mound of canvases. “A picture I painted of a church. The church Dave and I were married in. It’s gone.” She faced him, fear and confusion knitting her brow. “Oh my God, someone was inside my apartment.”
Chapter 4
The smell of lemon disinfectant hung heavy in the air. The pungent solution stung Olivia’s hands, making them cracked and dry. She should have searched for rubber gloves before scouring the lingering presence of a stranger from her apartment, but she’d left all her industrial-strength products at the loft—including her gloves. She couldn’t go back to a crime scene where her sense of security and safety had been violated before ridding the exact same energy from her home.
Throwing the wet sponge in the lukewarm bucket of water, she sank onto the floor and leaned against the cabinet. She used the back of her wrist to brush aside hair that had slipped loose from her high ponytail. Tears dotted her eyes.
Getting the phone call that her husband had been killed in an accident had been the lowest point of her life, but today was a very close second. The image of that poor woman lying at the bottom of the stairs would never leave her. Nor would the guilt that burrowed in her chest, as if she was somehow responsible for the young woman’s grisly fate.
A sharp knock on the door set her nerves on edge, and she shrank against the hard cabinet. Fear froze her movements.
“Olivia? Are you home?” Her brother’s voice penetrated the thin wood.
She shot to her feet and hurried to let him in, throwing her arms around his neck in the doorway. “What are you doing here? I’m so happy to see you.”
Jason gave her a tight squeeze, then pulled away, keeping a soft grip on her shoulders. His short brown hair was perfectly groomed, but worry shone bright from the hazel eyes so much like hers. “I got a call from a homicide detective. Are you all right?” He studied her face, as if he’d be able to detect any form of harm.
But the harm today’s events had caused couldn’t be found on the surface.
Not needing to pretend to be okay, she let the tears hovering in her eyes fall and shook her head. “It was so awful. I still can’t believe this is happening.”
Dropping his arms, Jason closed the door, then steered her toward the sofa. He waited for her to sit before crossing to the stove. “I’m sorry. This sucks. But you’re okay. That’s the important thing.” He snaked the silver teakettle off the gas stove and filled it with water from the tap before setting it back on the burner, igniting the flames underneath it.
Sniffing back her raw emotions, she rubbed the chills from her arms. “What did Detective Stone say when he called?”
Jason leaned against the laminate counter and hooked his ankles. “He asked me where I was last night. I told him I was with you, which sealed your alibi,” he said, shaking his head. “So freaking weird. Why do you need an alibi?”
The indignation in his voice warmed her. “Because an innocent woman was killed in my loft.”
Jason hooked a dark brow, making his oval face even longer. “How do you know she’s innocent?”
She bristled at his words. “No matter what happened, I’m fairly certain she didn’t ask to be murdered. She’s an unfortunate victim.”
He retrieved two cups from the cabinet and set them on the counter by a pad of paper. “What’s this?”
She rose, glancing over his shoulder at what he’d found while searching for tea bags. The enormity of what Detective Stone had asked of her sat like a stone on her chest. “The spare key to the loft is missing. So is a bottle of my perfume and one of my paintings. Detective Stone thinks either someone broke into my apartment, or someone I know grabbed the key while they were here. He wants me to write down anyone I can think of who’s been here.”
Jason picked up the pad of paper and irritation puckered his brow. “Seriously? These are all friends. Family. Clara? Really?”
She shrugged as heat slammed against her cheeks. Writing down each name on her list had felt like aiming an arrow into their backs. But she had to name everyone she could think of, even her brother’s soon to be ex-wife.
“Why would anyone you know and trust steal from you? This is a waste of time.” He threw the notepad back on the counter.
A shrill whistle sounded, and Olivia removed the kettle from the burner. She scooted one cup her way and filled it with water before dunking the bag of chamomile tea into the steaming mug. “I agree, but it’s better than sitting around doing nothing. Or scrubbing this place until my hands bleed.”
He let out a sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry. This is all just so surreal. And after everything with Dave...”
Her husband’s name made her heart lurch. Jason had taken Dave’s death almost as hard as she had, as the two had been friends since middle school. More death and stress were the last thing either of them needed.
He blew a long breath from his mouth and cast one more look at the list of names on the yellow legal pad. “You need new locks on your door. Here and at the loft.”
A dull ache thudded against her forehead. “I can’t afford new locks.”
“Then maybe it’s time to consider selling the loft.” He spoke as if trying to keep his patience while explaining math to a child.
Clenching her jaw, she carried her cup back to the sofa and sat. “We’ve been over this. I’m not sure if I’m ready. I’ve had to say goodbye to so much. I don’t know if I can put everything Dave and I loved behind me.”
“Come on. It’s time. You’re living in this shit hole when you could take the money from the sale and move into a decent place. Keeping that loft won’t bring Dave back. You have to move on. Move forward.”
“I don’t have to do a damn thing,” she snapped, her hands trembling from her brother’s harsh sentiment. “Dave didn’t leave me like Clara left you. I’m not angry and bitter and eager to get on with my life. I want to keep Dave and my memories alive, and there isn’t another place in this damn city where he feels closer to me than in our home. I’m not ready to let that go.”
“I’m not eager to move on from Clara. I just don’t have a choice in the matter.” Jason winced, a mixture of guilt and irritation flickering on his face. “At least let me lend you the money for some locks. You can’t live in an apartment someone’s already busted into, and you can’t leave a lock on the loft that someone might have a key to.”
As much as she hated accepting her brother’s charity, her shoulders sagged in relief. She’d sleep a lot better knowing she was just a little bit safer. “Thank you.” She stayed quiet about his relationship. He was a grown man and knew how she felt about the breakup of his marriage. There was no reason to rehash her irritation at his and Clara’s inability to get past whatever had shoved a wedge in their marriage. Especially when she feared she might be that wedge.
Nodding, he fiddled with the knot on his baby blue tie. “I don’t mean to be harsh. It just seems that maybe this is a sign. A sign to say goodbye. Dave wouldn’t have wanted you to be so reliant on renting that place out week after week.”
She took a sip of the tea, and it burned the top of her tongue. “This isn’t a sign. It’s a tragedy. And just like the last tragedy, I’ll do whatever it takes to put it behind me. And that starts with doing what Detective Stone asks of me so the police can clear the loft and I can put the listing back up until I can figure out my next step.” She just hoped that once that happened, life would calm down and she could get back to nursing her broken heart.
* * *
The setting sun shimmered through the towering buildings, the muted light sparkling against endless glass. Little grains of fatigue scratched against Jack’s eyes. The day had been long and frustrating. All he wanted was to prop up his feet with a glass of scotch in one hand and the remote control in the other. With his roommate and fellow detective working tonight, he had the apartment to himself.
But before he could trudge through the rush hour traffic to get home, he had to stop by Olivia’s apartment to grab the list she’d come up with. He’d almost asked her to just shoot him an email with the names she’d remembered, but the thought of laying eyes on her was too tempting.
He pressed the button he’d used earlier that day, prompting Olivia’s sweet voice to crackle through the speaker.
“Hello?”
He leaned forward and projected his voice. “It’s Detective Stone.”
“Come on up.”
The buzz sounded and he hurried inside, bounding up the stairs to Olivia’s place.
She sat in the threshold of her apartment, the door wide-open, with her strawberry blonde hair piled on the top of her head in some kind of messy bun, a bandanna tied in a knot to keep loose strands from falling into her eyes. A smattering of tools lay on the dingy carpet beside her.
He slowed his steps as he studied her furrowed brow. Dammit, if she didn’t look cute in her frustrated heap. “Everything okay?”
Sighing, she slumped against the doorjamb, tilting her chin up so she stared at the ceiling. “Not even a little bit.”
Crouching beside her, he picked up a discarded doorknob. “What exactly are you doing?”
Angling her face toward him, she met his stare. “Failing.”
Her matter-of-fact tone curved his lips. “Care to elaborate?”
She puffed out a breath that made the loose stands of hair falling in her face dance in the air. “My brother bought me new locks. Said I needed them if someone had broken into my apartment.”
He nodded along with the words. “Smart man.”
She frowned, then gestured toward the mess at her feet. “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants was called back to work before he could finish installing the doorknob and new dead bolt. Hopefully he’ll be back, but I can’t just sit around and wait all night. What if there’s another emergency surgery at the hospital he’s called in to take care of? What if it’s the middle of the night before he can make it back here? I can’t just hope no one comes around or tries to break into my apartment again.” Her voice hitched higher with every word, while her eyes grew wider as if each new thought caused a new thing to worry over.
