Damage Control (Alexis Parker Book 27), page 20
Cross pulled out of the driveway and found a place to park near the coffee shop. “I asked a few basic questions about the property, the off-limits areas, and which bedroom had been used the least.”
“Which bedroom?”
“That seemed like an important question.”
“Why?”
“That mattress should be in the best shape.”
“You’re planning on sleeping there?”
“We’re sleeping there,” he corrected. “The reservation is for overnight. We can’t dine and dash. I thought you understood that.”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation. This isn’t a vacation.”
“No, it’s work.” He got out of the car, looking around while he hopped onto the sidewalk and pulled open my door. “Let’s get some coffee. By the time we finish, the house should be ready for us.”
While we were in the coffee shop, Cross paid special attention to the nearby cameras and the angles. But the rental wasn’t visible from here, and neither was the driveway. If someone had been monitoring the rental to set up Dustin, they hadn’t done it from this location.
After getting our coffees and some sandwiches, we went across the street to the drugstore. They had everything from microwaveable dinners to aisles of toiletries, over the counter medical supplies, and a pharmacy in the back.
While Cross kept an eye out the door, I grabbed a basket and filled it with the basics. I hadn’t planned on spending the night at work, at least not like this. But Cross was right. It would look suspicious if we didn’t stay, and since someone had been watching me or possibly the house, it would be best not to raise any more suspicions. I’d already had three close calls. While the third time was supposed to be the charm, I had to assume one of those had been a practice swing, which meant, the next one would be a home run. And I didn’t need any more holes in my body.
“Let’s go,” Cross insisted while I assessed the candy bar selection beside the self-serve checkout.
“I’ll meet you outside.” I scanned my items as efficiently as someone who’d been doing it her entire life, paid with my credit card, grabbed my shopping bag, and met him beyond the doors. The cleaning crew had left in a white and blue van, the name laser-etched on the side. The Tidy Two.
“I thought you spoke to them when we were researching.” I indicated the van as we crossed the street and got back into Cross’s car. Normally, we would have walked the block to the coffee shop, but he had moved his car for a reason. One he hadn’t shared with me. “Did the guy recognize you?”
“I didn’t use my real name to book the place.”
“What name did you use?”
“Patrick Berman and Calista Frasier.”
“Calista?”
“Those were the names on the IDs I picked up. They were pre-made. Quick and easy.”
“You have a paper guy? I figured you’d have your techs put things like that together.”
“I wouldn’t want to risk implicating them or myself in something like that. It’s easier to outsource. Safer. Less chance of blowback. So I called Freddy. He has a guy.”
“Freddy?”
“Don’t worry about it.” That meant it’d be best to stop asking questions for my own peace of mind. “Once we get inside, we’re keeping the chatter light. You are Calista Frasier. We’re here for an overnight stay. Understand?”
“Not in the least, but I know how to play along.”
Cross grabbed his bag, leaving me to carry in my drugstore purchases. I followed him up the steps to the front porch, keeping the brim of the cap pulled low over my face. After checking the unlock code which had been sent to his phone, he entered the six digits into the electronic lock and pushed the door open.
The smell of sanitizing products assaulted my nostrils. The cleaners were heavy-handed when it came to scrubbing the place. It made me wonder what the last renter had done to warrant such stringent methods, unless those were the standards they applied to every unit, every time.
I glanced around, peering into the bedroom where Dustin had allegedly stayed while following Cross down the hallway and into the kitchen. Cross paid attention to every fixture we passed. Once the hallway opened into the family room/kitchen/dining area, he put his bag down and pulled out a few tools of the trade.
Surprised, I put the bags on the table, pulled out my phone, and typed, You think the place is bugged? I held the screen out for him to see.
He shrugged. “Did you see the patio?”
“Do you think they have an outdoor grill?” I asked, watching as he started scanning for surveillance devices.
“This is our one night away. I’m not in the mood to grill, dear.”
I peered out the vertical blinds, seeing the same things I’d noticed from my spot on top of the dumpster. Nothing had changed. “Are you sure? It could be fun.” I checked the door, reading the placard that included instructions left by the owner to make sure not to leave the door open and to lock it after use. “I’m going to look outside.”
“Fine, but don’t get your hopes up.” Cross wandered through the kitchen, checked the pantry, and moved on to the living room.
I opened the rear door, left it open, and stepped outside. The backyard didn’t contain much of anything. Upon closer inspection, I didn’t see any notable scrapes or damage to the planks which made up the privacy fence. The solid, smooth surface made it impossible to scale. The wood would have splintered or cracked under the weight of a full-grown man. I suspected it would crack under my weight, but there was no way I could reach the top, and even if I could, the angle wouldn’t be conducive for pulling myself up and over. That limited the possible ways someone could have gained access to the rental.
Returning inside, I closed the door. Cross had finished checking the main room and had backtracked to the front door to scan the bedroom and the laundry room. I performed a visual sweep, pausing to stare at the spot on the ground where Sydney Breeding’s body had been found. Given the kitchen counter and the confines of the hallway, Dustin wouldn’t have been able to see the dead woman from the entrance or his bedroom. But that wasn’t enough to clear him.
Cross returned to the kitchen. Clear, he mouthed.
“Honey, since you don’t want to grill, what do you want to eat tonight?” I asked.
“Whatever you want, dear.”
“Really, whatever I want?” The rental owner had left a welcome packet on the counter. I picked it up, skimming the list of rules and provided information. “What do you think about Chinese?”
“The MSG will give me another migraine. How about somewhere a little nicer?”
“Really? You’re taking me out to dinner?”
“We are on vacation.” He made his way upstairs.
While he scanned the upper level for recording devices, I searched downstairs. The kitchen, including the appliances and the items in the pantry and fridge, matched the information left by the owner. There were no surprises. No hidden bags of party drugs or dead bodies.
I tore the living room apart. The only surprise I found was a dusty cheese doodle beneath the pull-out portion of the sectional. The Tidy Two must have missed that. As per the instructions, additional linens were in a sealed bag in the hall closet. The zippers had been secured with a ziptie and an additional charge would be added for using those items.
“Do you believe this guy?” I asked when Cross came down the steps. “There’s a surcharge if you want an extra blanket and pillow.”
“That’s to deter wild parties and additional houseguests. It’s an insurance thing.” Cross pointed to the three locked doors near the kitchen. “It’s also why some rooms are off limits.” Cross pulled out a set of lockpicks from his bag and handed them to me. “Where did we land on dinner?”
“I thought you said you wanted to take me somewhere fancy. What did you have in mind, tiger?” I jimmied the first door open, choking a little when stale, dusty air filled my lungs. On the bright side, I didn’t detect the scent of decomposing remains.
He left the lights off, scanning from the doorway, afraid if a camera was posted inside that it would spot us. “I heard good things about that steakhouse. You know which one I’m talking about.”
“You mean the one you couldn’t shut up about on the drive here? Is that the one you wanted to try, honey?” I tried to see into the room, but it was pitch. The scanner didn’t show any frequencies being broadcast, but before I could reach for a flashlight, Cross stopped me, shaking his head.
He detoured back to the wall panel to check the security system. “Yeah, I’d like a nice steak after that long drive. Is that a problem, Calista? You aren’t experimenting with vegetarianism again, are you?”
“It’s veganism. And if you ever paid a bit of attention to me, maybe you’d know.” I read the security system’s display, but it didn’t show much. Whatever data it possessed wasn’t for our eyes.
Cross pulled out a cable and plugged his phone into the panel. “We are not fighting about that again,” he said, though our conversation sounded cardboard and mechanical.
“Fine. Steak is great, but they better have mashed potatoes or mac and cheese.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to order a salad,” he said.
I moved beside him, studying his screen while whatever application he was running bypassed the security system’s protocols. “I bet you wouldn’t say that to your wife.”
The override program looked like a bunch of gibberish, white text on a black screen. Once it completed, he put his phone away and tucked the cable back into his pocket. “My wife?”
“Yes, your wife. Don’t tell me you forgot about her?”
“What the fuck?” he whispered, giving me an incredulous look.
I shrugged.
Rolling his eyes, he pointed to the second locked door, and we repeated the process, keeping the lights off in case there were any hidden cameras. “We are not talking about her. Tonight is about us,” he said.
“Fine.” I nodded once he cleared the second room and unlocked the third door. I wanted to search each of them, but he wanted to know we weren’t being spied on before we got down to business.
He finished sweeping the last locked room. “You can cut the act, Alex. The place is clean.” Cross returned the tools to his bag. “I didn’t find any surveillance devices.”
“I haven’t found much of anything, but I barely got started.” I indicated the three unlocked rooms. “I’m guessing that’s where we should start.”
“There’s one more room upstairs I haven’t checked,” Cross said now that we knew it was safe to speak freely. “It’s a tiny door that looks like it may lead to a storage area or the attic. But there’s no lock on it.”
“Why didn’t you check it while you were upstairs?”
“I couldn’t get it to budge.”
Thirty-one
The locked door closest to where Sydney Breeding’s body had been found led to the basement. Down the stairs were an array of old appliances, a desk, and an old bedframe and mattress. A dilapidated refrigerator and freezer chest sat in the corner of the room, unplugged and covered in a thick layer of dust. A table and two stacks of chairs filled out the rest of the room, along with a tool box and various items that one would typically find housed in an attached garage.
Donning a pair of gloves, I sifted through the mess. The disturbed dust made me sneeze. Obviously, the Tidy Two didn’t have access or weren’t paid to clean the basement. Even the wood laminate covering the floor looked like it had a layer of grime since the middle boards were a darker shade than the ones near the sides of the room.
The fridge was empty. The shelves on the door were broken, and one of the drawers was missing. The ice maker inside the attached freezer looked like someone had tried to remove it with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. The metal was twisted and singed. Tubing stuck out like the snakes on Medusa’s head.
Curious, I checked the manufactured date which was listed on the sticker on the back of the machine. The fridge was only three years old. My guess would be a guest must have wanted to practice for an engineering exam. That would explain the clause in the rental agreement about paying for damaged or nonfunctioning appliances.
The fridge may have been large enough to hold a body, but the body would have been crammed into a ball to fit. That didn’t match the reports I’d seen. So I turned my attention to the freezer chest. That’s where the villain always hid the body in films, and there was a reason for that stereotype.
Unsure what I expected to find, I lifted the lid. The chest was empty. There was nothing inside. The shiny aluminum interior appeared spotless. No water stains. No bloodstains. Nothing of consequence. Only the slight scent of multipurpose cleaner remained.
Surely, the police had searched every room of the rental, even the locked ones. If this chest had been here at the time, they would have searched it too. I didn’t remember seeing any mention of it in the reports, but if there was nothing inside of it, it wouldn’t have made it into the reports.
A few dings on the otherwise smooth surface made me pause. Those could have been from anything. They weren’t particularly deep. I didn’t see any claw marks or scratches, so I didn’t think anyone alive had ever been locked inside. As far as dead, I’d need CSU to determine that, but given the shine and disinfectant lemon scent, I didn’t think even they would be able to find anything.
I shut the freezer chest and checked the rest of the items in the room. No drugs. No weapons, aside from the tools in the box. Nothing indicated a body had ever been kept here.
I repeated my check in the other two rooms. The smaller of the two was the utility closet. The other room was a little harder to decipher. It could have been an office, failed home gym, or spare bedroom. Inside were a treadmill and bike, protected from the dust by sheets. I peered beneath the sheets, seeing the machines were on the pricier end of the spectrum. A few free weights sat on a bench which had permanent indentions from the weights being nestled on the padding for so long. A desk sat on the other side, filled with papers and folders.
“Did you find anything?” Cross asked, appearing in the doorway.
“I don’t think so.”
He leafed through the pages before going to the printer which doubled as a copier. “All I’m seeing are dozens of printed copies of the welcome packet we received.” Cross put the pages back where he found them. “What were you hoping to find?”
“I don’t know.” I turned, fighting to keep from sneezing. “What about the room upstairs? Did you ever get a look at what was behind that tiny door?”
“Storage. Nothing but seasonal decorations.” Cross gestured toward the door. “Make sure you put everything back where you found it.”
That didn’t take much effort. “What about the surveillance cameras?” I asked, joining him in the kitchen.
“I already spliced into the feed. Amir has remote access to everything. We ran a few drills. You were right about that blind spot. It is possible to sneak in and out of the house without being spotted.”
“I figured if the squirrel could do it, anyone could.” I looked around. “Reenact something with me.” I pointed to the ground. “Lie there.”
Cross gave the tile an uncomfortable look before doing as I asked. “You’re paying for my dry cleaning.”
I went down the hall, toward the entrance, turned around, and approached the kitchen. I didn’t stop until I could see Cross. “Dustin wasn’t lying.”
“You don’t know that.” Cross got up from the ground and wiped his hands on his pants. “He’s taller than you. So it’d make more sense if you pretend to be dead and I see how close I have to get to spot you.”
“You just want me to see how it feels,” I said.
“Payback’s a bitch.” He went past me as we switched positions.
Now that I was closer to the ground, I examined the tiles. Sydney Breeding had been strangled, so there was no mess to clean up. Nothing had to be replaced or bleached. The floor hadn’t been damaged. Everything was fine.
“You know, the owner got lucky. I’ve seen some bloody scenes inside hotel rooms. Everything had to be replaced. The carpet, the furniture, all of it.”
Cross appeared at the end of the hallway, almost in the same spot where I’d stood. “Is that an observation, or do you have another theory?”
“An observation for now.”
He approached, offering me a hand up. “Do you want to head out for a while? I planted a few of my own cameras on the doors, so we’ll see if anyone enters while we’re gone since the cameras outside can’t be trusted.”
“We might as well since being here isn’t helping. I really hoped it would.”
“It’s been six months. If there was evidence the police missed, it’s long gone by now.”
“Maybe I should talk to the cleaning crew.” I had planned to, but things had been so hectic.
“I already did that. They don’t know anything. Once the police released the scene, the owner gave them specific instructions to give everything a thorough scrubbing. Afterward, he stopped by to make sure they did a good job, and the listing went back on the marketplace a few days later.”
“Like it never happened,” I said. “But the story was in the news. Murder in a quiet neighborhood. No one connected the dots?”
“Most people who stay here are from out of town. They wouldn’t have heard about it.”
“So Sydney Breeding’s murder didn’t impact business or cause any additional expenses.”
“You think the owner had something to do with it?”
“I have no idea what to think.” I thought back on everything we had in the works. Angie Tanner threatened me, and Violet Hemming was hiding from someone. “I need to see what O’Connell’s learned in the last few hours.”
“I’ll drop you off,” Cross said.
* * *
“Didn’t I say I’d call you?” O’Connell asked.
“I was in the neighborhood.” I reached for his notepad. “I see Marcusi and Malone are in holding. Have you spoken to them yet?”
“Have you?”
I shook my head, flipping pages. O’Connell took the notepad away from me and put it back in his pocket. “Did you tell Violet the good news? Has she gone home yet?”
