LITMIR.BIZ

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me get this straight,” he said with an edge to his voice. “You came into this apartment knowing it had been ransacked?”

      Her eyes popped open. She didn’t like that edge, probably, she admitted to herself, because she’d more or less earned it. Still, this man wasn’t her keeper, and the out-of-place attraction she’d been fighting a moment before fled in a wave of irritation as she shrugged herself free from his one-handed grip.

      As she searched the room for something on which to dry her tears, she said, “I knew the intruder was gone.” It amazed her that her voice sounded so strong. By all rights, it should be as shaky as her knees.

      “How did you know?”

      “It felt empty,” she said, spying a tissue box next to the overturned mattress. She climbed over the tangled knot of a pink quilt and snagged the box. Mopping at her face, she looked around the trashed room.

      He shook his head as he slipped his gun back into the shoulder holster he wore under his jacket. “It felt empty?”

      “Let it go,” she said, eyes flashing.

      He stared at her.

      “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

      “You weren’t at the hospital when I called. I asked myself where I’d go if I were you, and this is what I came up with.”

      “And scared me nearly to death!” she repeated, but it wasn’t the fear that rankled, it was the humiliation of having broken down in front of him. She was willing to do almost anything now to distance herself from that clinging vine, that needy, weepy thing she’d become in the aftermath of intense fear. Anything was better than that.

      “Well, no harm done,” she said briskly.

      “That’s right,” he said, a wicked gleam igniting his eyes, “no harm done. Except that I might have been the bad guy back for a second look.”

      Tess stared at her feet. She knew he was right, but she wasn’t going to let him see that. He’d already seen too much. She said, “I’m going to clean up this place. I don’t want Katie coming home to something like this. Maybe I’ll figure out what’s missing.”

      He regarded her with raised eyebrows. “How in the world will you know what’s missing in an apartment you’ve never been in before?”

      “I haven’t the slightest idea,” she answered. But she would know. She just wasn’t going to try to explain something to him she couldn’t explain to herself. It was like knowing Katie wouldn’t so easily quit trying to figure out who framed their father or that she lived on the second floor of this building. She just knew.

      “Well it’s immaterial, anyway,” he said, taking out his cell phone. “You can’t do anything in here until the scene is processed. So find someplace to sit down, and try not to touch anything else, okay?”

      She glared at him.

      “Please,” he added.

      Of course it had to be processed. “I’ll go sit on what’s left of the big recliner,” she said.

      He nodded as he spoke into the phone.

      RYAN ASKED EVERYONE who answered their door if they’d seen anyone or anything suspicious in the past thirty-six hours, since Katie Fields had been hit by that white van.

      No one had ever heard of Katie Fields. No one there knew the name of the tenant in 206. The manager would know, but he was off in Hawaii.

      The woman with the dog confessed she played music almost continually to cover the noise of her almost-deaf neighbor’s television. She did mention Frances from downstairs, who knew everybody and everything but who worked nights. The old grouch across from the elevator said, “I ain’t a snoop like some people.”

      One person wasn’t home, and the last one, the elderly lady with a hearing problem, admitted she had no idea who lived, “down at that end of the hall.”

      That was the trouble. Katie’s apartment was the last one on the left. The unit across from hers was empty, the lady with the dog told him, and had been for weeks. The unit under hers belonged to the vacationing manager.

      Ryan’s partner and a couple of guys from the lab were finishing looking through Katie’s apartment, but it was such a low priority that it was more or less being done because Ryan had asked. He didn’t expect the person who’d done this to have left fingerprints or telltale hairs.

      Which, he decided as he leaned against the wall in the hall, was just as well. He didn’t want to get warned away from looking into Katie Fields’s mishap. He wanted it to remain a hit-and-run and not get bumped up to attempted murder or linked to her father’s death.

      Jason came out and lit a cigarette, something he did more or less every ten minutes when possible. He was younger than Ryan by a year or two, chatty and full of himself, as different from Matt Fields as night is from day.

      “I can’t believe old Matt had himself another daughter,” Jason said, expelling a cloud of foul smoke.

      Ryan waved his hand in front of his face. “They probably have rules about smoking in this place,” he said. “Well, as we both know, Matt was full of secrets. You guys find anything?”

      “In that mess? Looks like there are two sets of prints. One all over the place, probably the victim’s, the other set belongs to the victim’s sister. You know how it is, people see an ambulance take away a victim and the next thing you know, some creep goes in and robs her blind, and everyone knows to wear gloves now. I don’t see a computer or TV or anything so maybe they took off with that kind of stuff. Ditto on jewelry. You ask the neighbors if anyone saw anything or if any of them are familiar with Katie’s apartment and can tell if something is missing?”

      “No one on this floor saw anything and no one had ever been invited inside, though one woman said she believed the apartment was rented furnished.” He gave Jason the name and workplace for Frances from downstairs. “You check her out. I’ll give it an hour or so for people to settle in for the night and try the rest of the ground floor, but I imagine it’ll be the same.”

      CSI came out of the apartment next. They shot the breeze for a few minutes, then left and Ryan stayed where he was, in the hall, thinking about going back inside.

      He kind of regretted getting so uppity with Tess, but she’d scared him to death, then touched his heart with her trembling and tears, then had turned into a smart aleck. He’d put her in her place because he needed to put himself in his place. He was determined to protect his late partner’s daughters whether they liked it or not, and he couldn’t afford to let this pretty veterinarian with the bluest eyes this side of Tahiti get in his way.

      Damn it, but he had to admit he’d enjoyed her moment of need. He’d liked her holding on to him like he was a lifeline. She’d felt good in his arms. A natural fit. Talk about screwy, but he’d been disappointed when she turned back into herself. And he knew this was crazy, counterproductive and downright dangerous for both her safety and his peace of mind, so he had to get ahold of himself and the situation and he thought he knew how to do it.

      Pep talk delivered, he pushed open the door and went back inside.

      She was down on her knees, stuffing pillow innards into a garbage bag. He rested on his haunches and held the bag for her so she could use both hands.

      “I’m sorry about all this,” he said.

      She glanced up at him. “Thanks.”

      “Tess, don’t bite my head off, but I think you ought to go home tomorrow.”

      She went back to work, moving from cushion stuffing to broken pieces of pottery too small to put back together again. At last she said, “I don’t think Katie intended on staying here long.”

      Obviously, she had chosen to ignore his suggestion. No matter, he would approach it again from a different angle. She wasn’t a fool, and she didn’t strike

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