Mills nodded. “Looks like she was reading something on her iPad while she ate, and was interrupted.”
“Maybe she got sick and headed to the bathroom?”
“Dyer didn’t mention any signs of that, but we’re about to find out,” Mills said, and followed the sounds of the television all the way down the hall and into her bedroom.
“The bed is made. Doesn’t look like she slept in it last night,” Floyd said.
Mills stood for a moment, eyeing the setup of the room.
“Why would the TV be on, if she was eating her meal in the kitchen? She obviously wasn’t watching TV in bed, because the bed hasn’t been disturbed since it was made, and the remote is all the way across the room by the television. Nobody watches TV like that.”
Floyd’s eyes narrowed. There was no simple explanation for any of this. He stepped into the bathroom, eyeing the perfectly folded towel and washcloth hanging on the towel rack, then felt the soap inside the shower. It was dry. Everything in the room was pristine.
“She didn’t shower in here last night,” he said, and then eyed footsteps in the carpeting that went in and out of the walk-in closet, but there was nothing obvious to be seen in there, either.
“There’s no blood. No sign of a fight. Nothing has been disturbed. But she’s damn sure gone,” Floyd said.
“Maybe that security footage will show something different,” Mills said.
“I want to look at it now,” Floyd said. “Call Dyer and tell him we’re coming down.”
Mills made the call, and was talking to Dyer as they left, locking the door and heading back to the elevator.
Viewing the footage only compounded the puzzle. It showed Wayne letting in a cleaning crew around 10 a.m. yesterday, and then coming back just after 1 p.m. to lock up when they left.
“Do you do this for all of the residents?” Detective Mills asked.
“You mean, letting in cleaning crews and repairmen? Yes. It’s part of my job. Slick Floors is the cleaning service. They have a contract with Detter House, but they never have free access to the rooms. I always let them in and lock up after they’re gone.”
Then they fast-forwarded the footage to the next person to enter her apartment.
“Who’s that?” Floyd asked.
“That’s Rachel. She often works late at her office.”
It was the first time they were seeing the face of the woman who’d gone missing. Pretty, dark curly hair. A little over five feet tall. The time stamp was just before 8 p.m. when she went into her apartment. She never came out again. After that the next person to show up at her door on the footage was Dyer going in for the wellness check this morning.
“This is very disturbing,” Floyd said. “There’s not another way out of her apartment. There’s no back door, and the fire exit is down the hall, so she would have had to come out of her apartment to get out of this building, no matter where she made an exit. I’m calling in our team from the crime lab. They’ll do a sweep of the apartment. If there are answers to be had there, they’ll find them. So for now I’m keeping the passkey until they’re finished.”
Wayne nodded. “If there’s anything I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Floyd said.
Three
The day at Dodge Investigations was slow, but productive. Charlie was gone most of the afternoon, testifying in a court case, and Wyrick was in the office at her desk, shopping online at Whole Foods, contemplating which box of cereal to order, when the phone rang. She paused, then swiveled around and reached for the phone.
“Dodge Investigations.”
“I need to hire Charlie Dodge. I’m being blackmailed and—”
Wyrick frowned. “Then call the police. Charlie Dodge is in the business of finding people who’ve gone missing.”
“I can’t! If I call the police, my wife will—”
“Your mistakes and your pissed-off wife are your business, but nothing my boss will ever get mixed up in. You have two choices. Pay your blackmailer, or call the cops.”
She hung up, then turned back to her pending grocery order, moved the cursor to sugarcoated rice crisps and clicked. Charlie liked those.
A short while later she got a text from Charlie.
Lock up the office and go home when you want. I’m still waiting to testify. The judge gave the opposing council a thirty-minute recess. Just be careful.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji, and went about shutting things down. There were two cherry Danish left at the coffee bar from the assortment she’d brought this morning, so she boxed them up to take home, then grabbed her things and headed for the door.
She had her bag over her shoulder, and the key in her hand as she opened the door to go out. She had just enough time to see a tall, skinny man in jeans and a black plaid shirt coming at her, pushing her back inside. She kicked at him, sending him stumbling backward, but before she could get the Taser out of her bag, he swung at her. She ducked. His fist hit her on the shoulder instead of her face, knocking her backward.
She knew when he kicked the door shut that he’d come to kill her, so she grabbed her bag, yanked out the Taser and fired as he was pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans.
The prongs hit him in the face.
He flew backward as if she’d punched him, slamming against the door, and then falling onto the floor, seizing and jerking from the electric shocks rolling through his body.
Wyrick rolled over, dug her phone from her pocket and called 911. As soon as help was dispatched, she hung up, then ran into Charlie’s office for a pair of handcuffs, went back to where he lay jerking and moaning, kicked the bottom of his shoe, then leaned over him long enough to meet his enraged gaze.
“You are a true piece of shit,” she said calmly, then rolled him facedown and yanked his arms behind his back and cuffed him, before she pulled the prongs from his face, then dragged him away from the door and opened it wide, so the police could get in.
Spittle was running from the corner of his mouth, and he was moaning between every other breath, and yet he managed to mumble.
“Devil woman.”
The skin crawled on the back of her neck. She should have known! He was one of them. She leaned over and dug the wallet from his hip pocket.
“Thief,” he hissed.
She could see the side of his face was turning splotchy and red where the Taser prongs had penetrated the flesh, and blood was oozing from the wounds, dripping down his cheek onto the floor beneath him. But she had no empathy for his pain.