“This is her apartment,” I said softly.
“Wait for it,” Wilkins said, his grip tightening on my shoulder.
“I don’t…understand. I’ve never met her.”
“Fuck me.” Wilkins released my shoulder, pulled out his wallet, and handed two more dollars to Dobbs.
Dobbs pocketed the money but his gaze never left me. His lips were frozen in a sort of half grin. “Are you seriously going to deny that’s you?”
I felt my face flush. My cheeks grew warm, hot. “It’s fake…got to be. Photoshop or something. Some kind of trick or a joke.”
On the floor, between the small table and the front door, were several pairs of tennis shoes. Two of those pairs were obviously female; the third I recognized. Size 11 Nike Air VaporMax LTRs. The right one had a dark smudge near the toe where I had spilled coffee. By the time I’d tried to scrub it out, the stain had set. I hadn’t seen them in a while; they’d been misplaced somewhere in my closet.
Dobbs caught my millisecond glance at the shoes. “When we pull DNA, it’s going to match yours, right?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Your brain is no doubt chewing through a million thoughts,” Dobbs said. “While you’re being quiet, and it’s probably best that you do, I’d like you to consider one more thought. Possibly the most important thought you will ever consider in your life. If you tell us the truth now, if you cooperate, everything will be far easier for you. When we file charges, and we will file charges, they will be lesser charges than if you continue to deny your involvement in the death of Alyssa Tepper. LA County has some of the nastiest prosecutors in the country. They’re bitter, angry, fed up with all the bad press they receive, so when they get a case they see as a slam dunk, they take it to the rim. They milk it. They’ll make an example out of you and they’ll do it publicly. California is a death-penalty state when it comes to capital offenses, so you might find yourself standing in the gas chamber when the dust settles. Even if they don’t actually kill you—the last execution was more than a decade ago—they’d have no problem keeping you on death row for the rest of your life. You’re, what, twenty-six? That’s a long, long time. You cop to all this, you tell us the truth, and you’re probably looking at only twenty to thirty years, maybe less if you keep your head down, stay out of trouble. That’s not bad. You’d be out in your forties or fifties. Plenty of time to pull a new life together. Because you could still have a future, if you chose to.”
Dobbs turned back to Dantzler. “Do you mind giving us a tour of Ms. Tepper’s apartment? I think Michael has a right to know what else we’ve found.”
Chapter Seven
Michael
There were several other photos.
On the coffee table, there was one with Alyssa Tepper and me kissing outside a Hard Rock Café. In a silver frame beside the couch, one of the two of us with the famed Hollywood sign in the distance. Four of me alone, grinning, smiling, laughing. I remembered none of them being taken. In the small kitchen, held to the refrigerator with a Pizza Hut magnet, was one of me standing in the open door of my truck. Alyssa Tepper sat sideways in the driver’s seat up behind me wearing a white tank top and shorts, her legs wrapped around my chest. She had a Nadler Distribution ball cap perched at an angle on her head. My tongue was sticking out, and I had a goofy expression on my face. The photo was crinkled, faded, worn, as if it had been carried in a pocket for some time before finding a home next to a to-do list and a calendar from a local real estate agent.
I stared at that last one.
I stared at my own eyes looking back at me. Familiar, yet not.
I’d had only two girlfriends since moving to Los Angeles and I hadn’t shown either of them my truck, where I worked. I wasn’t ashamed; I loved my job. Security at Nadler was tight—nonemployees were not permitted on the lot for insurance reasons, and when I had the truck out, I was on the road. I didn’t linger in LA long enough to visit with anyone or take pictures.
“She looks happy there,” Dobbs said. “You make a cute couple.”
“Made,” Wilkins said from behind us.
Dantzler cleared his throat. “Yes, well, there’s more for you to see in the bedroom.”
He led us down a narrow hallway—bedroom on the left, small bathroom on the right. I stopped and looked in the bathroom. A CSI investigator was busy bagging up two toothbrushes—one pink, one blue—a men’s razor, a half-used bar of soap, and several other items I couldn’t see from where I stood. When she noticed me watching her, she pursed her lips and closed the bathroom door.
“In here,” Dantzler said from the bedroom.
The bedroom was small, no more than eleven by thirteen. A full-size bed was pushed into the corner opposite the door, a scratched and worn nightstand beside it. There was a dresser against the wall to our right. There were more photos in here—I stopped looking at them; my gut was churning. The bed was unmade, white sheets tangled in a brown quilt at the foot. Rumpled pillows tossed about.
An empty tripod stood near the back of the room. The video camera that no doubt had been perched atop that tripod was now on the dresser; wires trailed from the front of the camera to the back of a small flat-panel television. The screen was on but blank.
Dantzler looked to Dobbs.
Dobbs nodded.
The lead investigator pressed several buttons on the camera and an image appeared. Grainy. The only light in the room came from candles on the nightstand. It was a side shot of the bed. On it, Alyssa Tepper, naked, her back arched, eyes closed, writhing as she slowly rose and fell. She rolled her head to the side, her hair moving from one shoulder to the other. Hands came up from beneath her, slid up her bare belly to her breasts, brushed her nipples. Hands I knew, arms I knew. When one of those arms came back down and pushed the quilt aside, then pushed it to the floor, I wanted to turn away. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away. Like everyone else’s in the room, my eyes were fixed on the screen, my eyes locked on my body beneath hers, my own face glancing at the camera briefly before turning back to her and smiling, my voice whispering her name before sitting up and pulling her against me in the dim light.
“Turn it off,” I muttered.
Again, Dantzler looked to Dobbs.
Again, Dobbs nodded.
The screen went blank.
Dantzler pulled open one of the dresser drawers and stepped aside.
Dobbs nudged me toward the open drawer. “Take a look.”
Inside were several pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, a couple T-shirts. Some folded, others not. The drawer was nearly full.
“I think we’ve all had a drawer like this at one point or another,” Dobbs said. “A little home away from home. You’re not quite ready to bite the bullet and move in, but you’re spending enough nights with her to warrant some space. I don’t know about you, but I always found that moment nice, when a girl gives you a corner of her place. It shows she trusts you, finds comfort in your presence. I suppose it also means she drops her guard a bit, sometimes a little too much. Do you recognize the clothing, Michael?”
I didn’t reply.
“I bet you do,” Dobbs said. “I bet you remember the day she gave you that drawer.”