It clicked. The detective who’d attended the scene outside Antonio’s restaurant.
‘Georgie, you remember Seth?’
‘Sure.’ Her gaze darted between Jayda and Seth before resting on Jayda again. Her cheeks were flushed, no doubt from the hike downstairs, her smile tentative. ‘I figured you were out when you didn’t answer the door. How are you?’
‘Still a little shaken, but fine.’
Again, her brown gaze flicked between them. ‘As long as you’re okay . . .’ She licked her lips. ‘I should be going.’
Jayda touched Georgie’s arm. ‘Come up for a coffee. Or perhaps something stronger?’
‘I’m on duty. I just swung by to check on you.’ She dipped her head.
‘Raincheck?’
‘Sure.’
The women hugged, but he could tell from the line of Jayda’s shoulders that something was off.
As Georgie left by the front exit, he turned to Jayda. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m not sure. Did you hear Georgie knock?’
‘No.’
‘Neither did I.’
They watched her approach the officers on the front lawn.
‘Just because no one’s heard a bear fart in the woods, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.’
The corners of her lips quirked upward. ‘You don’t say.’
‘You find that amusing?’
‘What can I say? You’re growing on me.’
‘If you throw fungi into the mix, I’m going to be wounded.’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
She gave a quick wave to Georgie and the two men before shouldering open the door to the stairwell. ‘We need to visit Eric’s apartment before my security detail returns.’
He followed her through. ‘Is that where you think Georgie went?’
‘No idea. But if it is, why lie unless her reasons are outside the Department’s investigation?’
Up one flight of stairs and they were back where they’d started. He fell in beside Jayda as they continued past her apartment.
Even alone, he would have recognised Eric’s place. The door to apartment twenty-one was littered with a haphazard layer of fine black dust, and three bands of blue-and-white tape stretched from one side of the frame to the other.
Jayda leaned in, her eyes flitting across the door’s surface.
‘What are you looking for?’
She froze. ‘This.’
Her finger pointed to a small, almost imperceptible smudge in the black powder beside the lock.
‘And that tells us . . .?’
‘Either forensics was careless or someone has tried to access this apartment since they left.’
‘Georgie?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’ She patted her jeans pocket and sighed. ‘Wait here.’ In seconds she was back. She slipped on a pair of rubber gloves before manoeuvring two lock picks into the keyhole, twisting and turning with the confidence of someone not new to the practice.
‘Isn’t this breaking and entering?’
The lock clicked and she shot him a look of triumph. ‘Only if we get caught.’
‘That’s reassuring.’
She grinned briefly before passing him a set of gloves identical to hers. They ducked under the tape and slipped inside. Jayda closed the door.
He took in their surroundings and bit back a we shouldn’t be here. There were times when stretching the letter of the law went with breaking a story. Any reporter worth his salt pushed boundaries now and then. Deny it and they’d be lying. But working this far outside? It made his conscience itch.
Jayda passed him blue disposable shoe coverings, then proceeded to slip hers over her bright red sneakers. ‘Touch nothing. If you think something needs a closer look, call me. If you see anything remotely resembling the smudge at the front door, definitely call me. If someone was here after forensics left, I want to know what they were looking at.’
‘And we’re looking for . . .’
He waited for the smart-alec remark that always came.
She continued to scan the room. ‘Anything that’s out of place or that ties Eric to the Night Terror.’
Perhaps the change in her was more than cosmetic.
They worked in silence, systematically searching each room, then moving onto the next. Old tensions were gone. In their place came an ease he’d all but given up on finding. It was as he’d always suspected. They worked well as a team.
They finally reached the study—the scene of the crime and only remaining room to be searched. It was Jayda’s decision to approach it last, so as not to taint their perspective while searching the rest of the apartment.
He entered first.
If only she’d realised how much the room’s contents would taint.
Heat from her body warmed his back before her breath swept his neck and he heard her voice. ‘No wonder Georgie was vague when I asked what they found.’
Ignoring her proximity and the strange things it did to his heart, he turned to see if she was disturbed. Seemed not. She had her cop mask firmly in place, appearing more offhand than freaked.
‘So, did Eric place the cameras in my apartment, or did he discover their presence and hack into their feed for his own use?’
Seth skirted the chaotic crust of blood and chalked body outline on the cream carpet to reach the far wall. There was no satisfaction in knowing he’d been right about Eric’s obsession. He stared at the proof—a mish-mash of photos, most taken inside Jayda’s apartment, others in the car park, and others still outside the building using a long lens.
Some showed moments where he and Jayda were together. In others he noted Chase, Juz and Garry, and some other man he didn’t recognise. Some model-looking guy, with olive complexion and dark brown hair.
His back prickled, like a trail of millipedes scuttling across his skin. He pointed to the model-man. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Darren.’
A Darren lived on her floor. He knew that much from the checks he’d performed on her neighbours. As of yet, nothing had sparked his interest, other than the exceptionally high male-to-female ratio.
She looked at the photo and smiled. ‘Darren’s a friend. He lives next door, but he’s away for work at the moment.’
Yet another one. She had them circling like moths to nectar. He knew who Jayda chose as friends shouldn’t bother him, but it did. Just one more contender for the Night Terror position.
He turned his attention back to the collage. ‘Does anything here strike you as strange?’
‘Other than someone stalking me both inside and outside my apartment?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Is his fascination with you or the men you’re keeping company with?’
‘I don’t “keep company” with men.’
He sighed. ‘Okay. But do you think his interest might be with the men in the photos?’
‘Why place the cameras in my apartment then?’
‘You have a point there.’
‘And so do you. I’m just not sure what it all means right now.’
His bottom jaw dropped all the way to the floor. Was that praise? And was that flooding warmth in his body a reaction to it? He pushed thought and reaction aside. He’d long since stopped looking for approval outside of himself.
She turned back to the wall, seemingly unaware she’d just broken with her own protocol.
Lips clamped tight, the line of her back was rigid and uncompromising. To any stranger, she was a cop surveying a crime scene. To him, she was a woman battling to hold it together.
Every print earned her attention, some even earned a snap or two with the camera on his phone.
One photo dragged her interest back, over and over. He couldn’t see a difference between it and its counterparts, but obviously Jayda did.
She glanced at him before returning her attention to the photo mélange. ‘Do you have a video on your phone?’
‘You
want to film the room?’
‘Yes. But first, I want you to film this.’ She pointed to the photo. Nothing extraordinary, just Jayda and her father standing beside his blue sedan.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll find out in a second.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a really badly written daytime drama.’
‘Badly written?’
‘Yeah. Tune in next week and discover the unbelievable truth!’
She rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched at the edges. ‘Is it going?’ She pointed to his mobile.
His video app was open. All he had to do was point and press record. ‘Yep.’
‘So, back to that “badly written” soap.’ Her fingers bobbed in unison in front of her face before she turned to the wall. ‘Drum roll, please, and let’s see what’s behind photo number one.’
She plucked the photo from the board and turned it over slowly.
The phone slipped. He fumbled, righting it to centre on her once again. One touch and blurred focus sharpened into crystal clarity. He could almost hear the whirr as his mind spun and he stared at her hand through the screen. Or rather, what she held in it.
A break in the case, if only they could work out what it meant.
‘How the hell did you know?’
34
Jayda’s expression was as shell-shocked as Seth’s as she stared at the photo in her hand.
‘It was a hunch.’
‘A damn good one.’
‘Well, thank you.’ Her eyes flashed emerald as her lips kicked upwards, tugging his gut right along with them. ‘Now all we need to do is work out what it means.’
‘I bow to your vast superiority.’ He stopped recording and slipped the phone into his pocket.
‘Well, let’s not go overboard now.’
Regardless of her words, fire had returned to her expression. The old Jayda was back, and chuffed at her discovery—a small black key taped to the underside of that one photograph.
He scanned the wall, looking for whatever had tipped her off to the key’s presence. Impossible, since he didn’t have a clue what he was looking for.
‘Are there any others?’
Auburn locks bounced over her shoulders as she shook her head. ‘I doubt it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Ever watch Sesame Street?’
‘Uh, yeah.’ He searched her expression for signs she’d fallen completely off her rocker. Jayda swept her arm across the expanse of the wall and burst into a key that was nowhere near tuneful: ‘One of these things is not like the others . . .’
He snorted. ‘Don’t give up your day job.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I never claimed to be anything other than tone deaf.’ He couldn’t disagree. ‘So, are you going to share your secret?’
‘Once I do, promise you’ll stay impressed?’
‘As long as you weren’t the one who put the photo there.’
‘No. It wasn’t me.’
‘Eric?’
‘No. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it was his killer.’
Seth scuffed his fingers through his hair when what he really wanted to do was shake the entire explanation out of her. ‘Stop teasing and spit it out.’
‘A tad frustrated, are we?’ The bow in her lips deepened.
He forced his gaze upwards and away from temptation. ‘Don’t make me show you how much.’
That dragged the red to her cheeks. Her tongue slid over her lips and he was tempted to do what he’d threatened, regardless. Kiss her until she couldn’t hold back any longer.
Her heel caught a chair leg as she tottered backwards against the bookshelf. After taking a moment to brace herself, she cleared her throat and returned her attention to the wall. ‘Every other photo here was taken without my knowledge or my consent.’
‘And that one?’
‘Was taken by Bec over a year ago. Someone got hold of a copy, or perhaps broke into her apartment and took the original, then placed it here for me to find.’ She tugged carefully at the adhesive, extracting the key without tape sticking to her gloves. ‘Someone wanted me to find this.’
She turned it over in her hands and he moved in to take a closer look. Her breath hitched, she fumbled and the key slipped through her fingers, bouncing as it hit the carpet. He ducked to rescue it.
Sharp pain sliced through his skull as their heads collided, and an entire solar system danced across his vision.
He staggered back, clutching his temple, watching Jayda do the same. ‘You okay?’
Her fingers rubbed just above her right eye. ‘Me, yes. My head, not so much. You?’
‘Pretty much the same.’ He grinned. ‘Wanna paper, rock, scissors for who picks it up?’
She grinned back, and he hated that his heart galloped in response.
‘I’ll get it.’ She scooped the key up and tucked it into her wallet.
‘Shouldn’t we check it for prints?’
‘There won’t be any. He’s too good for that.’
‘So, what next?’
‘We finish up here before we get caught, then go home and figure out what this key opens. Seen anything in the apartment that could be a contender?’
‘Nothing. So unless it’s hidden . . .’
‘I doubt it. In fact, I doubt this key has anything to do with Eric at all. It’s a personal message, and whoever planted it banked on me finding it, not the police.’
Her eyes roved. ‘Can you video the rest of the room? Every corner, every surface. Pay special attention to his desk and this,’ she swept her arm across her wall of fame, ‘and the crime scene, of course.’ She pointed to the black chalk and swollen bloodstain. ‘Take it slow so you capture everything.’
It was another fifteen minutes before they were done. After the study, he filmed the rest of the apartment, slowly making his way to the front door. Then, under Jayda’s direction, he captured close-ups of the doormat and a pair of brown loafers discarded just inside the entrance.
The search had yielded nothing but the key. Eric was neat to the point of compulsive and the photos were the only items in the apartment that seemed out of the ordinary.
Jayda ducked back under the tape, and he followed.
There was no way to avoid detection on the way out. As she locked Eric’s door, the officer’s glance swung between them and her apartment, confusion quickly transforming into irritation. By the time they’d unlocked Jayda’s door, he was already on the phone, no doubt reporting the infringement to her boss.
She had to be aware their actions wouldn’t go without consequence. Yet, other than a determined tilt to her chin, he saw no sign Jayda was affected.
She dropped her purse and keys on the little table in the hall, a pointless thing that served no purpose other than taking up space, and turned the stereo down to a murmur before grabbing herself a glass of cold water from the kitchen.
He let it go. If she wasn’t worried, then neither was he. And if, as a result, her security tightened, it would only serve to better ensure her safety. He couldn’t argue with that outcome.
She sipped at her glass. ‘Did you have lunch?’
‘A ham-and-salad sandwich.’
‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’
He couldn’t help but smile. ‘Is that a hint you’re hungry?’
‘Try famished.’
‘Well, perhaps we should feed you then.’
She grabbed a painted, cat-shaped letter holder from above the fridge and scattered its mélange of takeaway menus onto the bench. ‘What do you fancy?’
He raised a brow. ‘Cook much?’
‘Who has time when you’re out catching bad guys?’ She waved her hand over the array. ‘Any preference?’
‘Your choice.’
‘Pizza?’
‘Perfect.’ He picked up the crudely painted cat, made of what looked to be chipboard. ‘Have a thing for cats, do you?’
‘I guess you’d say I’m a cat person. Dogs are too n
eedy for my liking.’ As he turned the holder over in his hands, she shuffled through the menus. ‘Bec painted that in primary school.’
‘She had talent.’
‘Not really. Bec was great at most things, but art was her downfall. She couldn’t sit still long enough to finish anything.’
‘I wondered why only part of it was coloured. So one purple ear and one plain wasn’t artistic licence?’
‘Nope. More like losing interest.’ Her hand paused over a menu for Piergiorgio’s Pizzas, and the paper crinkled beneath her taut fingers as she drew in a deep breath before flipping it open. ‘Any pizza preferences or no-nos?’
‘I’ll eat pretty much anything as long as it doesn’t include anchovies or olives.’
‘How do you feel about vegetarian with beef, no onions?’
‘Ambivalent. I’ve never tried it.’
‘Well, tonight’s your lucky night.’
His body kicked into gear as she continued, seeming oblivious to the invitation in her words.
‘There’s beer in the fridge, if you’re interested. And while you’re there, I’ll have a wine.’
Her voice sounded too upbeat. Stretched. As if light and bubbly were a cover for what was really going on in that complex mind of hers.
Peripheral vision allowed him to watch her shaky fingers dial the pizzeria while he made himself at home in her kitchen again. By the time he’d poured her drink, she’d finished ordering and had dropped her mobile onto the bench.
‘They said half an hour.’
He handed her a glass of the pink, sickly smelling stuff she called wine and swallowed a mouthful of ice-cold brew. ‘You and Bec sound close.’
She collected her purse from the living room and extracted the key. He watched with fascination as she rotated it between her fingers, the wheels of deduction clearly working in her mind.
‘We are. Were.’ Her eyes glistened as she gulped back a generous serving of lolly liquid. ‘She was my best friend.’
What to say to that? Rather than get it wrong, he nodded and said nothing.
She dropped the key onto the bench and swirled the liquid in her glass, staring at the rising bubbles as if one might hold relief from her pain. Then her body jolted and she pulled herself out of wherever she was, back into the present. ‘I’ve been thinking about Eric.’
Lethal in Love Page 25