Prologue #2
Cate straightened and carried the key to the back door. As she raised her hand to place the key into the lock, she noticed the door wasn’t completely closed, and the wood frame around the lock was splintered.
Her first instinct was to stop there and call the police to report a break-in.
Curiosity pushed that thought to the back burner.
Caution made her silently nudge the door wider.
Whoever had forced the door open might still be inside.
Careful not to touch anything with her fingertips, she entered the kitchen and pressed a hand across her mouth to muffle a gasp.
The place was a shambles. And not like what the police might have left behind. Kitchen drawers had been pulled out of their slots, the contents, along with the drawers, flung across the floor.
Cate stepped carefully through the cutlery and spatulas, continuing past the dining area to the living room beyond.
There, the sofa had been tipped onto its back, its cushions removed and slashed, and its stuffing pulled halfway out.
An end table lay on its side, the drawer smashed beside it, pens, nail clippers, and notepads scattered nearby.
Moving quietly, Cate climbed the stairs and checked the master bedroom, where the bed had been stripped of sheets and blankets. The mattress had been slashed down the middle and lay halfway off the platform bed, exposing the empty wooden frame beneath it.
It was as if someone had been desperately looking for something.
But what?
And what did it have to do with Marcus’s death or disappearance?
The adjoining bathroom had been trashed as well. Everything from beneath the counter or in drawers had been spilled onto the floor.
Cate moved down the hallway to a bedroom that had been used as an office.
A file cabinet lay on its side, the drawers hanging out, empty of their contents.
Based on what Dana had said, the police had taken all the files from the cabinet.
The only furniture in the room that hadn’t been flipped was a massive mahogany desk.
The drawers had been pulled out. Pens, empty envelopes, and paperclips littered the floor.
Where the computer hard drive had sat was empty, dust around the spot the only evidence it had been there.
Cate stepped over the carnage, careful not to stand in front of the window looking out over the street in front of the house.
Movement made her pause at the edge of the window and look down.
A man stood on the opposite side of the street, leaning with his back against the trunk of a tree, smoking a cigarette.
He wore a dark baseball cap and a black jacket.
Though he appeared to be relaxing against the tree, he faced Dana’s townhouse, his gaze casually canvassing the building.
When his head tipped upward, Cate moved back.
An older woman emerged from the townhouse behind the man with a small white dog on a leash.
When the dog barked at the man, the woman tugged the leash, holding the dog close to her.
The man threw his cigarette down and stepped on it before tipping his chin toward the woman and walking slowly away.
The old woman turned the opposite direction, letting the dog take its time, sniffing bushes, stoops, and a fire hydrant, making its way slowly to the corner.
Once they were around the corner, the man in the ball cap turned and walked back to the tree he’d been leaning against and took up his position.
Who was he? Why was he watching Dana’s house?
Cate eased away from the window and turned back to the desk.
A photo frame lay face down on the carpet beside the desk.
Cate dug in her pocket for a plastic glove.
As a private investigator, she always carried a pair.
She never knew when evidence would present itself or whose fingerprints might be on it.
Leaving her own prints was not an option.
She pulled the pair of gloves onto her hands and reached for the picture frame.
When she turned it over, she stared down at a younger image of her friend Dana, standing in the circle of her husband’s arms. Both were smiling for the camera, appearing younger, in love, and happy.
What had happened since that picture that had changed their lives so much?
Based on her experience as a private investigator, she found that love rarely lasted.
Her thoughts went to the one man she’d almost lost her heart to. Thankfully, he’d left Virginia before she’d lost it completely. Now, he was somewhere in Texas, the people he worked with having left their jobs as government employees to strike out on their own.
The frame she held must have been damaged in the fall. The back with the cardboard stand slipped out of the groove that had held it and fell to the floor. The photo dropped with it, along with what appeared to be a card or a folded piece of paper.
Cate bent to retrieve both. Cate slid the photo back into the frame, fit the backing in place, and gently set the picture on the desk.
Once her hands were free, she stared down at what she now could see was a folded paper.
Spreading the sheet out and smoothing the folds, she stared at what appeared to be a bill of lading or a receipt for a shipment that had been made.
The address was for a freight business in London, England.
A phone number had been scrawled across the bottom of the paper with a +44 country code.
Cate pocketed the sheet of paper and checked out the rest of the townhouse, including a laundry room and a bathroom across the hall from the office.
The place had been thoroughly searched first by the police, then by whoever was looking for something law enforcement might have missed.
She’d have to notify the police of the break-in, but she wanted to do that after she’d put sufficient distance between herself and the scene of the crime—multiple crimes, if a murder had been committed there.
Downstairs, she risked a surreptitious glance out the front living room window toward the tree on the opposite side of the street. The man in the ball cap had moved on. But to where?
Cate left through the door she’d entered, pulled it as closed as she could, given the damaged doorframe, then peeled off the gloves and jammed them in her pocket.
The whole time, she stood on the back step, her gaze sweeping the immediate vicinity.
She couldn’t see past the privacy fence.
Anyone in one of the neighboring townhouses’ upstairs bedrooms could see her coming and going.
That couldn’t be helped. If they reported seeing her, she’d admit to going into the house.
Dana would back her up, having given her permission to enter.