Lisa Scottoline - Dead Ringer

“This way,” Bennie said, and led the cops, the flashlights, David, and the dog down the street to the alley, and to the wooden gate in the back of her tiny cement patio, not ten feet by ten. She opened the latch of the gate, wishing now she’d made the time to put a lock on it. They went through the patio to the French doors in the back of the house, when the cops stepped in front of Bennie and shone their Maglites at the French door.

“I don’t see any signs of a forced entry,” Officer Leighton said. “It’s locked.”

“It is? How could it be locked?” Bennie asked, surprised.

“Did you leave it that way?”

“Yes, but since then it was broken into, okay?” Bennie couldn’t keep the irritation from her tone. “We know this because my dog was taken, and he didn’t lock it after himself.”

David said, “Do you leave a key with a neighbor?”

“No, the only spare is in the office.”

“You have your key on you, Ms. Rosato?” Officer Leighton asked.

“Yes, hold on.” Bennie shoved her hand into her purse, fumbled for her keys, and handed them up with the house key drawn. “Maybe she picked the lock.”

“Ms. Rosato, please wait here until we secure the premises.” Officer Leighton took the key and said to the other cop, in low tones, “I’m primary.” He unlocked the door, and it swung open wide in the jittery cone of light. Then he reached inside the door, and the anteroom light went on inside the house, illuminating Leighton’s profile. The middle-aged cop had a brushy mustache and a worried expression. “Let’s go, Mike.”

“Right behind you,” the other cop said, and they hurried into the house.

Bennie held her breath. She almost expected gunfire, but all she got was silence. Then talking, then low laughter. Next to her, David was listening intently, even as Bear sat panting, his tail happily brushing the cement. Goldens love new games, even when tennis balls aren’t involved. The three of them waited outside while light after light went on in Bennie’s house; first the ground floor, then the second floor, and then she heard their heavy shoes pounding down her stairs and back again into the dining room.

“Come on in, Ms. Rosato!” called out one of the cops, and Bennie grabbed Bear’s collar and hurried inside, followed by David.

Bennie crossed the threshold, anxious and uncertain, and held her breath, preparing herself mentally for what she might see. She didn’t exhale until she’d entered her house and looked around. Her dining and living room were just the way she’d left them that morning, after she’d cleaned up the cops’ mess: couch against the wall, bookcases against the other wall, CD and DVD players all in place. Nothing smashed or upended, nothing destroyed or vandalized, not even any scary scrawled writing in red lipstick. But Alice had been here. She had to have been, to steal the dog, and part of Bennie could just feel it. That dark vibration.

Officer Leighton switched off his Maglite, and Banneman’s hand hung loosely at his side, no longer cocked at his holster. “The premises are secured, and we didn’t find any evidence of a B amp; E, even at the backdoor, Ms. Rosato. Everything looks in order upstairs, too. You’ll walk through with me, but everything looks fine.”

“That’s not possible,” Bennie said, confused. Frustrated and angry. Alice was smart. She was fooling them. It was a game for her, a prank with a deadly edge. Bennie had to figure it out, figure her out. “The dog didn’t let himself out and drive himself to the river.”

“Are you sure you didn’t?”

“Of course not!” Bennie exploded. A long day of drama and wet underwear was coming to a head. “What do you think, I’m making this up? I have a twin, it’s a matter of record!”

“You don’t understand what I’m telling you, Ms. Rosato. There’s no evidence that any crime has been committed here. You claim that somebody took your dog out of the house, but the backdoor wasn’t even unlocked. And the front was nailed shut.”

“She exists! Ask him! ” Bennie gestured at David, who was already stepping forward.

“Everyone settle down,” David said, spreading his large hands palms down. He addressed the cops, but Bennie knew he was talking to her, since she was the only one throwing a hissy fit. “Officers, my name is David Holland and I was running along the river when I saw her twin intentionally endangering the dog.”

“Tell you what,” Officer Leighton said with a slow sigh, like a tire deflating. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a skinny notepad. “Mr. Holland, you give me the statement for my report while my partner takes Ms. Rosato on a walk-through. This way we get this over with, we file a complete report, and Ms. Rosato makes sure that nothing of value was taken from the premises.”

“Fine with me,” David answered. “Bennie? Okay with you?”

“Yes, thanks.” Bennie stalked to the staircase and went upstairs, going straight to her bedroom. If Alice was going to steal something, it would be here. She entered the bedroom, which looked inviolate, and experienced the same eerie tingle she had downstairs. Alice had been here, too, she just knew it. But not by looking. Everything was in absolute order, or least a completely familiar disorder, only partly due to the local constabulary.

She hurried to her dresser, a three-drawer chest made of pine, and checked her jewelry box on top. She didn’t have much-a tangle of gold chains from when they were the new thing, a few pairs of gold hoops, and three bangles-but all of it was there. She rifled quickly through her drawers-undies, unmatched socks, tattered jeans, and faded T-shirts-but they were the in same mess she’d left behind. She went to the closet, but it was fine. Then she remembered. Her gun.

She hurried to the closet and shoved aside old running shoes to get to the orange-and-brown Nike box, tearing off the lid. There it was. The brown case, a canvas triangle. Bennie unzipped it with shaking hands but was reassured by the weight alone. Her Smith amp; Wesson revolver lay untouched. She zipped it closed and tucked it safely away.

She closed the closet door with relief and hurried past the cop to her office, a second, smaller bedroom just off the hall. An old Bianchi bike leaned against the wall in the corner, and clutter covered her daybed and her IKEA workstation. Her computer was still there, and a Bose radio/CD player. She’d left the only things of value. Bennie didn’t get it.

“It all here?” Officer Banneman asked, and Bennie nodded slowly, wondering.

How the hell did Alice get in? And get out with Bear?

She couldn’t think of an immediate answer and returned downstairs with the cop.

Bennie did a double take when David came into the kitchen wearing her ex-boyfriend’s clothes. It wasn’t only the confluence of past and present men; it was the way the clothes fit, or more accurately, didn’t fit. Grady’s old Duke sweatpants were puffy Capris on David, and the leftover T-shirt stretched tight across his chest and biceps, making him look like an oddly butch ballet dancer.

“These were the clothes you left outside the bathroom door,” David said, holding out his arms with a faint smile. The armholes rolled up along each mound of shoulder cap. “You were joking, right?”

“Sorry, I thought they’d fit.” Bennie had always thought that her ex was big, but David was bigger. She could tell because she had to look up to see his eyes, qualifying him as one of the two men on earth taller than she. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world, standing oh-so-close to a handsome, muscular hero, but even Bennie sensed she was getting ahead of herself, if not entering the zone of what they used to call “on the make.”