Lisa Scottoline - Killer Smile

“This is what one looks like.” Mary finished her drawing and handed him the floppy napkin. Paul held it up by both sides, squinting in the votive candle, then lowered it to reveal an unhappy professor.

“I have no idea what this is.”

Mary took the napkin and assessed her handiwork with a frown. Her drawing looked like a pepperoni pizza. “I didn’t draw it well enough.”

“Where did you say the drawings are?”

“At my office.”

“So why don’t we have dinner and go see them?”

Mary blinked. “Really?”

“Why not?”

Mary’s hopes soared. “I have a better idea. How hungry are you?”

“Not very.”

“Me, neither. So let’s go see the drawings and then have dinner. Would you mind?”

Paul laughed. “Now I see what Judy meant,” he said, shaking his head, but Mary was already signaling to the waitress.

It took them only fifteen minutes in a cab to get uptown, and Mary held on to the hand strap as the cab lurched and swerved. No one seemed to be following them, but the Escalade driver couldn’t have kept up anyway. Her knee, thigh, and arm touched Paul’s about 9,274 times, and when they pulled up in front of her office building, she could have sworn the cabbie was trying to marry them off. They entered the building, signed in with the guard, and took the elevator upstairs.

The gleaming doors slid open, and Mary stepped off the elevator.

And stood stunned at the awful sight.

“My God,” Mary said, uncomprehending as she surveyed the scene.

The reception area of Rosato amp; Associates had been completely destroyed. The new leather couch had been slashed and its white stuffing yanked out, and the matching side chairs had been upended, their cushions sliced open. The glass top of the coffee table was broken in the center, and magazines had been thrown on the floor. Marshall ’s desk had been overturned, and her correspondence, pencils, pens, and other stuff strewn on the rug. The desk drawers hung open, their contents spilled. Her chair lay on its side, and someone had even crushed her baby’s picture, shattering its glass. Amid the debris lay the green metal box they used for petty cash, open and empty. What else had been stolen?

“Let’s get out of here,” Paul whispered. “They could still be inside.” He took Mary’s arm and turned to the elevators, but she wasn’t leaving.

“No, call 911. Call security, too. The number’s taped to the reception desk. I’ll be right back.” Mary hurried from the reception area, stricken. She and Judy had told Bennie they’d hold the fort. Now they’d been burglarized. She had to know what else had been taken. The office was full of new laptops, fancy flat-screen monitors, fax and copier machines, even color TVs.

“No, wait!” Paul shouted, but Mary hurried to the conference room, where her heart sank.

Her WORLD WAR II ROOM sign had been torn down, and the umpteen cardboard boxes had been torn open and dumped. Documents from the National Archives lay all over the carpet, many of them ripped in two. Her notes, pens, legal pads, and old coffee cups from the conference room table had been whisked onto the rug, and the phone had been yanked from the socket, taking with it a chunk of new drywall. Somebody had evidently hurled a chair at one of the large framed Eakins prints behind the table, cracking it in a jagged network. The chair lay on its side in a shower of glass shards, next to a new thirteen-inch Sony TV that had been smashed, its gray casing split. Mary was appalled and confounded by the sight. It made sense that they stole petty cash, but why take the time to trash the place? It looked like they’d been enraged.

Premenstrual Tom. Could it be him? How had he gotten upstairs in the first place? She flashed on the scene downstairs at the security desk. Bobby hadn’t been on duty tonight, and a new guard had signed them in. When Mary had asked him his name, he’d said he hadn’t gotten his name tag yet. What was going on? What other damage had been done? She ran down the corridor to the offices.

“No! Mary! Wait!” Paul called, hurrying after her. “Mary! Stop!”

Mary reached Judy’s office, the first one off the hall, marked by the sliding nameplate JUDITH CARRIER. Her heart in her throat, she peeked inside, then got good news. No damage! She looked around with relief. Judy’s desk, chairs, books, and papers were the same clutter as usual. Maybe the reception area and conference room had been the only places vandalized.

“Mary!” Paul shouted behind her, but Mary darted to the next office off the hall.

ANNE MURPHY read the nameplate, and the office was pristine! Maybe whoever had destroyed the reception area hadn’t come back this far. Even Anne’s laptop sat in the middle of her desk, undisturbed. Hope surged in Mary’s chest. Maybe hers and Bennie’s offices would be fine? She rushed down the hall to Bennie’s office, larger than those of the associates, and looked inside.

Amazing! Nothing had been disturbed. Bennie’s desk and shelves were all in order; nothing in the office had been torn or broken. Mary felt elated. Okay, at least they’d have something good to report when they called Bennie with the news. It boded well for the state of Mary’s office, which was one past Bennie’s down the hall. She hurried past her nameplate to her door. But she freaked when she looked inside.

It was a nightmare. Everything had been swept off her desk: phone, legal pads, Dictaphone, pencils, papers, and a Swing-line stapler lay all over the floor. Her desk drawers had been yanked open, turned upside down on the carpet, their contents dumped. Pencils, rows of staples, an old Great Lash mascara tube, scissors, and loose change lay everywhere. Her bookshelves had been wrenched from their metal brackets, and her law books, case reporters, and family photos covered the carpet. The accordion files she kept in alphabetical order on the credenza had been pulled off and emptied onto the floor. Confidential papers, trial exhibits, charts, depositions, and correspondence lay in a huge heap of messy paper.

“Yes, I’m still with you, dispatch,” Paul was saying into his cell phone, catching up with Mary on the threshold.

Amadeo’s file. She squatted on the rug like a madwoman and tore through the heap of files, folders, and papers on the floor. She had put the circle drawings, the wallet, and the FBI memo in the file, and stacked it with the other active cases on-the credenza. Where was the file? She checked the empty accordions for each case. Brenneman Industries. Alcor. Reitman. She tore through the accordions twice, double-checking. Amadeo’s file was missing. It was gone.

“Hello? Hello, security?” Paul barked into his cell, then he closed the phone. “That gives me no confidence. No answer at the security desk.”

Mary wasn’t completely surprised. She bent over the debris of her files and wanted to cry. Could Amadeo’s file really be gone? She could never get that wallet back. She hadn’t made a copy of the FBI memo. The hair might still be in its Baggie in her desk, but who needed hair? Which other files were missing? She tried to remember her other active cases but she was too upset. Amadeo’s photos were gone, too. She hadn’t even scanned them. Then she remembered. She hadn’t seen her laptop on her desk.

Mary looked around frantically for her laptop. It was nowhere in sight. Maybe it had been buried somewhere. She turned around and rummaged through the papers and files on the floor near her desk. Her laptop wasn’t among them. No! That laptop contained all of her work for the past three years, including tons of notes she had taken at the National Archives. Mary felt sick, deflating on the floor. Her thoughts returned to Amadeo’s file. The circle drawings. She couldn’t show them to anybody else now, much less Paul. She looked miserably at him as he slid his cell phone back into his tweedy pocket, extended a hand, and helped her up.