Jennifer Greene - Secretive Stranger

She wasn’t dead positive she wanted those heart whispers to shut down. She’d liked those kisses.

She liked Cord. He was sharp, easy to talk to, interesting to be with. He provoked a razzle-dazzle in her hormones that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Yearning. Heat. All that good wickedness.

Somewhere in the apartment, she had an old photo from when she was a little girl, wearing a pink scarf of her mom’s like a boa, holding a hairbrush for a fake microphone, dramatically pelting out a song at the top of her lungs. Apparently, as a kid, she’d been quite a rowdy, show-off ham. An extrovert to the nth degree. A singer, a dancer, a weaver of daisies.

But her foster parents had needed a quiet, well-behaved child, a good girl. So she’d become one. When you lost everyone and everything that ever mattered to you, you didn’t need to sing. You needed to survive.

Caution had become a religion for her. She’d positively never risked much with men. Yet, she’d wanted to yesterday afternoon. For a few moments, caution had disappeared and that wild, rowdy girl-child had whispered through her heart again with Cord.

Stop it, Soph. She pushed open the door, dug out her mailbox key, aggravated that she was daydreaming again. Some wary instinct warned her that Cord was holding back something serious. Actually, it would have been weird if he didn’t. They barely knew each other, no reason he should have shared private things with her. And his brother’s death was complicated.

The point, though, was that she needed to rein herself in until she knew more about him.

Not that he was likely to invite her for any more kisses, anyway.

As she tromped up the stairs, she decided she needed to get her mind off Cord altogether. A plan came together-she’d kick back, pop a glass of wine, settle with Caviar on the couch and call her sisters. She had her apartment key out, because sometimes even a scatterbrain such as herself could have a bright moment…only to abruptly discover that she wouldn’t need it.

Her apartment door gaped open.

She could hear the cat meowing from a distance inside.

Confused, she took a single step in…and felt her heart start slamming like a manic drum. Her living room was in shambles. Books and knickknacks had been tumbled off shelves. A broken lamp strewed shards on the carpet. Couch cushions looked as if they’d been ripped apart by shark’s teeth.

She sucked in a breath, and let it out in one loud screech for Caviar.

When the authorities arrived this time, she was sitting on the top step in the hall, still wearing her coat, the scrawny cat cuddled on her lap. She considered it a miracle she’d been able to punch in 911. Her fingers were still shaking. She was still shaking.

One trauma in a week was enough. As far as Sophie was concerned, two traumas were grounds for major hysteria. If she wanted to fold in a puddle and blubber for a good long time, she was entitled.

Two policemen showed up this time. The first, she remembered from before, because, humorously, he looked a little like a bleary-eyed bloodhound. Ed or George. Bassett, she thought. He took one look at her and sighed.

She’d sensed he hadn’t liked her when they first met, and this time he looked even more annoyed. “You’re developing an interesting pattern of attracting trouble, Ms. Campbell. Bad trouble. Now, why is that?”

Her jaw almost dropped. It was as if he were accusing her of causing this. “Detective, I just got home from work and found the door open. I haven’t a clue who would do this. Or why.”

“If you thought a burglar was inside your place, I find it interesting that you didn’t run like hell instead of staying right here.”

Again, Sophie couldn’t grasp what he was getting at. “I couldn’t just take off. There was Caviar.”

“Yeah. Right.” He let out another noisy, exasperated sigh, accompanied by another judgmental look. Eventually, his younger sidekick-a kid with fuzz on his chin and shiny shoes-hunched down beside her with paper and pen to take her statement, while Detective Meanie Bassett disappeared inside to examine the crime scene. She asked if she could get a glass of water, but the kid insisted that she wait, that she wasn’t supposed to enter her apartment until the detective gave an all clear.

Apparently, she could contaminate things. God forbid her fingerprints could show up in her own apartment. The hall was chilly and gloomy. She was tired and stressed when a third man showed up.

He shook her hand, identified himself as Ian Ferrell. He was older than Bassett, leaner than wire, sharp faced and sharp eyed. Sophie had no idea why she sensed this Ferrell was more in charge than the detective, but the minute he got there, things changed.

He wanted her to go into the apartment-with him. It was totally okay if she took a drink and took a minute in the bathroom, but then he wanted to walk through every room slowly with her. He wanted her to identify anything that was missing, also anything that had been moved or looked out of place. “Just study everything. Look past the damage. See if you can pinpoint specifically what the suspect was after.”

“You’re giving me the impression that you don’t believe this was a run-of-the-mill robbery,” she said anxiously.

“It could be. But we want to examine all the possibilities.” Ferrell seemed to be studying her more than the scene, particularly when she shuddered hard at the close-up of her living room.

Nothing she owned was particularly valuable, but everything had been handpicked and loved. She had nothing from her childhood but a few worn photos, certainly no belongings or keepsakes. It was as if the Campbell family had never existed. Sophie couldn’t imagine a reason in the universe why anyone would have ripped up the rental sofa, or yanked the books from the shelves, or opened up a lamp-table drawer that had nothing but scissors and thread and nail files and hand cream. What possible reason could anyone have to do this?

Yet, the way Ferrell kept studying her made something click in her mind. “You don’t think this is a chance robbery, do you?” More clicks followed that first one. “Two crimes in the same building within a week is just too much coincidence? But, Mr. Ferrell, Jon’s death was ruled an accident. Why would you think there was a relationship?”

“No one said there was,” Ferrell said patiently.

Sophie decided she must be crazy or something. The authorities seemed to be treating her as if she were guilty, instead of the victim-how paranoid could a girl get? Obviously, she wasn’t thinking straight. And how could she, given the state of her home? The darned thief had upended all eight purses in her closet. Her computer had been turned on. All her CDs and disks taken. At Ferrell’s urging, she checked her hard drive, which seemed to have all her data files intact, but it would take her hours of messing with it to be certain.

Bassett intervened at that point, told her they wanted to take her system with them.

“What? You can’t do that. I need it. It’s got all my work on it-” Well, that wasn’t totally true, because she had her laptop. Her laptop was her secondary backup. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that this whole mess was spinning out of control. She had two solid days of translating work to do on her system. The police heard her; they just didn’t seem to care. Being broken into felt like…an assault. Someone who’d never lost their home and family might not get how huge a violation this was. A stranger had touched the things of her heart. Broken them, diminished them. And on top of her neighbor’s traumatic death last week, it was just too much.

“Taking the desktop is necessary,” Bassett said, as if that should settle it.