Maggie Shayne - Thicker Than Water

“I’m sorry to wake you, but I forgot my key. Could you just buzz me in?”

“Fuck off, lady,” the man said.

She waited a couple seconds, then hit the same button again. The voice returned. “You want me to call a cop?”

“You want me to keep my finger on this button until they get here?”

“All right, all right. Jesus.”

The guy buzzed her in. Sean heard the deep drone of the buzzer and the door lock disengaging, and shook his head in amazement, both at her brass and at the fact that her ploy had actually worked. Jones opened the door and walked through. Swearing under his breath, Sean lunged out of his spot, running in three long strides to the stairs. The door was already swinging closed and Jones was striding toward the elevators, her back to him. He flung himself bodily, landing chest first on the stairs, arms stretching doorward. He just managed to thrust his fingertips into the opening before the door slammed on them.

Clenching his teeth and swearing under his breath, he pulled himself forward, grabbed the door with his free hand and pulled it open. Then he got to his feet and stepped inside. His fingers throbbed. Shit. He rubbed them and shook his hand as the door fell closed behind him. Then he heard the elevator ping and looked ahead to see its doors closing, as well.

Crossing into the lobby, he dug through his memory for the number he’d seen on that envelope—624, that was it. Sixth floor. There was only one elevator, and he didn’t want Jones getting too goddamn far ahead of him. Nor did he relish the thought of being caught there in plain sight should the irate neighbor Jones had bothered with the buzzer decide to call the cops after all.

He looked around, found the stair door and took that way up. Five flights. He hurried, because he didn’t want Jones out of his sight long enough to do anything he would regret not seeing. He figured it took him a minute or so before he made it to the sixth floor landing, opened the stair door and stepped quietly into the hall. Or as quietly as he could manage while panting for breath. His heart was pounding hard enough to wake the residents of the entire floor, and he told himself he was too old for this kind of cloak-and-dagger bullshit.

Then he shook his head. Getting too old, maybe. But he wasn’t there yet—he’d managed to catch up to her. Jones was walking down the hall, peering at the numbers on the doors of the condos on this floor. He walked forward, stepping just as softly as he could manage. She was wearing jeans now. Her hair was a mess, and her sweatshirt was baggy. This was not a Julie Jones too many people would recognize.

Then she stopped suddenly and just stood there, staring at one of the doors. And when he got a little closer, Sean realized why. It was Harry’s apartment door, and it was standing wide-open.

Someone had been there first, and even as he wondered whether they might still be around, Julie Jones walked inside.

Swearing under his breath, Sean rushed ahead and paused momentarily outside the door to look in at Jones as she tiptoed through the apartment like some kind of goddamn cat burglar. He knew it was freaking insane, but he had to find out what she was up to. My God, he didn’t have dreams this good. Oh, he’d fantasized lots of scenarios involving Julie Jones over the years, getting the best of her being his second favorite. But this was better than anything he could have made up. So he crept in after her.

Harry’s living room looked like some dated idea of a playboy’s love nest. Black leather furniture, white shag carpet, wall-size stereo system, wet bar. Jones moved through it into a hallway and went through a door about halfway down. God, he hoped she wasn’t heading for the bedroom. He could only imagine what that would look like.

She wasn’t. He moved quietly to the door she’d entered. She’d left it open, so he could look inside. It was a study or library. Desk, chair, file cabinet and a big-screen TV that would have seemed out of place if not for the wall of videos.

He thought they were books at first, in the muted light. But no. VHS tapes. One entire wall housed a built-in cabinet that must have been full of them. Right now, its doors were flung open wide, and video cassettes lay toppled on the shelves and strewn over the floor. The file cabinet nearby was open wide, too. File folders and papers were thrown everywhere.

Jones stood there, looking at the mess, shaking her head from side to side as if the sight rendered her unable to move or speak. She pressed her hands to either side of her head, fingers digging in her own hair. “Oh, Jesus, look at all this,” she whispered.

“Jones.”

She whirled when Sean said her name, one hand clenched in a fist and the other pressing to her chest as if to keep her heart from busting out.

“Easy, easy, it’s just me.”

“MacKenzie. What the hell are you doing here? Are you following me?”

“Hell, no. I was getting some background for my story.”

She tipped her head to one side and lowered the fist. “How?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again.

“Well, you sure as hell couldn’t be interviewing neighbors at this hour. What were you doing, digging through the trash?”

It was supposed to be a sarcastic little barb, and he would be damned before he admitted that it was dead-on target. There was nothing wrong with digging through the trash. “You’re the one breaking and entering,” he reminded her.

“The door was open.”

Arguing in whispers was an interesting concept, he thought. Each of them tried to whisper more forcefully than the other.

“It was,” she said, apparently mistaking his silence for doubt.

“I know, I know, I saw.” He took her arm. “Let’s get out of here before both our asses wind up behind bars.”

She tugged her arm free. “You go on. I have to look around some more.” Her eyes were on the scattered files, scanning them as if trying to read the labels.

“Jones, someone broke in here tonight.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, has it occurred to you that it might have been the killer?”

“Gee, no, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“He might still be around here somewhere, Jones. Did you think of that?”

That brought her head up. Her eyes leveled on his, widening a little. Her body went so still that he didn’t think she was breathing for a second. The idea of someone else in the apartment frightened her. Good. She should be frightened. But after a second, she seemed to decide her reasons for being there outweighed her fear.

“Maybe you should go check out the rest of the place,” she suggested. “Make sure no one else is around.” Then she turned away from him, dropping to her knees to scan the file folders littering the floor.

“Right, and leave you here alone to abscond with whatever evidence you find.” He knelt right beside her, checking the videocassettes. Some were commercially made, with printed labels, films that sounded like porn, with titles like Mistress Mary’s Discipline and Dungeon Lover. Others had white labels on them with handwritten titles. Sean pulled out his penlight for a better look, because the handwritten ones were harder to read in the dark. He flicked the light on and read them aloud in a whisper. “Vanessa. Marianne. Barb & Sally.” He looked at Jones. She was still pawing frantically through the files that carpeted the floor. “Just what is it you’re looking for?”

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just looking.” She took his light from his hand, shining it on papers with an air of impatience, then stopping the beam on something that lay on the floor, something that reflected the light with its glossy surface. Photographs, Sean thought, but as soon as he thought it, she dropped an empty folder on top of them.