Charlotte squeezed her arm again. “But you don’t know for sure” Janet shook her head with short, jerky motions.
Cheré shuddered. “He-he looked dead to me,” she whispored.
“But neither of you felt for a pulse?” One look at the horrified expressions on their faces told her they hadn’t. “No, of course you didn’t” She took a deep breath, and though she was already pretty sure what the answer would be, she asked anyway “Which apartment—which one were you cleaning?”
“The one to the left of the landing,” Cheré told her.
Charlotte swallowed hard. It was the same one, the one she’d found the food sacks in during her walk-through, the one that had the toothpaste smeared in the bathroom sink. “Which room?”
“The m-master bedroom,” Janet whispered. “He-he’s in the walk-in closet.”
Charlotte knew what she had to do. Whether she wanted to or not—and she most definitely did not want to—she was going to have to check it out for herself. What if the man wasn’t really dead? What if he was just unconscious and needed help?
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” she told them. “You two join Emily downstairs while I go check. And here—” She handed Janet the bottle of ammonia. “Take this with you.” Then she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and thrust it at Cheré. “You take this and call the police. Be sure and ask for my niece.”
Cheré took the phone. “But Charlotte!”
Charlotte shook her head. “It’ll be okay. Just go” Willing her legs to move, she squeezed past the two women and hurried up the remaining stairs.
Once she was inside the apartment though, she hesitated at the door to the master bedroom to catch her breath.
A sleeping bag was spread out in the middle of the room on the floor. Near the foot of the sleeping bag was an open duffel with clothes spilling out of it, and in the midst of the clothes was a small camera, one of the disposable kinds, she noted. And beside the camera were several pictures scattered about.
“Weird,” she murmured. For one thing, the sleeping bag and the duffel bag both looked almost brand new. And expensive. And don’t forget the toothpaste in the sink.
It was just as she’d suspected, she thought, eyeing the dark green sleeping bag. Someone, probably the man in the closet, had been camping out in the empty house after all.
With a heavy feeling of dread Charlotte moved farther into the room. Maybe she’d been wrong about the homeless angle after all. But if the man in the closet wasn’t a homeless person, then who was he? And why had he been camping out in the old house?
The walk-in closet door was open. A wave of apprehension swept through her as she edged nearer the opening. Any minute she expected to see a hand or foot or some evidence of a body. But there was nothing yet, nothing but an odd-looking, half-smoked cigar that had been ground out into the floor..
Charlotte took the last two steps that would bring her to the closet door. Swallowing hard, she leaned forward and peeked around the door.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered, as she reached out and grabbed the door frame to steady herself. The man was in the back corner of the closet, half-sitting, half-slumped sideways against the wall.
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Maid for Murder (Charlotte LaRue Mystery Series, Book 1) Page 26
