by Dale Mayer
She’d also left her laptop in Carl’s living room and didn’t have a change of clothes with her. She’d love nothing more than a hot bath and to get into clean clothes. Once her mind went from that topic to her apartment only one floor below, it wasn’t a far stretch to wonder if she could safely go downstairs and grab a few personal belongings. Surely the police were done looking through her apartment? There wasn’t any reason for them to take their time or to work through the night. Surely there were forensics to collect and photographs to take but not anything else to do, was there? She waited as long as she could, but the idea wouldn’t leave her alone. Finally she got up, slipped on her bloodstained clothes and crept out to the main part of the apartment. As far as she could tell, Carl and his wife didn’t wake up.
Laysa stared at the front door and frowned. Was she being a foolish? She didn’t have any fear about going back down to her apartment, so her internal alarm was okay with this idea. It would be risky for her captor to return, even if he didn’t have his insurance policy yet. After all, the police had been there probably late into the night. Feeling emboldened at the idea, she scribbled a quick note for Carl and put it on the couch, then walked out the front door, leaving it unlocked so she could return. She made her way quietly to the stairs. The night lights were still on up and down the hallway and in the stairwells.
But outside it was pitch-black. Normal people would be asleep at this time. But not her.
Standing before her apartment door, she used her key and entered. She found no sign of any security—a guard or a camera—or even crime-scene tape. Nothing here let her know if the police were done or if they would return. The place still looked as she’d last seen it, with the drawers dumped all over the place.
With her heart pounding, she took the first step back into her apartment, worried that maybe her captor could have come back around for her. It was a terrifying thought, but there was no reason for it.
Just her fear talking in her mind. At least that’s what she told herself.
She headed toward her bedroom and turned on the light. She quickly grabbed an overnight bag and a couple changes of clothes. She didn’t know how long she would be upstairs. Part of her wanted to stay among her own familiar surroundings and another part never wanted to return. All she needed was enough to get through the next day or two. She added a light sweater, and, as she zipped up her carry bag, she thought she heard something in the living room. She froze, rushed to the wall and turned off the light.
There she waited, her breath caught in her throat, just to hear the sound again. She tried to calm down and to convince herself that it was probably something outside. But, in her heart, she knew somebody was in her apartment. And then she couldn’t stop cursing herself for being such a fool.
Maybe her captor had been watching. Hell, maybe he had never left the building, and the police had somehow missed him.
Maybe he’d been waiting for somebody to return to the apartment, and, once he’d seen the light, he’d come in. Just the thought sent chills down her spine. She didn’t know what to do. Her arms shook, and her stomach churned. She didn’t dare get caught by that madman again. She didn’t know if she should go in the bathroom, locking the door behind her, and wait, or could she exit the apartment without being seen?
The trouble was, she’d already given herself away by turning on the light.
Her only option was to make a run for it. Counting down in her mind—three, two, one—she bolted for the front door, swinging the bag behind her. She made no attempt to be quiet. Then she heard a mumbled shout behind her.
But that brought added speed to her heels. She hit the front door, her fingers scrabbling to grab the knob and to turn it in time to get out. As she was about to cross the threshold, arms grabbed her. She could hear someone calling to her, but she was too panicked to register anything, to understand who it was. Once she was grabbed, her mouth opened, and a hand clasped over her lips. She was dragged back inside.
Strong arms held her firmly. But he didn’t move her toward the living room. He just held her tight. Somewhere through the dim panic in her mind, she thought she recognized his smell. She froze and then twisted her head and mumbled, “Kanen?”
He nodded, grinned and eased his grip.
She fully turned within his hold, threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Oh, my God! I thought it was him back again,” She reared back and slugged him in the chest. “Why would you terrify me like that?” Tears welled up. “Do you have any idea how scared I was?”
There was only silence afterward.
Then she flung herself into his arms, her arms tightly around his neck a second time, and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He just held her close. Then she heard his deep voice, whispering against her ear, “It’s all right. I shocked you. I’m sorry.”
She sagged against him and knew it would be okay. She pulled back, the tears burning in the corners of her eyes. “I overreacted,” she whispered.
He smiled. “It’s my fault for scaring you.”
She grinned up at him. “And I’m delighted to see you and not that asshole.”
He stepped back slightly, studying her a little more intently. “I can see the asshole’s handiwork turning purple already on your chin. … What the hell are you doing here?”
Two men stepped out from the living room. She froze. They weren’t alone.
“They’re with me,” Kanen said quietly.
She sagged against him in relief. “Thank God for that.”
He introduced her to Taylor and Nelson.
She smiled, reached out a hand and shook both men’s hands, saying, “Thank you for coming to help.”
“Speaking of which,” Kanen said, closing the front door and leading her into the living room. “Tell us why you’re down here.”
“I woke up really early and couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. “All I wanted was a hot bath and a fresh change of clothes. I figured the police went home for the night, so they wouldn’t be pissed at me for being in here. They searched the building, and the assailant was gone, so I feel a little safer. They also checked the storage unit, but he was gone from there as well.” She sighed. “I needed to change clothes.”
Everyone seemed to relax at that.
She frowned at Kanen, noticing the change in his body language. “You don’t really think I came here for any other reason, do you?”
“I couldn’t figure out why you’d come here,” he said. “When we entered the apartment, I thought I saw a light flicker out. And I thought maybe the intruder had come back for another look through, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Until you bolted for the front door.” He gave an admiring look. “I forgot you’d been the best sprinter around.”
She sighed. “But I still wasn’t fast enough. You caught me.” At that, she grinned. “As I recall, you were always the best catcher in our group too.”
He chuckled. “That’s baseball. Whereas you were the track-and-field star.” He nudged her toward the couch.
She sat down, Kanen standing before her, the others nearby. “Now maybe I should ask why you guys are here and how you got in?”
“Like you, we were hoping the police were done and gone,” Nelson said. “We figured, if this guy was looking for something, we should start here and make sure it wasn’t close by before we headed to the storage unit.”
She raised both hands in frustration. “I’ve done nothing but think about that damn insurance policy. I have no clue what he’s talking about. But help yourself. He was dumping left, right and center, trying to find whatever it was. But he never would tell me. I don’t know if it was paperwork or a USB stick,” she snapped, her ire getting the better of her again. “Another thing is, I haven’t even paid for the storage unit. There were no reminder bills. For all I know, the contents have been confiscated.”
“Blake could have prepaid for a year though,” Nelson said. “That’s normal. Maybe he took care of i
t. But, just to be clear, you’re giving us permission to search it, as well as this apartment?” Nelson’s tone was neutral, but his gaze was watchful.
She turned toward him and nodded. “Please do.”
He gave a clipped nod and disappeared into her bedroom. She winced. “I guess now things get really invasive, don’t they?”
Kanen bent closer to give her a tiny shake. “It already has. The minute that guy violated your space, it became invasive. We’re just trying to help.”
She sagged in place. “I’m sorry.” She rubbed her temples with her hands, loose strands of hair flying around her face. “Maybe I should go upstairs and back to bed.”
“If you want to, yes, please do.” Kanen straightened and pointed a thumb to the door.
She gave a half laugh. “Hell no, I don’t want to. What I want to do is visit with you. It seems so long since I’ve seen you.” She stood, opened her arms and wrapped them around his waist and held him close to her a long moment; then she stepped back. “Go do what you have to do. It’d probably be easier if I’m not here. Plus I should let Carl and Sicily know that I’m okay. And I really need that bath.” She headed to the front door, grabbed her bag, then turned. “Text me when you’re done, and I’ll meet you.”
He nodded. She opened the front door and walked back up to Carl’s place.
*
Kanen watched her walk out the door. He followed her to the hallway and waited until she walked up the stairs. She texted him a moment later. I’m safe inside. Go back to work.
He gave a half laugh. She knew he’d waited and watched, worried over her. But they’d been friends a long time. Of course he was worried about her. Of course he wanted to make sure she was safe.
Back inside, Nelson stopped what he was doing to look up at Kanen.
Kanen closed the door behind him and said, “Now that she’s gone, let’s do as thorough a check as we can.” And they went at it.
They checked in between cushions—even unzipped the cushions to check inside—then underneath the couch and the bed, behind photos, in the dressers, under the drawers, in the toilet, every nook and cranny they could possibly find. Unfortunately thirty minutes later they were still stumped. They reconvened in the living room, having checked everything but the kitchen.
“I wish we had an idea what we were looking for,” Nelson said.
“I know,” Kanen replied. “Anything from paperwork to computer disks or USB keys. It could even be a photograph. We won’t know the significance until we find it.”
Taking sections of the kitchen, they carefully pulled out every drawer and checked through them, even under them. When he’d gone through the cutlery drawer, Kanen put the drawer back in and pushed to close it, but something caught. He crouched so he could see better and found an envelope taped to the underside.
He made a light crowing sound. The others gathered around. He untaped it and held it in his hand. “Just a blank envelope on the outside,” he murmured, “taped but not sealed.” He opened it up. Inside he pulled out money, three bills. In between a couple of them was a photograph of someone standing in front of a building. Kanen stared at it, then held it up for the other two to see.
“Do you recognize that face?” Nelson asked.
“It’s Blake,” Kanen said quietly. “But I have no clue what this means.” He turned the photo over. The date on the back was two days before Blake died. Kanen frowned. “Now that is ominous. Blake died two days after this photo was taken.” Kanen checked the money and realized the bills were sequential. He walked over to the kitchen table, laid them down in the order they were numbered. Behind each printed serial number were two neatly printed handwritten numbers. He grabbed a pen and a notepad from his pocket and wrote those down. A total of six digits: 263947. He looked at the numbers and then to the men. “Any ideas?”
They shook their heads, frowning.
After a moment, Nelson offered a few guesses. “Safe-deposit box number? Bank account number?”
Taylor added, “It’s got to be something.”
Kanen pulled out his phone and dialed Laysa. When she answered, he said, “Listen to this number,” and he rattled it off. “Mean anything to you?”
Her voice was hesitant when she answered. “It doesn’t sound like a bank account of ours. I’m not sure. Why?”
“Because we found an envelope under your cutlery drawer with three one-dollar bills in sequence. After each of the serial numbers is a pair of handwritten numbers, and that’s what these six numbers are.” Then the air caught in his throat. “I wonder if they should be read as 26-39-47.” He caught the knowing looks in the other men’s gazes.
“I don’t understand what difference that makes,” she said.
“Do you have a locked safe somewhere? This could be a combination number.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think we ever had a safe where we lived. So I can’t imagine what that combination would be for.”
“Did he have a locker somewhere, like maybe for a gym membership?”
“Sure, he has a gym membership—well, had a gym membership,” she corrected. “And he kept a locker there.”
“Any idea if the locker is still in his name?”
“I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “I never paid any more gym bills. But I think it was paid for annually. I just don’t know when that twelve-month period started.”
“What gym was it?”
“Gold’s Training Center,” she said. “He was good friends with Mark, the manager.”
“Okay, we’ll call you back.” Kanen hung up, turned to the guys and said, “Blake was a member of Gold’s Training Center. Kept a locker there.”
The men pulled up the address. “It’s open now,” Taylor said. “Why don’t we take a quick look?”
“Done.”
Kanen turned to look around the kitchen. “Everybody checked everything possible? We don’t want to assume this is the only thing here.”
“That should be everything,” Nelson said. “She doesn’t have an attic here. The ceiling is at a uniform height throughout her apartment and made of wood—not some drop-down temporary panels to hide ductwork or whatever. And there is no optional storage to rent elsewhere in the apartment building. The only thing we haven’t done is pull out the fridge and the stove.”
The men looked at each other, and Kanen nodded. “Let’s do that first.”
It didn’t take much effort, but they found nothing more. With all the appliances back in place, they took one last look around.
Kanen nodded to the front door. “Let’s check out Gold’s.”
It took ten minutes before they were parked in front of the gym. “This is the building Blake is standing in front of in the picture found with the money. I remember that door trim.” They walked in side by side.
One of the staff looked up, smiled at them and said, “What can we do for you?”
“Did you know Blake Elliott?”
The man’s face twisted with sadness. “Yeah, I did. He was a good mate.”
“Does he still have a locker here?”
“Who’s asking?”
Kanen identified himself and then said, “I can get Laysa Elliot to call you, if you want.”
Instead the man—whose shirt identified him as Mark, the manager—picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Laysa, I have three men here, asking permission to see inside Blake’s locker. You okay with that?”
The two discussed the problem as Kanen watched.
When Mark hung up, he said, “Okay, she’s good with it. Honestly, his year’s membership would be up in another week or so. I would have called Laysa about it anyway. Should have done it earlier. I guess I just figured I’d give her some time. Come on. It’s this way.” He led them through the equipment room into the back.
In the changing rooms were banks of lockers, some half size, some quarter size, some full size. He tapped Blake’s full-size locker at one end of a bank of lockers and said, “This is it.
But I’m not sure I like breaking into it.”
Kanen stepped forward and said, “I might have the combination.”
He tried the first sequence of numbers. When that didn’t work, he did them in reverse. As soon as the third number was dialed, the tumblers fell into place, and the lock clicked apart.
Mark stepped back and said, “Well, that’s a relief. It feels like a violation as it is. But I’d hate to cut off that lock.”
Realizing Mark spoke as a friend and somebody who had also lost someone close to him, Kanen nodded in understanding. “I hear you. Blake was too good a man to die so young.”
Kanen studied the contents of the locker: a jacket, a pair of running pants, a pair of shoes, a pair of socks. He saw a bag with something in it sitting on the floor of the locker. On the shelf above, he couldn’t quite see what was there, but it looked like a book bag. He picked up the jacket, handed it to Taylor to check, the pants went to Nelson, and Kanen grabbed the sneakers and the socks.
Finally Mark asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Anything. Nothing in particular,” Kanen said absentmindedly. He turned and looked at Mark. “Do you have a plastic bag, so we can return Blake’s belongings to Laysa?”
Mark nodded and took off.
The three looked at each other, and Taylor said, “The jacket is clean. So are the pants. So are the shoes and the socks apparently.”
With everything folded and stacked to the side, Kanen pulled out the bag on the bottom, and they opened it up to see a water bottle, a fitness watch—one of the latest and best of course—plus a journal where Blake kept track of his progress and his weights. That was it in there.
Kanen reached for the bag on the top shelf. What had looked like a book bag was a leather travel bag. He crouched down with it in front of them and opened the zipper. Inside unsealed envelopes with photos spilling out. He pulled out one envelope and flipped through the photos, then stopped to study a picture of one man who was vaguely familiar. He held it up to the others to take a look. “Anyone know who this is?”
