A Box Full of Trouble

by Carolyn Haines

  He bends down and rubs the top of my head, but doesn’t answer me. I see he hasn’t learned a thing about cat language since last night. I turn back to Abby, raising my voice to a querulous level.

  “You’re not really planning on going to work?” Victor’s tone as he addresses Abby has a worried sound. Something has happened, something bad.

  “I have to. I’m just going to take a quick shower, grab some coffee and a boiled egg, and go. Delphine and Phillip are expecting me.”

  I meow at them again, more insistently than ever.

  “Okay, I’ll feed the cat,” he says, giving me another quick pat on the head.

  “Should we look through Layla’s things?” Abby edges close to Victor and I can see there’s a growing bond between them. “I mean, that horrible police detective didn’t order me not to…”

  At the word police, my ears go back and my tail starts twitching. I meow ferociously and head butt Abby. She bends down and scoops me up in her arms. “You poor thing. You’re worried about Layla, aren’t you?”

  “He’s just hungry,” Victor says.

  But Abby understands me. I rub my face against hers and purr. Then as clear as I can in cat-language, I ask her about Layla.

  “She’s been hurt. Or…maybe killed. Or kidnapped.” Abby starts to cry. I raise my paws to her cheeks, nails carefully retracted, and try to offer comfort. Yet I can’t help but think: I told you so. You and Layla were barmy to go into a basement alone at night when someone was definitely threatening Layla.

  Victor moves closer and puts an arm around Abby. He wants to comfort her too. I know he’s a good chap even if he’s too dense to understand me.

  A second or two into our group hug, Victor pulls away. “You shower, I’ll look through her belongings, but first, let me feed the cat and put some coffee on.” A man of action, I think, and approve.

  Abby thanks him and heads to the bathroom.

  I trail Victor, meowing in distinctive syllables as if he might still somehow learn to listen to me. What I want him to see is the one posh gold earring I found earlier. I can’t say why I know, but now that Layla is missing, I’m thinking this earring is somehow a clue.

  Victor prowls through Layla’s carryall, taking an interest in the plastic bag of pink flash drives. I edge up between him and the luggage and meow in his face to get his attention. As he shoves the plastic bag with the flash drives into his pocket, I dig out the push-up bra with the hidden silk purse with the earring inside the padding. I pull at the padding until I free the tiny purse. With new urgency, I paw at it until the earring falls out. I tell Victor in plaintive tones that this is not Layla’s style but the care with which she has hidden it makes it important.

  He turns it over in his hand and reads the inscription. “Love.” He squints and studies it closely. “Not Layla’s look. She wouldn’t be caught dead in anything with a pearl.”

  Exactly, I meow back. Now he’s learning to listen to me.

  Victor mutters something about asking somebody about this and slips the earring into the pocket on his plaid button-down shirt. Then he starts flipping through Layla’s books. No need to do that, I try to tell him, as the doorbell rings. I race out to the front just as Abby reaches the door.

  Abby presses her eye to the peep hole. “Damn.” It’s not like her to cuss and I press up against her as she says, “Police.”

  “Let me.” Victor doesn’t wait for an answer and opens the door. An older man wearing a bad suit and looking as if he’s suffering from distemper is standing there with an armed, uniformed officer.

  “Ah, Detective Rizzo.” Victor doesn’t step back or invite him in.

  “I have a warrant to look through Layla’s things. And to search any and all computers and laptops.” He yanks the door open wide and pushes his way in just as Abby shouts out, “Don’t let the cat out.”

  Too late.

  I sprint for the freedom of the great outdoors. My job in the house—leading Victor to the earring—is done and I don’t fancy being cooped up inside another day when I could be out looking for ways to help Layla.

  Chapter Twenty

  Abby’s head ached, almost like a hangover though she hadn’t drunk any alcohol in ages. She and Layla never even got to drink that bottle of expensive wine like Layla had wanted to do. Thinking about that made Abby want to cry again.

  It was nearly noon, she was stuck at the law office, and she hadn’t managed to accomplish anything except dodge questions from curious interns and associates. At least the police and their search warrants were out of her house, taking with them some of Layla’s belongings, and, over her loud hand-waving protests, Abby’s own PC and laptop. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t defeat their search warrant.

  Not only had the detectives taken her computers, they’d let Trouble escape. But Abby knew Trouble would come home. He was a very smart cat. Besides, Victor promised to look for him.

  Ah, Victor.

  Abby sighed. Nice, smart, handsome, and he also loved cats—and aquariums. For a dreamy moment, she remembered the way his hair hung across his forehead in his eyes like a kid who needed a haircut, and how well muscled his arms were. A little boy’s charm and a grown man’s body. Abby felt a strange tingling just thinking about Victor, and her face flushed.

  Stop it, she told herself. Layla might be dead or dying and here she was, having lustful thoughts about the woman’s boyfriend. Do something useful, she ordered herself.

  Abby stood up and headed toward the little cubbyhole office Emmett used while he was at the law office. She wanted to question him about what he might have seen or heard at the law school. The police had already grilled him, but they seemed to be so hung up on blaming her or Victor, she frankly didn’t trust them and wanted to talk to Emmett herself. She also needed to check on Delphine’s brief, which Emmett was now finishing. She knocked at his door and waited. When nobody answered, she cracked open the door and looked in. Nobody. The office looked strangely bare. Abby backed out and headed instead to Layla’s old office. Maybe the police missed something when they’d searched it.

  Since Abby didn’t expect anyone to be in Layla’s office, she barged in without knocking. Emmett was sitting at Layla’s desk, a laptop opened in front of him and old law books stacked here and there about him.

  “Hi,” Emmett chirped out, sounding way too chipper. “I was just about to bring this to you.” He waved a few sheets of paper at her. “The rest of it should be ready soon.” Behind him, a printer rumbled as it pushed sheets of paper out into a tray.

  “What are you doing in here?” Abby was angry that Emmett had just taken over Layla’s spot in the law firm.

  “Working.” Emmett gave her a blank look. Then, as he continued to stare at Abby, his eyes narrowed. “More specifically, working on a project that you and Layla failed to finish on time.”

  Abby jerked back, astonished at the law clerk’s boldness. He’d never been rude to her before. Rather, he’d been polite in that ingratiating way he had. She inhaled slow and deep so that she wouldn’t give voice to her intensifying anger.

  “This is Layla’s office.” She stopped short of ordering him out of it.

  “And Layla is not here, is she?” Emmett’s expression briefly shifted into something Abby read as a kind of snide self-satisfaction. But then the nastiness disappeared, replaced so quickly with Emmett’s usual eager-to-please half-smile that Abby wondered if she had imagined the whole snide look.

  “Layla’s office is so much larger than my own and I needed space to spread out the case books while I finished Delphine’s trial brief.” Emmett swept his hand at the piles of old law books. “Of course, my part of the trial brief is not nearly as excellent as your sections, but I’ve worked very hard on it, even skipping my classes.”

  He actually had the nerve to smile. For a brief second, Abby wanted to slap him. But she was also relieved that Emmett was back to just being Emmett. She told herself she had imagined that nasty look on his face.
/>   “How many more pages need to print?”

  “About ten.”

  “Okay.” She paused, thinking of the best approach to question him about anything he’d heard or seen last night at the law school.

  But before she started her interrogation, Emmett spoke. “I think I should tell you something. It’s important.”

  “About Layla?”

  “Yes. I’ve already told the detectives. They gave me quite the grilling earlier. Since you told them I was in the library basement, they naturally assume I knew something about Layla’s disappearance.” Emmett studied Abby as he spoke in a way that made her nervous somehow.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That man, Victor Rutledge.”

  “What about him?”

  “After you and I spoke in the library basement, I went upstairs to work, and I caught him breaking into Layla’s office at the law review suite. He stole a file out of Layla’s cabinet. I looked, and what’s missing is the folder on oil and gas exploration. We had a number of articles submitted as that’s a hot topic with the push toward more offshore drilling.” Emmett leaned forward in the desk chair like he was imparting secrets. “He claimed Layla sent him for the file, but I don’t think so. After he left, I checked the door carefully and could see where it’d been tinkered with. And I didn’t see that he had a key at all.”

  Stunned, Abby’s first reaction was to deny that Victor would break into Layla’s office. He probably was picking up something for Layla.

  But even as she thought that, conflicting ideas shot through her head. Victor claimed he didn’t know Layla was at the law school that night. So why would he be bringing her an article on oil and gas exploration? Plus, if Layla did need the file, she could have gone to her office and gotten it herself.

  Abby realized Emmett was staring at her as if trying to analyze her response. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d upset her, so she put on her best poker face. “All right. Thank you for sharing. Now, tell me what else you saw and heard last night.” She tried to make it sound like an order.

  Emmett glared at Abby, that snide look back in place. “You sent me away. Remember? How could I see anything if you ordered me to leave even after Layla had called me and specifically requested I meet you both in the basement?” He hesitated as if weighing his next words. “The two detectives thought that was very interesting, too. That you ordered me to leave.”

  Great, Abby thought. Now he’s made Victor and me both more suspicious in the eyes of the police.

  Abby decided her best reaction was no reaction to the implied accusation. But she wanted to leave with the upper hand. “Bring me the trial brief as soon as it finishes printing. And out of respect for Layla, please clear out your things and leave her office when you finish.” She didn’t wait for a reply.

  Abby hurried to her own office, her head pounding now as she thought things through, or tried to do so.

  Emmett was casting suspicions on her and Victor and he was acting predatory about Layla’s office. Everyone knew he desperately wanted to be hired as an associate at the law firm. Yet Delphine had confided that Layla had a lock on that position and the firm would be hiring only one associate this year. Emmett probably knew that or at least suspected it. Also, Emmett had been right there in the law library basement not long before Layla disappeared. Maybe he hadn’t left as soon as he’d said he had or maybe he’d returned.

  But did ambitious, competitive law students kill other students to get a coveted job?

  Surely not.

  And Victor? What was he up to if he had broken into Layla’s office at the law school?

  Abby hated to admit her attraction to Victor because it felt so wrong given the circumstances. But worse than that, what if Victor were a…a what? A burglar? A killer? A kidnapper? But if he had killed Layla, wouldn’t he have been drenched in blood? Wouldn’t he have run away?

  All of which brought her back to thinking about Layla. Poor Layla. Injured, without her insulin, and no doubt terrified. That is, if she wasn’t dead.

  As Abby trudged back to her office, her head pounded with renewed vigor. She fantasized about popping two ibuprofens and going home. Maybe as soon as she’d reviewed that damn trial brief Emmett was finishing, she could escape, find Trouble, and start looking for Layla. She made a turn in the hallway and saw Delphine standing right outside her own office door.

  “Have you seen or heard anything from Jennifer?” Without offering any greeting, Delphine spoke in her husky, yet penetrating voice, the one that was so effective on cross examination that witnesses often blurted out things they never meant to admit.

  “No. Just at the law school this morning.”

  “Phillip drove her home from the law school, but she’s not answering her cell.” Delphine frowned. “Probably taking a beauty nap or getting a manicure.”

  As Abby watched, Delphine’s frown turned to a grimace, tension radiating off her. “Phillip wants her to go with me to the airport to pick up Layla’s parents.”

  Oh, please, Abby thought, don’t ask me to go with you.

  “I’ve got enough work—real work—to do around here without having to play fetch for Phillip, but—” Delphine suddenly stopped, as if she realized she was talking to an associate in a way she should not be doing.

  “Oh the hell with it. I don’t need her anyway.” With that, Delphine stomped off down the hallway in her three-inch heels.

  Abby let out a whoosh of relief. But as she stepped inside the shelter of her office, she flashed back to Jennifer at her door last night, desperate to see Layla. Maybe she’d better call Detective Kelly and tell him about that visit after all—even if it meant breaking her promise to Layla not to tell.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The view from the back of Detective Rizzo’s unmarked car is illustrative as he whips his vehicle in and out of traffic, but not nearly as much as listening to his patter. There’s another man riding with him. Judging from their exchanges, this younger biped is Rizzo’s partner, someone called Lucas. In contrast to Rizzo, Lucas appears to be a decent chap, while Rizzo is peevish. Still, it was considerate of the grumpy detective to have left his window down when he parked in Abby’s driveway so that I could hop in after he let me out her door. What better way to learn what the bobbies are up to in their search for Layla than riding along with them?

  “I’m telling you Victor’s our man.” Rizzo says this with an angry conviction, though it sounds daft to me. “That business of his getting kicked out of the Navy ought to tell us something about his character. And he was in that basement for no good reason with an access card he stole out of Layla’s office.”

  Kicked out of the Navy? I ease forward to hear better, but am careful not to let them see me.

  “Navy thing doesn’t mean much,” Lucas says. “He wasn’t convicted of anything. He just resigned.”

  “Why’s a career man resign before his twenty years? Especially when he’s been accused of—” Rizzo slams on his brakes and pulls the car into a fire lane and parks. “Do you see what I see?”

  I look where Rizzo is pointing. Down the street from where Rizzo has parked is an alley.

  Not just any alley, but the one behind Abby’s law firm. More precisely, the alley where Layla was mugged.

  And, stooped over, nosing around in that very same alley, is Victor.

  “Speak of the devil.” Rizzo sounds proud of himself. I must concede the man has excellent eyesight, especially for a biped of his age.

  “Let me go sneak up on him. See what he’s up to.” Lucas cracks the car door and waits for Rizzo to answer.

  “Yeah, you do that. I’m going inside and have another go at that Emmett fellow. He knows more than he’s saying.” Rizzo gets out, followed by Lucas.

  Once outside the vehicle, Rizzo locks the doors. To my dismay, all of the windows are up. It’s easy enough for me to unlock the car with a click of the button, but I cannot physically push the doors open. I need a bip
ed for that.

  Putting aside my concern about the heavy doors, I explore inside the vehicle. Too bad each man took his notebook with him, but they might have left something else of interest behind.

  I search, sniff, and scratch about, but find nothing that even hints at what they might know about Victor or Layla. And now I’m trapped inside their car. And it’s getting hot.

  Fine kettle of fish, this is.

  * * *

  Victor stepped cautiously around in the alley behind the law office building.

  He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he didn’t believe for one half second that Layla’s mugging was random coincidence. Somehow he doubted Rizzo and that other fellow, Lucas Kelly, would bother to double check, especially since Rizzo acted convinced that Victor was the guilty party in Layla’s disappearance.

  Bending down in the dirt and debris in the alley, he poked through the trash with his fingers, thinking as he did that someone should clean the area if law firm employees used the alley.

  “They say a crook always returns to the scene of the crime.”

  Victor’s head popped up. How in the world had anyone been able to sneak up on him like that?

  Lucas Kelly stood in the shadows, staring right at Victor with the slight trace of a grin.

  Ignoring the possibility that Lucas was suggesting Victor was the criminal returning to the spot, Victor nodded. “I had that thought myself.”

  Lucas took a step closer to Victor on his soft-tread shoes. As if reading Victor’s mind, he said, “Hush Puppies and a dad who worked the night shift. I’ve learned to walk as quiet as a Mohican. I can sneak up on anybody.”

  “You got me.” Victor held up his hands in mock surrender.

  “Just so you know, we aren’t stupid.” Lucas pressed close to Victor, still studying his face. “We’ve got surveillance in this alley. And we’ve been questioning the homeless, looking for a man with a hoodie, bad hygiene, and cat scratches on his face.”