said. She raked a hand over her hair. “Probably sometime last week. I haven’t been here, and we don’t exactly have a neighborhood watch.”
“Right.” He wrote in his little black notebook and looked up. “Is anything missing?”
“I was getting ready to figure that out.”
He nodded.
“I’ll just go knock on some doors and see if anyone’s willing to tell us anything,” Officer Gerard said.
“Don’t count on it,” Gonzales muttered.
“Hey now,” Sarah said, “don’t discount my neighbors. They may not have a lot of money, but they’re mostly good people.”
“One of them probably did this,” the man said.
Sarah planted her hands on her hips. “No, one of them probably didn’t. I have a feeling this had nothing to do with anyone who lives in this building.” She headed toward her bedroom before she was tempted to say more. She understood his instant leap to judgment. He was a cop. He saw his fair share of human depravity on a daily basis, but she wasn’t kidding. She’d gotten to know her neighbors and thought highly of several.
And not so highly of others.
However, she wasn’t lying when she said she couldn’t think of one who would do this. She walked into her bedroom and sighed. Every drawer had been pulled out and dumped and the built-in bookshelf in the far corner swept clean. Books littered the floor. The en suite bath had suffered the same type of damage. The question was, had they found what they’d been looking for?
Probably not, if it was the package Dustin had sent to her.
Gavin stepped next to her. “I just heard from Caden. He said the detectives tracked down Max’s home. Only he’s not there and apparently hasn’t been for a while. There aren’t any airline, train, or bus tickets in his name, so no one is sure where he is.”
She frowned. “Odd.”
“They’re still looking for him. Hopefully, he’ll turn up soon.”
Once the officers left, she looked around. “I don’t guess there’s anything else to do here other than clean up—and find Jimmy to see if there was a package in my mail from Dustin.”
“There wasn’t.” She turned at Jimmy’s voice. He stood in the doorway. “I did find this, though. Thought it was weird because it has your last name on it. Who’s Lewis Denning?” He handed her a sticky note.
“My father.” She glanced at the note and gaped. “Why does Mrs. Howard have my father’s address and phone number?”
“Not gonna say how, but I know that address and that’s a pretty swanky crib,” Jimmy said. He swept a hand out to indicate her place. “What you doing living in this—uh—ghetto?”
Jimmy always cleaned up his language for her. She found it funny and endearing. He knew she was in the military, but the sign of respect touched her. “For various reasons, Jimmy. The main one being I don’t get along with my father.”
“I get that. You don’t gotta say nothing else.” He swiped a hand across his mouth. “I gotta split. You got my number if you need anything else.”
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“’Course.” He backed from the room and disappeared into the hallway.
Sarah pulled her phone from her pocket and called her father. He answered on the second ring with an abrupt hello.
“It’s Sarah.”
A pause.
“So, you’re talking to me now?”
“Why does my neighbor, Mrs. Howard, have your address and phone number on a sticky note?”
Silence.
“General?” she pushed.
“She . . . uh . . . got in touch with me and said she needed to forward your mail to me. I came by and picked up the bag she had, and then we forwarded the rest to my address.”
“You have it?”
“I believe I just said that.”
Sarah’s brain spun. “Wait a minute. How did she even know you were my father? I’ve never told her.” She never talked about him to anyone.
He cleared his throat and the evidence of his nerves unsettled her even more than she already was. “General?”
“I dropped by one day shortly after you moved in and told her to call me if she thought you needed anything.”
Sarah fell silent, unable to wrap her mind around it. “Why?” she finally managed to sputter.
“Because I needed someone to keep an eye on you.”
Mrs. Howard was her father’s spy? “I’m coming to get my mail. Just put it on the front porch. Please.” She forced the word out in as pleasant a tone as she could muster. “Or, better yet, have Mrs. Lawson do it. Thank you.” She hung up and realized she was shaking. She curled her fingers into