“All right,” the female cop told her. “We need you to stay down here for a few more minutes. Once we clear the apartment, we’ll have you come back up to the floor.”
Kit nodded, and watched the cops stride purposely into the building. Part of her wished she could accompany them. As much as she dreaded confronting whatever havoc awaited her inside, not knowing what had happened was even worse.
She retreated once more to the doorway of the nearby building. The temperature had dropped, and the wind was even choppier now, but inside her coat, her top was damp with sweat.
With the cops gone, she felt vulnerable again. She kept her eyes on the street, on anyone passing by. A small crowd began to mill around the squad car, curious, even as jaded New Yorkers, to discover what was brewing inside the building. If it was X who had broken into her apartment, she wondered anxiously if he might be still hovering nearby. Again, questions ping-ponged back and forth in her brain: What would he have been looking for? Was he some kind of sociopath? She was just lucky she hadn’t been home.
It was about ten minutes before the female cop emerged from the building. Kit hurried from the doorway to meet her halfway, her pulse racing in anticipation of news.
“Whoever was in your apartment is gone now, so you can reenter the building,” the cop told her. “But you’ll have to wait in the hall. CSU needs to go through your place first and dust for prints.”
“Was it a burglary?” Kit asked anxiously.
“It appears that way. I should warn you, though, it’s a mess in there.”
Kit’s heart sank. She dreaded the thought of seeing her home violated that way. But a crazy part of her felt relieved by the fact that it might be a standard-issue break-in after all.
“What about my office?” she asked. “Were they in there, too?”
The cop nodded solemnly.
“But it doesn’t look like they bothered with much in that room. You’ll know better when you take a look.”
Her laptop, she thought suddenly, fighting the urge to wail. She’d left it on her desk. Everything of importance was stored on Dropbox—but that offered only minor consolation. As for her co-workers’ laptops, she was pretty sure Baby had taken hers home on Thursday, and she just prayed Dara had done the same with her own today.
“I—I should call my super,” Kit said, as she accompanied the cop into the building. “The door will have to be replaced.”
“He has a set of keys I assume?”
“Yes, but he lives in a different building, not far from here.”
“Who else is a lawful key holder?”
Kit explained that two people worked with her, and as they rode the elevator to five, she provided Baby and Dara’s contact info.
Stepping from the elevator into the corridor, Kit saw Officer Tirado standing just outside the apartment. She forced herself to take in the splintered doorframe again. She had a sudden, horrible image of an intruder bashing away at it.
She took a few steps closer to her apartment.
“Ms. Finn, please,” the female officer said, lightly raising a hand, “we need you to remain out here for a while.”
But the door was fully open now and Kit was close enough to glimpse the inside of her apartment, at least the first ten feet or so. Her heart sank. The drawer from the small table in the entranceway had been yanked out and lay upside down on the area rug, the contents scattered. A floor lamp, which had been next to the table, was now on its side, the lampshade askew. It looked as if there’d been a minor explosion, spewing objects pell-mell around the room.
“Understood,” Kit said, beginning to retreat. “But—can you just tell me how they got in?”
“Most likely with a crowbar,” Tirado said. “It’s a typical approach. Burglars just wedge it in there a few times and pull. If the door is kind of flimsy, like this one, it only takes a couple of minutes.”
She’d paid all that money for a good lock, never realizing the door was lame. Reluctantly, Kit retreated farther down the hall near the door to her office, which was still closed.
While the two cops murmured to each other, occasionally pausing to speak into their walkie-talkies, Kit called the super and told him the news. Clearly upset, he promised to show within the hour. Next she phoned Baby. Though she’d kept her cool while talking with the super, Kit’s voice