“Yes, though I’m afraid once I get in there, I might burst into tears. I hope you and Dara took your laptops home with you.”
“I did, and I assume Dara must have because she can’t live without hers. Kit, do you want me to come down? I could probably be there in twenty minutes or so.”
“Thanks, but there’s really nothing you can do. I don’t even know what I’m dealing with yet, and I won’t until they let me inside.”
There was a long pause, and Kit glanced quickly at the screen, wondering if the call might have been dropped.
“I’ve got to ask this question,” Baby said finally. “Do you think this could be related to what else has been going on, with that nasty man from Florida?”
“They’re saying right now it looks like a run-of-the-mill burglary and I’m just hoping that’s the case. Look, I’d better go. I need to contact one of my girlfriends and see if I can crash on her couch tonight. But I’ll call you after I’ve been in the office and assessed the damage.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Baby said. “You’re staying with me. I have a perfectly lovely guest room, and the sheets in there probably make anyone else’s feel like horsehair.”
“Baby, I couldn’t impose.” Yet even as she said the words she knew that’s where she wanted to be. Baby’s Park Avenue apartment building was like a fortress and she’d feel totally safe there tonight, to say nothing of it being far more comfortable than bunking down on someone’s pullout sofa with a mattress as thin as a cheese singlet.
“I won’t discuss it another moment. Just give me a heads-up when you’re due to arrive.”
“Thank you, Baby.”
About ten minutes later, she heard the elevator begin to groan and two men in lightweight overcoats spilled out along with a man and woman in CSU jackets. One of the overcoated guys introduced himself as Detective O’Callaghan while the other three people disappeared into the apartment. He was about fifty and from his weary, lined face, it looked like he’d probably witnessed the aftermath of a million bust-ins, but he at least seemed sympathetic as Kit described her discovery.
“I see you’ve got four apartments on the floor,” O’Callaghan said. “Do you know if your neighbors are around?”
“The first door here is actually to an adjoining office of mine. The neighbors in apartment A go away every weekend and the ones in B are on vacation.”
O’Callaghan shook his head, frustated on her behalf.
“The intruder either got lucky or he’d done his homework. You see anyone suspicious in the building lately or notice any unusual occurrences?”
“Occurrences?” Kit asked, not sure what he meant.
“Burglars often case a building before they attempt to break in,” he said. “They might leave a pizza flyer tucked into your door and then wait to see how long it’s there for. That gives them a hint to your schedule.”
“Nothing like that,” Kit said. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”
O’Callaghan’s ears practically pricked up as she spoke. Kit shared what had happened to her over the past week, including Healy’s death. Though she’d told the story several times already, she still cringed as she described how X had tricked her.
“Wait, you kind of lost me in Miami,” the detective said. “You’re saying you think the break-in might have something to do with this guy down there?”
“I have no way of knowing. It just seems like such a freaky coincidence.”
“Okay, why don’t I get all this down a little later,” he said. “Right now I want to take a look inside with my partner, and then we’ll have you make an inventory of what’s missing.”
He plucked a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket, snapped them on, and entered the apartment. It was another fifteen minutes before he reemerged, with the CSU pair trooping out behind him. Before the team departed, O’Callaghan had one of them take a set of her fingerprints for comparison.
“You ready to go inside now?” O’Callaghan asked.
“Yup,” Kit said. By this point she felt totally drained, but she was also desperate to learn what was missing. Taking a breath, she followed O’Callaghan down the hall and into the apartment. The other detective met them at the entrance and conveyed that he was headed to the other floors to canvass the building while at least some people were still awake.
It was a total shambles inside: cabinet doors flung