Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,33
his sleeve, he didn’t say.
The elevator rose slowly, dinging as it bypassed each floor. The doors slid open on the eighth floor and she followed Gruder out. The hallway, with its fancy gold sconces and white-on-white wallpaper, was comfortingly familiar. At the same time, a warm floaty feeling bloomed from her chest, across her shoulders, and wafted up the back of her neck—the extra medication she’d taken was kicking in.
She followed Gruder down the hall. It seemed shorter than she remembered it. He stopped in front of Ashley’s door.
“No restaurant menus,” Diana murmured. Elation pierced the haze of medication and she pushed past Gruder. “Ashley?” She knocked. Pressed the bell. “Ashley, are you in there?”
She could feel Gruder standing there, watching her as she banged on the door.
“Ashley Highsmith! You answer the door this minute!” Diana felt her face grow warm. She sounded exactly like their mother.
At the opposite end of the hall, a door opened and a man stuck his head out. He had on a loose-necked undershirt and his hair was tousled. He seemed about to yell at them when he registered Gruder, there in his police uniform. Before the man could disappear, Gruder went over to him.
Diana watched them, listening at the same time for any movement behind Ashley’s locked door.
Gruder spoke to the man. She couldn’t hear what he said, but the man just shook his head and yawned in response. Gruder asked another question. This time the man pointed toward Ashley’s door. Diana’s heart leaped. Gruder took out his pad and took a few notes.
A few moments later, the man went back inside his apartment and Gruder returned, looking perplexed.
“Did he see her?” Diana asked. “Did he see Ashley?”
“No. But he says a man was out in the hall an hour ago.”
“What was he doing here?”
Gruder took a step back. “Our friend didn’t stick around to find out. He was just throwing out his trash.”
“Young? Old?”
“Not old.” Gruder referred to his notes. “Average height. Dark hair. Jacket zipped with the collar covering the lower part of his face. He had the impression that the man was well built.”
Immediately Diana thought of Aaron, pressing his fifty-pound weights. “Well, did he talk to him? What did he say? Wouldn’t the cameras out front have caught him? Can you find out?” Can you do it now? Diana could hear the desperation in her voice.
“Why don’t we check her apartment, first,” Gruder said, tilting his head toward Ashley’s door.
She knew that was eminently reasonable, but she wanted to grab Ashley’s neighbor and shake him until she knew what he knew. Instead, she took out her keys. Ashley’s had a dot of hot-pink nail polish on its round head. She tried to jam the key into the lock but she couldn’t make it go.
“Here, let me,” Gruder said. He rotated the key and it slipped in. Smoothly he turned it and opened the door.
Diana pushed past his outstretched arm and burst into the apartment. She set Ashley’s laptop on the carpet just inside the threshold. Light streaming in through living-room windows seemed to bounce off the white Berber carpeting.
“Ash?”
She almost fell over the pair of red cowboy boots lying in the front hall as she raced into the spotless living room, past the pink-and-green chintz overstuffed sofa and chairs and a glass coffee table with a drift of mail on it, into the dining area with its plate rail lined with delicate Wedgwood and Royal Doulton, and around through a galley kitchen that Diana knew Ashley rarely used other than to warm leftovers.
She circled back to the cowboy boots in the entry hall. Diana picked up one of them. The toe and ankle were stained with whitish splashes. Looked like remnants of the drink Ashley had told her she’d ended up wearing when Aaron pulled the bar stool out from under her.
“Ashley had these boots on when she went to Copley Square on Friday.” She set the boot on the coffee table and began to pick through the mound of mail. Bank statement. Credit-card bill. A big envelope from Staywell Bodyscan that said Here’s the material you requested on the front. Flyers from a local pizza place and a Chinese restaurant were there too.
“I guess she’s back after all,” Diana said. “But I don’t understand—” She hiccuped, her voice breaking. It was so inconsiderate, so typically inconsiderate of her sister. She’d come back, long enough to change shoes and pick up her mail. Now where the hell was she?