Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,6

water had been tossed in the corner.

“Your bucket?” Detective Myers asked.

“Yes. From under my kitchen sink.”

“Tag it and bag it,” he said to the female officer.

The damage in her bedroom was much worse. Her clothes had been pulled from both her closet and drawers and sprayed with the horrible red paint. The bedcovers had been pulled off and her mattress had been sliced multiple times. The mirror above her dresser was cracked.

When she entered the bathroom, the smell almost knocked her back. Perfume bottles had been smashed in the sink. On top of the shards of glass lay more rotted fish. The mirror was cracked and across it, written in red paint, was BITCH.

Her knees felt weak and her vision narrowed.

Cruz grabbed her elbow and pulled her back. “She’s seen enough,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Detective Myers. He gently prodded her back to the kitchen and sat her down on the chair. “Put your head between your knees,” he said.

She waved him away. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

Detective Myers gave her three minutes before he followed her. “It’s probably hard to tell but do you know if anything is missing?” he asked.

“I...” She licked her lips and wished she had water. “I don’t think so.”

The man nodded. “To do this kind of damage, the intruder was here for a while. Maybe one of the neighbors saw something. My team will canvas the area. We’ll check the street cameras, too, and maybe we’ll get lucky there.”

“Thank you,” she said. He seemed like a good cop. Straightforward. She was going to have to tell him everything. Just in case. But not with Cruz standing there. Not with him in the same town. Even if Detective Myers swore to keep her secret, she knew Cruz’s ability to compel even the most reluctant of witnesses to speak up. Could she gamble that he wouldn’t prod and needle Detective Myers until the man surrendered the information?

“We dusted everything for prints,” Detective Myers said. “I’ll need yours and whoever else has been in your apartment for the last several months to rule them out.”

“I’ll get you the names,” she said. She’d had Charlotte and her mother over for dinner a month ago. That was it.

Detective Myers turned his attention toward Cruz. “I suppose you can account for your whereabouts since seven this morning?”

Cruz pulled his travel itinerary out of his shorts pocket and handed it to the older man. “Arrived at the airport, rented a car, drove I-95 to the River Walk. No stops in between.”

Detective Myers nodded, tucked the itinerary into his notebook, and put his pen in his shirt pocket. Meg had no doubt the guy was going to check it out, maybe look at a few more street cameras along Cruz’s route. “I’ll be in touch,” the man said to Meg. “I’ll let you know when you can start cleaning this up. Where will you be staying until then?”

“I...uh...guess I’ll stay at the hotel. In the summer we’re not as full as usual so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

The detective turned toward Cruz. “And what about you, Mr. Montoya?”

He needed to point the nose of his rental car toward Chicago and not stop until he ran into Lake Michigan.

“I’ll be at the hotel, too,” he said.

Meg whipped her head in his direction. “That’s not necessary,” she said.

He waved away her argument, clearly not wanting to discuss it in front of Detective Myers. The older man looked at Cruz, then at her, speculation in his eyes. Evidently not seeing too much that disturbed him, he motioned for them to leave. “We’ll finish up here. I’ll be in touch.”

When they were back in the car, the seat was so hot that it burned skin. Meg tucked her skirt under her legs and gingerly reached for the metal clasp of her seat belt.

Cruz started the car and cranked up the air-conditioning. He didn’t pull out. Just sat in the driver’s seat, looking forward. Finally he turned toward her.

“Your car. This. You know I had nothing to do with it, right?” His voice cracked at the end.

She stared at him and wanted to tell him that of all the people in the world, he was the person she trusted the most.

Instead, she turned and faced out the window. Two beat cops were stringing up yellow crime scene tape across her door. “Of course not. I mean, it’s been a year,” she added, still staring at her condo. “And it’s not like our