Deep Dark Read Free

flaxseed.
    Opening the cabinet under the sink, Reed found cat food and a plastic trash can. The can was empty, not even a plastic bag inside it despite the box of them right there in the cabinet. He’d check out Bellaterra’s Dumpsters. Reed opened several drawers and found the usual assortment of utensils.
    â€œThat’s an eight-hundred-dollar juicer.” Jay nodded at the silver appliance near the sink.
    â€œThat thing?”
    â€œAt least. Maybe a thousand. My sister got one last Christmas.”
    Gutierrez was standing in the foyer now, watching them with interest.
    â€œDid you come across a phone?” Reed asked her. “A purse? A wallet?”
    â€œNo on all three, sir. I did a full walk-through, didn’t see anything.”
    Reed exchanged a look with Jay before moving back into the hallway. The ME’s people were now taping paper bags over the victim’s hands.
    Reed stepped into the bedroom. A ceiling fan moved on low speed, stirring the air. The queen-size bed was heaped with plump white pillows like in a fancy hotel. The pillows were piled to the side and the bedspread was thrown back, suggesting April had gone to bed and then gotten up.
    â€œThink she heard him?” Jay asked.
    â€œMaybe.”
    The bedside lamp was off, and the only light in the room came from sunlight streaming through vertical blinds. Reed ducked into the bathroom. Makeup was scattered across the counter. A gold watch with a diamond bezel sat beside the sink. Reed opened the medicine cabinet.
    â€œSleeping pills, nasal spray, laxatives, OxyContin,” he said.
    â€œNo shit, Oxies? Those are getting hard to come by.”
    Reed checked the doctor’s name on the label.
    â€œWhat about the sleeping pills?” Jay asked.
    â€œOver-the-counter.”
    Reed examined the latch on the window above the toilet. Then he moved into the bedroom. Peering under the bed, he found a pair of white sandals and a folded shopping bag. On the nightstand was a stack of magazines: Entertainment Weekly , People , Wired . He opened the nightstand drawer and stared down.
    â€œHuh.”
    Jay glanced over. “Vibrator?”
    â€œChocolate.” Four bars of Godiva, seventy-two percent cocoa. One of the bars had the wrapper partially removed and a hunk bitten off.
    Reed was more or less numb to going through people’s stuff, but the chocolate bar struck him as both sad and infinitely personal. He closed the drawer.
    â€œWe ID’d her vehicle,” Gutierrez said, stepping into the room, “in case you guys want to have a look.”
    Reed and Jay followed her back through the apartment, catching annoyed looks from the ME’s people as they squeezed past again.
    â€œWhat are you thinking?” Jay asked as they exited the home and got back into real shoes.
    â€œI want that phone. I want her friends, her boyfriend, secret admirers at work, whatever.” He glanced at Gutierrez. “What’s the name of that witness? The coworker?”
    â€œMindy Stephens. She’s in the leasing office with a patrol officer right now. She kind of lost it after she called it in, got sick all over the floor.”
    â€œI’ll talk to her,” Jay said.
    Wallace was good with female witnesses. He had been a defensive tackle in college, where he’d been known as “The Wall” because of his size. But he’dstopped pumping iron and now had a teddy-bear thing going that seemed to put women at ease.
    Reed, not so much. He was tall and lean, and his skeptical eyes made people uncomfortable. At least that’s what his ex-wife said. When they’d been married, she’d often accused him of interrogating her like a suspect, and maybe she was right. He’d gotten to where he expected people to lie to him right out of the gate, whether they needed to or not. Reed was thirty-nine and had been a cop for seventeen years. All that time on the job had made him jaded, but it had