“Two days ago. I just haven’t gotten around to putting them away.”
The two officers exchanged looks before Officer Swift asked me a question as she exited the room. “Is there anyone you can think of who might want to cause you harm or even play a prank on you? Have you had any disagreements with a coworker or recently broken up with a boyfriend?”
“No…I mean yes,” I answered and then sighed. “No, I don’t have any angry coworkers, and yes, I broke up with someone recently, but I don’t think he would break into my house.”
“We ask because this doesn’t look like a regular robbery where people break in and take the biggest ticketitems like laptops or jewelry,” she explained. “If something was stolen, it appears it’s because they were looking for something specifically.”
It occurred to me this could be related to the letter I’d received from Steve the podcaster. He’d asked me if I had taken anything from the crime scene. Even though I would never do that, maybe he didn’t know that and came looking for it here.
“Actually, there may be someone,” I said to both of them.
I gave them all the details of what had happened at Lake Echo as well as the specifics regarding Steve Stanton. I let them know that the ISB had the letter now and gave them the contact info for Agent Andrews.
“We’re going to take some photos and make some calls,” Officer Swift said. “If you want to go back over to your neighbor’s unit, we will swing by and let you know when we’re all done here.”
I nodded in return, feeling an urgent need to get out of my apartment.
When I knocked on Nancy’s door, she was quick to let me back in and engulfed me in a hug the moment I was inside her apartment. I hadn’t known I had needed that, but I was grateful for it.
“Here, dear,” Nancy said as she released me from the hug. “I warmed up your tea. Have a seat and relax for a few minutes.”
I wasn’t sure I could relax, but I would take a seat, anyway.
“Do you have someone you want me to call?” she asked me from the kitchen.
I knew she meant a family member or a friend, but the first name that came to mind was Hector.
“You’re welcome to stay here with me tonight, Iris, but if you’d like someone else, I can call them for you.”
At her comment, it occurred to me that the police may not let me sleep at my place tonight, nor would I want to, even if they said it was okay.
I didn’t know why I didn’t text Leah or Christine. Instead, I grabbed my phone, and my fingers went to Hector’s name in my contacts list. My finger hovered over his name for several seconds, as if internally I was trying to decide what to do.
“Go ahead and make your call,” Nancy said, placing her hand on top of my leg. “I’ll get your tea and some cookies.”
I looked back down at the name on my screen, but before I could change my mind, I pressed the button.
8
“Burnout is just emotional combustion. You're still hot, just unstable.”
—It’s science
Hector
I walked into my living room after heating up my leftovers and sat on my couch.
Sarge, my chocolate lab, followed me, hopping up onto the couch next to me, his face mere inches from my food.
“Don’t even think about it, buddy,” I told him.
He listened and backed off, but his surrender was also accompanied by mildly pathetic whining.
It was later than I usually got home, but I had stayed at work tonight trying to read over some extra files Agent Andrews had sent me. It wasn’t that the files were complicated. It was that the womanmentionedin the files was.
Every time I read Iris’s name in the report, my brain deviated to thinking about her instead of the case. Her spooked face after retelling the story of tripping over theskull. Her gorgeous body and what it might look like naked and underneath me. Yeah, it was the latter one that was the issue and what had gotten me in trouble at work. Every time my mind wandered, I got further and further behind on my work.
This is not about Iris. It’s about the body. Notherbody, but the dead body.Just as I repeated that thought again, my phone rang. I glanced down to see Iris’s name on my screen.
