We’d exchanged numbers the day of the incident in case I needed to ask her about the case. I hadn’t expected her to use it, though she had texted me twice now, but this was a phone call—something she had never done before. My Spidey-senses were peaked. Something felt off.
I grabbed the phone and swiped to answer the call after the second ring.
“Madeira,” I answered, trying to remain cool and calm.
“Hector?” Iris’s quiet voice came through the line, but her tone was laced with a bit of fear.
“Iris?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure why, since I knew it was her.
“Umm…I don’t know if it’s related or not, but someone broke into my apartment,” she said, her voice still quiet, but I could hear her breath hitch at the end of her sentence.
“Where are you?” I asked as I jumped up from my seat and headed toward the door, grabbing my keys on the way.
“I’m across the hall in my neighbor’s apartment. The cops came and checked everything out, but one of the officers said it didn’t look like aregularrobbery—or something like that.” She mumbled the last part as if frustrated. “They started to ask if I had any enemies or something. I’m sorry to bug you, but I wasn’t sure if it was related?—”
I cut her off before she could continue. “I’m glad you called. Given the letter you got, it’s always better to take precautions. Stay at your neighbor’s. Share your location with me—I’ll be right there.”
I threw that last sentence out as a desperate attempt to hide the fact that I had memorized her address from the paperwork I had been staring at all day, but I didn’t need her to know that.
I hustled to my car, trying to settle the mild rage coursing through my body at the thought of someone breaking into Iris’s apartment. Knowing she was upset irritated me, even though I had no claim to her.
Agent Andrews had called me earlier, letting me know they had dug into the self-proclaimed “crime expert” podcaster a little more. Some podcasters were great, and what they did could work in tandem with police investigators, but others were just weirdos and were more of a hassle than anything.
It sounded like our letter guy fell into the latter category.
When I arrived thirty minutes later, I went straight to her apartment instead of to her neighbor’s. I wanted to talk to the cops and see what they knew and also givethem what I knew from our case to see if it was connected.
I knocked on the half-open door, seeing a male cop I didn’t know, who instantly went alert at my presence.
“Sir, you can’t come in here,” he said to me, walking toward the door, ready to block my entry.
I knew procedure, so I stayed in the doorway as I reached for my badge. “Name’s Hector Madeira. I’m the chief ranger over at Lake Echo National Park.”
“Madeira?” a familiar female voice said. “Holy crap. Long time no see.”
“Hey, Swift,” I greeted her with a head nod.
“You know him?” the other officer asked.
“Yeah, we were rookies together. He used to work at LVPD before he bailed and got the cushy job for softies,” she said, smirking at me. “Clarkson, this is Hector Madeira. Hector, this is my partner, Taylor Clarkson.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt, but Iris called me because this break-in may be related to a case we’re investigating,” I told them and then filled them in on the details I had.
They nodded and asked some questions as I explained, and then they gave me what they knew about her break-in.
“So far, we just have her word that things are out of place and moved,” Swift said. “We have a crime scene analyst on the way to grab some fingerprints just in case. Otherwise, the only other thing we have is the cotton ball.”
“Cotton ball?” I asked.
“There was a cotton ball on the floor of her laundry room, which she swears she never uses because they aren’t environmentally friendly or some shit,” Clarkson said. “Thing is, it was still wet. Even if it had accidentally gotten stuck on her clothes or something, it would have been washed with her clothes and dried during the hours she was at work. The fact that it was still wet means it wasnewlywet. Possibly by the person who broke in.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Exactly,” Swift said back to me.
“Alright. I’m gonna go next door and check in with her. Keep me posted on anything you find so I can let Agent Andrews know,” I told them.
“I’ll be over in a few,” Swift said. “I need to find out if she’s planning to stay here tonight or if she’s going to a friend’s or something.”
