Her history was a blank space she hadn’t filled.
“I have no idea.”
Kane’s dark eyes showed no sign of disappointment. His gaze jumped to the direction of her flat. “But you can find out given the right information.”
“What do you?—?”
He was already moving. I rounded the corner to see him barge Dixie’s door open with one heavy hit of his huge shoulder. Kane caught the door on the rebound and put his other hand out in a gesture for me to enter.
Shocked, I waited a beat for another resident to pop out and holler that they were calling the cops. No one did. Kane’s breaking and entering had barely made a ripple.
I didn’t like this. Yet the neighbour said the landlord was going to empty the place. That wasn’t right.
What if she’d been hurt and was lying inside? What if any clues got thrown away?
Those two thoughts got my legs moving until I was over the threshold and entering Dixie’s private domain.
“Subtlety is consistently your love language, I see,” I grouched.
The door tapped the broken lock behind me, Kane a hulking menace at my back. He didn’t answer.
I shivered in awareness at the closeness then crept into the hallway’s darkened space. “Dixie?”
Silence returned.
Dust motes hung in the air, and I trod around junk mail strewn on the floor. A row of hooks held pretty purses and cute jackets. Kane collected the nearest bag and searched inside. He moved on to the next, dropping the first on the floor.
I stooped to collect it. “Don’t be disrespectful. These are her things.”
He didn’t reply, but he hung the second up to search a third.
I entered the living room, something sweet and floral in the air like she’d just been here. On the left side, a knitted throwblanket decorated a sofa, and a stack of magazines perched on a cushion.
A tiny kitchenette in the corner held a kettle and a single mug, no hum from the half-sized fridge. No TV, nothing of value besides a little painted elephant on the fireplace.
I picked it up. Held it. She might have treasured this, yet it hadn’t been taken.
Kane passed me and slid open the doors to my right, revealing Dixie’s bedroom, a small bathroom beyond.
She wasn’t here. Relief mixed with deeper concerns. I was glad we hadn’t found her hurt or worse, but where was she, and why did she run?
Half-open drawers in her dresser and wire coat hangers on the bed suggested she’d packed fast. Kane picked up her hairbrush from the countertop and tossed it into the bag of hers he still carried.
What the…? Why would he need that?
He searched through her cupboards, and I turned away, a warning playing out in my mind. Then my gaze landed on Dixie’s coffee table. More specifically, the sleek grey edge of a tablet peeking out from a lower shelf.
I’d seen it before. It was the one she used when working for Cassie at the warehouse. A device she’d struggled with, unable to find where documents went when downloaded. It didn’t surprise me that she hadn’t taken it, but it was odd that it hadn’t been given back to Cassie.
More importantly, it might contain a clue to her whereabouts. Maybe a message or something in her email if she’d accessed it on there.
My heart pounded. Borrowing without permission was fine if I solved a missing person case. This was her secret window, and now it was mine. With a quick glance to check Kane was occupied in his snooping, I snatched it up and slid it into my bag,alongside the little elephant. I straightened and tried to control my racing pulse.
“She left in a hurry,” Kane rumbled behind me.
I jumped. For a big man, he could sneak quietly when he wanted to. “I was concluding the same thing. She’s taken some of her clothes but not all, and she’d moved things around in her living room, maybe needing to get something off a shelf.”
“Such as a passport, or maybe cash she’d kept hidden?”
