“Someone was looking for something.” Morris waved a hand around the room. “And they focused in here.”
“No kidding.” Gil couldn’t stop the sarcasm from slipping out.
“We’re going to need her to tell us if anything is missing.” Morris frowned at the mess. “Although I’m not sure if she can even tell.”
“She doesn’t want to come in here.”
“I’m not saying she needs to come in now.” Morris put his hands on his hips and jerked his head toward the body. “Don’t want her to have this in her head.”
At least they were on the same page.
Gil gave the mirror over her dresser a long glance. The picture he’d noticed that first night was still there. Should he tell her he had the same one in his office? Or wait for her to find it. Maybe he’d wait.
He scanned the rest of the room, and his eyes caught on a decorative box tipped on its side on her nightstand. Letters and note cards spilled from it.
He knew those letters.
He’d written those letters.
His fingers twitched as he fought the compulsion to scoop the letters from the floor and settle them safely back where they belonged.
“You okay, man?”
Gil turned his attention away from the mess and to Zane. “No. Let’s get this done.”
They picked their way through the path forensics had made and went into Ivy’s bathroom. Makeup and all the random stuff women somehow managed to find time to use every day lay everywhere. “What was this guy looking for? Did he think she’d keep something in her makeup bag?”
Ivy legitimately might put the house on the market when she saw this. It might be easier to sell the whole house “as is” than to restore order.
They walked back through the bedroom and paused in the hallway. Morris waved a hand in the direction of the other rooms. “As far as we can tell, nothing was touched in the rest of the house.”
Luke and Zane shared a look, and Gil was pretty sure he knew what they were thinking. “Either he had a specific reason to expect her to have something hidden in her private space, or he found whatever he was looking for.”
Zane paced away from them and into Ivy’s living area, and they followed him. “What if he wasn’t alone. There’s a lot of chaos in that room. It could have been done by one man with some time or by a team moving quickly. Either way, someone besides our dead guy was here.”
Luke jerked his head toward the bedroom. “That’s a lot of blood in there. Any thoughts on what killed him?”
“The only obvious injury is the slice through his neck.” Morris didn’t elaborate. A knife used in the right—or from the victim’s point of view, wrong—place could sever both the jugular and the carotid. Their bad guy turned victim would have bled out quickly.
“The victim’s a big guy. It would take either some serious strength or someone very fast to get a knife to the guy’s neck. And there are no obvious signs of struggle.” Gil closed his eyes and forced his mind to recreate Ivy’s bedroom. “The damage looks intentional. Sliced mattress and box spring. Clearly done with a knife. Maybe even done with the murder weapon. Drawers pulled open and dumped. But the lamps are intact. The mirror isn’t cracked. Whatever happened in that room was methodical. Not the actions of a tall guy flailing around trying to keep someone from slicing his neck.”
Morris nodded. “The ME may be able to give us something preliminary, but we won’t get an autopsy report until tomorrow, and even then, we won’t get tox back for at least a week or two. DNA takes longer. There was no ID on the guy, and his fingertips have all been sliced off.”
That explained the extra blood around the victim’s hands.
“He’s a redhead—red hair on his arms, red eyelashes—and the size matches. He could be the big guy who stunned Ivy.”
“If so, someone’s cleaning house.” Zane looked out the front windows. “I stand by what I said earlier today. She can’t be left alone, Gil. Not for a second.”
“I agree.”
“But will she agree?” Zane pressed.
“I don’t anticipate much argument. Especially not now.”
“Then get her out of here.” Morris jabbed a finger toward thedoor. “I’ll get you a picture of our dead guy. Preferably one that disguises the neck.”
Gil dreaded this for Ivy. “She won’t be able to place him as one of her kidnappers. He had on a mask.”
