Page 31 of Tight Spaces

Chapter seven

They made the six hour drive in five and still managed to talk nearly nonstop the whole time. Danusia told Max about what it was like to grow up out of sync with her peers and in a family of such loving, overprotective, and yet distant siblings.

Max told her about growing up on the fringe of his middle-class schoolmates with a long-haul trucker for a father. His mother hadn’t handled the separations well. When Max told her he’d never heard the woman laugh until several months after his father’s death, when she’d started seeing a widowed school teacher, Danusia had felt tears burn her eyes.

"You think no woman could handle a relationship filled with absences."

"No woman should have to."

"Military wives do it all the time. Other long-haul truckers have happy marriages."

"The divorce rate in the military, especially any special forces branch, is significantly higher than national averages. Same for long-haul trucking."

"It’s still possible."

He’d changed the subject, but she was beginning to see how a man who based most of his excuses for not getting involved on stuff that would only matter in a relationship could say he was only interested in casual sex.

#

Max looked for anyone or anything out of the ordinary as he walked slightly to the side and behind Danusia into her apartment building. There were security cameras in the parking lot and the entrance.

If the perps hadn’t been caught on them, that meant one of two things. Lucky or professional. He knew which one he was leaning toward.

Danusia lived on the third floor and her apartment was at the end of the hall. Again, the fact she was furthest from the elevator and stairwell increased the perps’ chances of being seen.

"No news on who broke in?" he asked, pretty sure he knew the answer already.

"None. Two men wearing dark hoodies were seen on the security cameras, but their faces were never visible."

"And no one noticed suspicious persons loitering outside your apartment?"

"The police said they don’t have any leads."

He didn’t say anything else as they met up with the manager outside Danusia’s door.

The woman wearing a red power suit let them in. "I don’t know what’s going on. This is highly irregular," she said, giving Danusia an accusing glare.

"What is irregular was your superintendent’s careless attitude about putting a new door in. This second break-in could well have been prevented." Which he actually doubted, but hell if he was going to stand by while the snooty bitch tried to make Danusia feel responsible.

His little professor didn’t seem to be paying attention to either of them. Her focus was on the chaos on the other side of the now open door.

Danusia walked slowly inside, her head swiveling to take in what was clearly a very thorough job done on turning her apartment. Shit.

This was no robbery. Someone had been looking for something. And they hadn’t found it, or the entire place wouldn’t be so methodically trashed.

#

Which is what he said to the detective when he and Danusia stopped by the police station later.

"That was our take as well, Mr. Baker."

Max frowned. "And you didn’t warn Danusia? Why the hell not? She could have walked right into something."

The detective gave Danusia what was no doubt supposed to be an intimidating frown. "In our experience, when someone is looking for something with that much determination, the person in possession of that something is already aware of the fact."

"We as in who, detective?" Danusia asked. "Your police department? How many cases of this sort have you investigated? Enough to make an acceptable statistical average?"

"I’ll ask the questions here, Miss Chenko."