Dark Room by Andrea Kane
Lane studied her determined expression. She wasn’t budging in her resolve. Then again, neither was he. “You’re not going in there. So if you want to do something productive, start putting together a mental list of your valuables. Jewelry. Antiques. Electronic equipment. That way, the cops can get a quick handle on what’s missing.”
“You’re placating me,” Morgan countered. “Don’t. We both know this wasn’t a robbery. Winshore is doing well, but Jill and I are pouring all our profits back into the business. The Impressa is the most expensive purchase we’ve got in the place, other than our computers and our server. As for personal property, I collect self-help books and Jill collects yoga CDs. There’s not much resale value in those. No. This break-in is tied to the murder investigations. That’s why that photo was shoved under my doormat. Whoever did this must have planted it there.”
“Okay, fine, I agree.” Lane’s restless gaze swept the brownstone, and Morgan realized he was as impatient for answers as she was. “So let’s move on to the next question. Was this just another scare tactic? Or was the intruder actually after something? If so, what? And did he get it?”
At Lane’s final question, Morgan’s hand instinctively went to her tote bag. “Probably not. Not unless I have something of my parents that I’m not thinking of. Because the most obvious tie to them would be these.” She pulled out a packet of snapshots and newspaper clippings. “These and all the other personal items—journals, mementos—that I’ve spent every night poring over these past few months.”
Lane’s brows rose. “You packed everything for one night?”
A nod. “I know it sounds strange. But as I was walking out of my bedroom last night, I got this weird feeling about leaving it behind. So, at the last minute, I crammed everything into my tote bag.”
“Good impulse.”
“Maybe.” Morgan blew out her breath in a frosty puff. “If any of this is what they were after. Assuming they were after anything at all.” An edgy pause. “Or any one at all.”
Lane glanced at his watch. “Let’s stop speculating. Time to call the cops.”
TWO PATROL CARS from the Nineteenth Precinct pulled up to Morgan’s brownstone about three minutes before Monty’s Corolla roared up to join them. He hopped out of his car, nodding at Al O’Hara—the PI he’d hired to be Morgan’s bodyguard—who was dashing over at the first sign of police activity.
“Chill, O’Hara,” Monty advised, gesturing for him to wait a discreet distance from the building. “Ms. Winter is fine. No one was hurt, or home. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Okay.” The PI posted himself near the curb, lighting up a cigarette.
Monty strode up the stairs to where Morgan and Lane were starting to brief the cops. There were four in all, two darting into the brownstone, hands on weapons, the other two interviewing Morgan.
“Impressive,” Monty noted as he reached them. “Four officers for a simple B and E. Must be your congressional connections, Morgan.” He winked at her.
She managed a thin smile in return, realizing that despite his casual air and wry humor, Monty was scrutinizing her, trying to assess her state of mind.
“You okay?” he asked bluntly.
“More or less.”
“Hey, Montgomery.” One of the cops—a middle-aged guy with a balding head and a solid build—greeted him, his tone and demeanor a tad aloof. “I’m not surprised to see you. I heard you were hired to work this case. But you sure got here fast.”
“Help work this case,” Monty corrected him. “As in: assist, facilitate, do what I can. Don’t worry, Stockton. I have no intention of stepping on your toes. We want the same thing.”
Stockton’s thick salt-and-pepper brows rose. “Yeah, you gave me that same BS the last time we worked a case together. It was a bit of a stretch.”
“That was different. I was a cop back then. I had the same pressure on me you did. Both our precincts wanted to take credit for the arrest of that three-borough rapist. This time, you can take full credit. All I want is for the perp to be caught.”
“And you want in when we search this place.”
“Damned straight. And now, when you talk to my client. It’ll save her the trouble of repeating herself.”
“Fine.” Stockton gave the okay nod to his partner, then turned back to Morgan. “You said that you and your boyfriend here—” A quizzical look at Lane as he scribbled down notes. “What’s your name?”
“Lane Montgomery.”
Stockton’s pen paused, and his head came up. “I don’t suppose you’re any relation to Monty here.”
“He’s my father.”
A grimace. “Of course he is. That explains his quick arrival.” Stockton waved away Lane’s forthcoming explanation. “Forget it. Let’s keep going.” He angled his head back toward Morgan, his pen poised to resume writing. “You said the front door was double-locked when you got here.”
“Yes.” Morgan was shivering again. “I used both my keys to open it.”
Stockton glanced around the outside of the building. “You have a door around back?”
“Leading to the terrace, yes. But it’s dead-bolted from the inside. That’s the only way it’s accessible, not from the street.”
“So it’s doubtful the perp got in that way. Same with these lower-level windows. They’re all barred. Which suggests he broke in either through an upstairs window, or through the front door by picking the locks. Do you have a security system?”
Morgan shook her head. “It was on our when-we-have-money list. But, frankly, this neighborhood is very safe, so we didn’t have a sense of urgency. Plus, Jill and I were trying to hold off for a while, not incur any more huge expenses.”
“By Jill—you mean, Jill Shore?”
“Yes.”
“The front door locks were picked,” Monty announced. He’d squatted down and was examining the keyhole area. “There are scratch marks here—” He pointed. “And here. Whoever did this is a pro. A confident SOB, too. He took the time to reengage the bolts into the jambs before he took off. You’d think he’d run like hell the minute he finished robbing the place. He didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Stockton agreed. “You’d think. So maybe that torn page wasn’t planted. Maybe he dropped it.”
“What torn page?” Monty demanded.
Wordlessly, Morgan produced the ripped page containing a laser-printed photo of Elyse and Arthur.
“It flew out from underneath Morgan’s doormat,” Lane explained.
At that moment, the other two cops emerged. “All clear,” one pronounced. “Wrecked and with a pretty pointed message left behind, but the perp’s gone.”
Morgan made a raw sound.
“In that case, would it be possible for us to continue this inside…” Lane shot a quick glance at Stockton’s badge to ascertain his rank. “…Sergeant Stockton? It’s freezing out here, and Ms. Winter looks like she’s about to collapse.”
“Of course.” A brusque nod. “Just don’t touch anything.”
“I know the drill.” Lane wrapped an arm around Morgan’s shoulders and escorted her inside, closely followed by Monty and the four officers.
“I’ve got to call Jill.” Morgan halted in her tracks as the realization struck. “She’s at her parents’ apartment. She needs to know about this.”
Stockton’s green-around-the-gills coloring was a vivid indication that he recognized the ramifications of that statement. Congressman Shore was about to become involved, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
“Go ahead and call,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “We’ll start a thorough search of the place.” He cleared his throat. “Tell Ms. Shore that we’ll wait till she gets here to examine her room.”
“Thank you. I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.” Morgan made the phone call, bile in her throat.
Elyse answered, a gasp of shock escaping her when she heard what had happened. Three times, she asked Morgan if she was okay. Wh
Morgan could hear Arthur and Jill firing questions in the background as she ended the call.
IF TELLING THE Shores was bad, viewing the apartment was worse.
The damage could be fixed. It required only the investment of time and hard work. The cost would be negligible since, as Morgan suspected, nothing had been stolen.
But the anguish, the sense of violation, that was something else.
The invasion of her personal space—her night table and dresser drawers having been rifled through, her intimate apparel having been touched by a stranger, an intruder—that alone made her skin crawl.
It didn’t come close to the wrenching of her insides when she saw the chilling message the police officer had referred to. It was more graphic and more devastating than Morgan had ever imagined.
A series of visual horrors had been carefully arranged on Morgan’s bed.
There were newspaper photos of Arthur and Elyse, some from clippings, others pulled off the Internet and printed. Most of the photos included Jill, some included her. All of them were slashed multiple times, red paint dribbled on their faces and bodies. To add to the gruesome effect, there were holes punched in the center of their foreheads—clearly simulating bullet holes.
The macabre centerpiece to this display was a sheet of paper stuck to her pillow with a chef ’s knife taken from Morgan and Jill’s kitchen. The knife had been plunged through the pillow and buried deeply in the mattress below. The laser-printed note, set in a large font and boldface type, read: Stop digging into the past or this will be the future. One family down. One to go.
Morgan stared at the words, her hands flying to her face, a strangled cry lodging in her throat.
“That explains the carefully dissected newspapers all over the place,” Monty muttered. “And the torn Internet photo shoved under the doormat. The bastard took the time to construct a collage.”
“With his own personal touches,” Stockton agreed.
“Talk about being prepared, our perp was a regular Boy Scout.” Monty’s forehead creased as he scrutinized the scene. “He came equipped with everything, right down to his own arts-and-crafts supplies.” A quick glance at Stockton. “Humor me and let me know if something turns up when you dust for prints. I’m sure van Gogh wore gloves—but you never know. Maybe he took them off for the finer strokes.”
“What happened? What have you found?” Arthur shoved his way past his wife and daughter and into the room. Behind him, Jill hovered in the doorway, her face sheet white as she peered into the room. She looked lost and in shock. So did Elyse, who gave her daughter’s shoulders a protective squeeze before going straight to Morgan.
“Morgan?” Elyse gripped her hands. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
A mechanical nod. “I wasn’t here when it happened. I only got home a little while ago.”
“And walked in on this.” Elyse sounded ill, her gaze growing more and more grim as it swept the room.
“I asked what you found,” Arthur repeated, his hard stare flickering over Stockton and coming to rest on Monty.
It was clear which one of them he was addressing.
Stockton didn’t look offended. He looked relieved to be off the hook.
“What we found is pretty much what you’re looking at.” Monty took the congressman’s authoritative air right in stride. “The front door locks were picked. The whole place was rifled. But the heavy-duty ransacking was done to Morgan’s things—her desk, her files, and obviously her bedroom.” A quick glance at Jill. “Your room’s not bad. Messy, but not too wrecked. Once the cops are finished doing their thing, it should take no time to straighten up.”
“Thank you,” Jill replied. She was clearly fighting back tears.
Monty saw that, and his tone gentled. “Your desk and work space were barely touched. Just a few knickknacks tossed around for effect. Your biggest job will be rearranging your holiday decorations. But they’re all salvageable.”
Jill swallowed hard. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Maybe you should be,” Stockton interjected. “The threat being issued here doesn’t just single out Ms. Winter. It includes your whole family.”
“Let’s not overreact.” Monty sounded like he wanted to choke Stockton. “It’s property, not people.”
“That’s not the tune you were singing a half hour ago,” Stockton retorted. “You were all over this.”
“I still am. But I can afford to step on toes. You can’t. This case has already pushed hot buttons at the Manhattan D.A.’s, the Brooklyn D.A.’s, and the Seventy-fifth. The D.A.s want the case solved. The Seventy-fifth wants it to go away. I doubt the Nineteenth wants to be dragged into this mess because of an unrelated B and E.”
“If it’s an unrelated B and E.”
“Find out. Check out the evidence. If there’s a link, by all means jump in with both feet. In the meantime, tread carefully. We’ve got nothing but a vandalized house and some creative artwork. Nothing was taken. No one was hurt. The perp waited till no one was home to do his thing. Clearly, physical assault wasn’t part of his plan.”
“Not this time. But—”
“But nothing.” Monty was done letting Stockton follow through with this line of speculation. It was only intensifying the fear and tension already pervading the room. “Either this is some wack job’s idea of fun, or it’s a warped stunt meant to scare the hell out of Morgan.”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.” Stockton wasn’t pleased about being managed in front of the congressman. “So let’s finish our search. We’ve still got that spare bedroom to go through.”
Monty knew what bedroom Stockton was referring to. It was where Morgan kept her parents’ memorabilia. And he didn’t want that stuff confiscated.
“The spare room can wait,” he declared. “This bedroom was the primary target. Besides, we already did a once-over on that room and—”
“Go ahead, Sergeant.” Lane’s agreement drowned out Monty’s preemptive strike. “It’s your case. You do the search. Monty and I will talk to the Shores—and stay out of your way.” A wry grin at Stockton. “Don’t fault him. He’s the best in the business. But taking a backseat’s not his strength. Not to worry—I’ll sit on him so you can do your job.”
“Thanks.” Stockton was pumped up again, looking smug and pleased by the vote of confidence from Monty’s son.
Monty shot a quick look at Lane, and a current of silent communication ran between them.
“Fine,” Monty said, changing gears. “I’ll stay in here and keep looking around.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Stockton cautioned.
“Yeah, Stockton. I went to the Police Academy, too.”
With a blistering glare, Stockton walked out, gesturing for his partner to follow him.
They’d barely rounded the corner into the hall, when Monty planted himself in front of his son, arms folded across his chest.
“Morgan has it—all of it.” Tersely, Lane answered his father’s unspoken question. “In there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the tote bag. “No need to remove evidence from the crime scene.”
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I am that I just saved your ass.”
A corner of Monty’s mouth lifted. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
From across the room, Morgan took in the exchange. No one else was paying attention.
“What was that inane crap you just spouted about overreacting?” Arthur asked Monty, pausing from his agitated pacing by the windows. “Was that your attempt to manage us?”
“No,” Monty countered. “It was my way of downplaying a personal crisis you’re trying to keep from becoming front-page news. Besides, there’s no cause for panic. I’ve got men assigned to watch every member of your family.”
“That doesn’t appease me anymore,” Arthur shot back. “These scare tactics are escalating. What if whoever’s responsible takes the next step? What if he goes after—”
“Dad…stop.” Jill waved away his words. Leaning forward, she gave Morgan a fierce hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Morgan was trembling, and her lashes were damp with tears as she hugged her friend. “None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for me. I feel like some kind of pariah. The truth is, Arthur’s right. We don’t know if this is an idle threat or a real one. And I refuse to play Russian roulette with your lives.”
“Morgan.” Quietly, Lane commanded her attention, waiting until she met his gaze. “Don’t do this to yourself. More important, don’t give up. See this through. If you don’t, you’re letting this son of a bitch win.”
“Maybe,” she admitted, her tone equally soft. “But I don’t care.” A hard swallow. “As I told you, to me, security trumps all.” She averted her head, emotionally compelled to rescrutinize the violent display on the bed. “When it was just my life I was gambling with, it was one thing. But I’m putting the people I love at risk. How can I live with that?”
“You can’t,” Monty supplied in a hard voice. “And you won’t.”
He didn’t have a chance to elaborate. Approaching footsteps told them the cops were returning.
“The closet in the spare room was ransacked,” Stockton announced as he reentered the bedroom. “That’s about it.” A questioning look at Morgan and Jill. “Anything of significance in that closet?”
“Just guest linens and storage boxes,” Morgan supplied. “I’ll go through it with you and account for everything.”
They were gone and back in five minutes.
“Nothing was taken,” Stockton announced.
“I didn’t think it would be,” Monty returned drily.
“We’ve covered every room now except Jill’s,” Morgan said. “And—” She broke off, weaving on her feet.