got the okay to do this, Kick. Look, I need to get back home. You want anything else, give me a buzz.” Then he remembered the computer. “By the way, I need to pick up Ms. Andrews’s suitcase and laptop. Are they here?”
Kick frowned. “Where did she leave them?”
“Right by the front door, she said.” He felt his heart jump when he noted Kick’s tightened lips. “What?”
“I went over everything in that apartment, Mitch. No computer. No bag.”
They stared at each other for a minute. “Either somebody on the investigating team has sticky fingers, which we know is not likely, or…the killer was still in the apartment when she arrived and took her stuff with him after she went into the bedroom,” Mitch said.
“That’s crazy,” Kick said. “Maybe she’s making them up. Ever think about that?”
“Maybe not. We know the shooter was after something,” Mitch said. “Could be he thought Robin Andrews might have brought whatever it was with her.”
Kick’s eyes narrowed, but he had nothing to say. Mitch didn’t mention the disk then. It seemed best at the moment to keep it to himself. Until he found out what was on the damned thing and if it was enough to kill someone over, he was not turning the disk over to Kick.
“Catch you later,” he said as he turned to leave.
“Hey, wait a minute! Let’s talk about this.”
But Mitch didn’t have time to waste arguing. Whoever took Robin’s things must have realized pretty soon that they didn’t have everything she’d brought with her to Nashville. The attack in the diner, the object of it being Robin’s purse, meant just what he’d thought it meant.
Whoever was looking for the disk wouldn’t have any idea where to find Robin at the moment. Hardly anyone knew where he lived. That was a closely kept secret, since he had made a few enemies during his time on the force. He had sent quite a few guys up the proverbial river who might paddle back down to find him after they’d served time.
Mitch was sure no one had trailed them to the neighborhood this morning. He had been alert to a possible tail after what had happened at Dylan’s.
This suspension of his was coming at the worst possible time. Mitch needed to be on the Andrews case officially, where he could get things done without first having to run everything by Kick.
Going to bat for Robin against his own partner could produce some serious questions about Mitch’s abilities as a detective.
For his sake, as well as her own, Robin Andrews had better be totally innocent and he’d better be able to prove it. This new development was another solid indication that she was. Somebody had stolen her computer and her suitcase.
Unless Kick was right and she hadn’t brought either with her in the first place. Was she going a roundabout route to convince him someone else had been in that apartment besides her and the dead man?
Robin awoke, looked around the unfamiliar room and then squinted at her watch. It was afternoon, close to four o’clock. She felt as if someone had beaten her with a very large stick.
She got up, straightened her clothing the best she could and found the bathroom. Straight out of Country Homes, she thought. Ruffles and roses. Wine red and dark green on cream. Vanilla potpourri emanated from a small porcelain flower on the shelf below the mirror. Her reflection made her groan.
The makeup was history. Her hair was lank and in need of shampoo. The syrupy breakfast she’d ingested after the confrontation at Dylan’s Diner had made her feel queasy and she wasn’t hungry now. She figured she might as well do as Mitch Winton advised and make herself at home, at least temporarily. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do since he hadn’t returned.
After a long, relaxing bubble bath, she dried off, combed her wet hair into place and put back on her wrinkled clothing.
She was searching for her shoes when she heard the squeak of the doorknob as someone outside turned it. Again it turned slowly but firmly in both directions. The door was locked. It must be Mitch.
She padded to the door. There was no peephole to look through. “Yes? Who is it?”
Again the doorknob turned, sharply back and forth, this time without stealth. The door shook with the violent attempts to open it.
“I have a gun,” she cried as loudly and menacingly as she could, quickly scouting the living room for anything she could use to defend herself. “And I will shoot!” There. She had sounded determined. Forceful.
Silence. Then the wooden stairs creaked twice.
Robin waited, ear to the door, listening, but heard nothing further. No closing of doors, no hurried footsteps, no sound of a car engine outside. Just the silence peculiar to a quiet neighborhood with all the children at school and their parents away at work.
She dashed to the phone on the table beside the rear window to call the police. No dial tone. It was dead. Had the cop who lived here had the phone disconnected before she left?
Robin huddled in the corner, the dead receiver clutched to her chest. Her heart pounded so loudly she doubted she could hear anyone breaking through the door with an ax.
If she were at home, there would be a solid steel door, not that lovely six-panel one, hung in a century-old door frame. The whole thing would probably collapse inward with one good body slam.
At her own apartment, this scare would never have happened. Building security was so efficient, whoever tried to get inside would never have made it to the elevator.
“Stupid!” she thought suddenly, replacing the receiver. That incident at the diner had made her paranoid.
Some friend had probably come to see the woman who normally lived here, that was all. When Robin had answered instead, they became concerned someone was in here who shouldn’t be. Now they had gone to notify the police that a stranger with a gun was in Sandra Cunningham’s apartment. Yes, that made sense. That was it. That was what she would do. She looked at the phone again, knowing she was grasping at straws.
“It’s broad daylight,” Robin reminded herself. “And this is Nashville, not New York. The crime rate here must be low.” But it wasn’t exactly that, now was it? James had been murdered in his own home just last evening. And two men had burst into the diner in a robbery attempt.
No matter how much she scoffed at herself or tried to explain away the visitor, Robin could not dismiss her fear. Someone had tried to enter the apartment without knocking first. And she was alone and unarmed. What if they came back, bringing some means to get through the door?
What were they after? Was it those same men from last night, perhaps after James’s disk?
Then she heard footsteps on the stairs again. This time whoever it was did not care whether she heard him! Terror mounted. She rushed through the bedroom and into the bathroom. Hurriedly she closed the door and realized there was no lock on it. “Oh, no!” she moaned.
Recalling Mitch’s order to get under the table when they were accosted in the diner, Robin knew she had to find a place to hide. She yanked open the large double cabinet beneath the sink and crawled inside. God,
