Chapter 10
632 Words
Chapter Ten
Darcey’s townhouse surprised me. Classy but not overbearing, the three-story limestone building was sandwiched between two up-market Colonials in a leafy street close enough to Central Park to command a premium price. She’d done well for herself, and this new address showed it.
Several expensive cars parked along the street made my motor-pool issue look decidedly underwhelming. I instantly felt out of place. Why would anyone who could afford these luscious digs want to take her own life? It didn’t make much sense, but I guess even the well-heeled can feel suicidal. Who’s to know what goes on inside other people’s heads.
I entered through the arched doorway, pushing the heavy oak door aside, and took the stairs up to the third floor, trying to make sense of how my day had gone. Five hours off the plane and I was already knee-deep in a murder case involving someone I’d once dated. More than that, I also badly wanted another drink. Back on my old turf, the need seemed almost logical. And without Amir around to make me feel guilty about it, the craving became much stronger and more difficult to ignore.
I reached the third floor and took in the plush hallway. The ivory paint job was cast in gentle amber lighting by wall sconces. Generic but expensive-looking artwork dotted the walls.
Even if Rey hadn’t already told me the house number, I would have known my target from the streamers of tattered crime scene tape blocking the last apartment on the left, fifty feet away.
I approached the doorway. Twenty feet short of the apartment, I stopped.
Something was wrong.
A noise from inside reached my ears. I held my breath and strained to listen. Dull thumps pounded the floorboards. Low music floated into the hallway. As a crime scene, the place should have been empty. With my hand at my hip, I crept toward the entrance.
A deep burgundy carpet covered the floor and silenced my footsteps. No one would hear me coming.
The noises grew louder, and as I reached the door. It was ajar.
Someone was inside.
Another thump and a scraping.
Trespassers? A neighbor? Had someone returned to destroy evidence?
My mind raced with possibilities, but there was no time for doubt. I drew my Glock and teased the door open, praying it wouldn’t creak.
I plucked the remnants of crime scene tape out of the way. It had been cut with something sharp.
I let the tape drift to the floor and quietly pivoted inside, clearing the corners. The doorway opened into a small foyer, decorated with a painting of a beach and a large tacky vase. Not something Darcey would have liked back when I had known her.
Things change, Rey said in the back of my mind.
Moving through the foyer as silently as possible, I reached an intersection—the kitchen to the right, a short hallway to the left. The music was louder now and seemed to be coming from the opposite end of the place, where quivering lights danced against the wall.
Another sound; this one from further in front of me. Oddly familiar but somehow menacing—a tearing followed by a sharp snip.
A knife?
I crept around the small sink and utility room into the kitchen. It was immaculate with antique wooden floors and dark granite surfaces highlighted by spotless steel appliances. This didn’t seem like the kind of place the Darcey I knew would have been comfortable calling home. It opened into a small living room.
Movement caught the corner of my eye, a dark shape. I gasped. Someone was there, to my right, barely out of sight. A shadow shifting in the flickering lights.
My heart thumped loud as my body ached for the booze to numb my nerves.
I took a deep breath, raised my gun, and rounded the corner.
And came face to face with a dead woman.
- Writer
