My worry intensified.
I found no sign of forced entry. No broken window. No jimmied jamb. That threw me. I’d engaged the deadbolt before leaving and I’d unlocked both it and the door lock when I’d come home. The back door was also locked. It wasn’t possible she’d just wandered in off the street. A terrible thought occurred to me: Was I in the wrong house? Could I have had that much to drink? Had my key fit the door of a stranger’s house purely by chance? A moment of panic gripped me, a surreal surge of something like the opposite of déjà vu.
But, no, my things were in every room. The dirty shirts, jockey shorts, jeans, and socks piled in a corner of the bedroom closet were mine. Without a doubt, this was my castle.
I stared at the girl again. She was remarkably beautiful, crashed in my bed, out like a bulb with blown filaments. I toyed with the idea of calling 911 and having her removed, possibly in a gurney, but all things considered, that felt like an overreaction to the situation.
As did crawling into bed with her, even if it was queen-sized and rightfully mine. I’m an honest, simple-minded sonofabitch, and a poor replacement for Mike Hammer, not to mention the aforementioned Magnum. I might’ve had more in common with Hercule Poirot than I cared to admit.
So…what else? I went into the living room and made up the couch.
CHAPTER THREE
THE HOUSE WAS eighty years old. A few original windows were single paned. You can’t buy single-pane these days. Two bedrooms, one bath. I’d turned the second bedroom into storage and an office. When my daughter Nicole came to Reno, she stayed with Dallas. On those rare occasions that she stayed with me, she took the couch in the living room. Her choice, but, tonight, after two minutes on the miserable sonofabitch, I understood her preference for staying at her mother’s place. The couch, which had belonged to my parents, was lumpy, short, and still exuded the smell of bulldog, Brutus, even after all these years. God only knows how long that beast had used it as his own personal bed.
I didn’t get to sleep for an hour, and then I didn’t sleep worth a damn. I kept hearing noises—sly footsteps, slender manicured fingers gliding through my wallet, doors opening and closing, papers rustling. All phantom sounds, of course. I checked in on K several times during the night and she was out cold every time. She hadn’t even turned over. Her gentle snore never lost its tempo, like a kind of slow surf.
Nor did the gun beneath my pillow help my peace of mind, partly because I’d never kept it there before. It wasn’t a joke or a toy. It was a featherweight S&W .357 Magnum, fourteen ounces empty, with a titanium cylinder, scandium-aluminum alloy frame. It could punch holes big enough in a person that it kept me up half the night worrying about that fact. One bad dream and who knows who or what I might’ve blown those holes in.
* * *
I was up at the first gray light of dawn, eager to solve my own personal at-home mystery before going out and taking on whatever Greg intended to throw my way.
K was still out. I gave her a shake, testing, but she didn’t stir. I took her pulse. Fifty-two, strong and steady, about what I’d expect of a woman in her physical condition. And I checked her left hand. No ring or ring mark, which made me feel marginally better.
I ran my toothbrush under hot water for half a minute to kill whatever unknown cooties might be clinging to it, then brushed my teeth. Pete’s Wicked Ale the morning after isn’t half as tasty as the night before.
I risked a quick shower. Not that I’m a prude, far from it, I like to think, but visions of the movie Psycho kept intruding, even if my new roomie bore little resemblance to Anthony Perkins and I bore even less to Janet Leigh.
I gathered up clothing and dressed in the living room, then brewed a pot of coffee to put a spark of life into my body. I had a bowl of cornflakes, hoping the crunching would wake her. It didn’t.
By seven I was ready for work, two hours early. I used the time to prowl around in stocking feet, snooping around my own place, hunting for clues. I didn’t find a blessed one. Not a laundry mark or gasoline receipt, postcard or movie stub. Nothing. Just K and her wad of smelly clothes.
I looked at that pretty head a lot. I didn’t peek under the covers again, although the thought crossed my mind every minute or two. I might’ve missed something the night before. And it was possible she had a tattoo that would’ve told me something useful, you never know.
At 8:50 I had to leave. As a parting shot, I shook the hell out of her, managing to get something that sounded like, “Unn-ug-uhhh-Iyuhnn-neh.” It might’ve been Urdu, or possibly a remote dialect of Ethiopia, I had no way of knowing.
I scribbled a note. Basically, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” then I got in the Toyota and took off.
* * *
Carson & Rudd Investigative Services was in a blond brick building a few blocks south of downtown, on Sierra Street near the old courthouse, right about where you’d expect to find a detective agency if you were looking for one. I parked around back. I had on jeans and a short-sleeve striped shirt, no tie. I had a suit carrier over my shoulder with the good stuff in it, just in case. But if by chance I was going to end up in a dark alley at night—something I hoped would happen—I wanted the jogging
