“Mail order.” He offered her a double-dimple grin, trying to look as harmless as possible. “Come on. Let me come with you. We’ll make a game out of it.”
Her rapier stare jerked back toward him as if he’d used a fish lure to hook it.
“What kind of game?” she asked.
The doors opened and she stepped inside. Mason followed. She didn’t stop him.
“The person who finds evidence first wins. Seasoned professional versus snot-nosed kid.”
Croix stared at him, as if weighing the pros and cons of letting him to the upper level. He’d forgotten the key wasn’t being allowed on the elevator, the key was the key.
Mason folded his hands in front of him and stared forward, chuckling.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing. It’s just I’m going to crush you.”
Croix fit the key hanging off the squiggly pink plastic bracelet on her wrist into the control panel.
Mason smiled.
When the doors opened, he followed Croix to the bedroom at the end of the hall, where she used a key card to enter Martisha’s room. The open door revealed a sparse but not particularly neat room. Mason was intrigued to see the unmade bed. If the nurse asked housekeeping to skip her room, maybe she did have something to hide.
“Okay, here’s how we’re going to do it,” said Mason, clapping his hands together. “You pick the spot you want to search, and then I do. First one to find something helpful wins.”
“I can go first?”
He scoffed. “Of course. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”
She grinned. “Oh, you’re going down, old man. Closet.”
“The whole closet? Jeeze, I should have been more specific.” Mason crossed his arms against his chest.
Croix opened the closet door and searched every inch, knocking on the walls, shaking out dirty laundry and feeling inside pockets and shoes before tossing cleared items to one side. She dragged a chair from its table by the window and stood on it to check the upper shelf.
“Dammit,” he heard her mutter.
“Looks like you struck out,” said Mason.
She returned the chair to its place. “How can there be nothing in a whole closet?”
“Too obvious,” said Mason, pretending to yawn.
She frowned. “Maybe.”
“Rookie mistake.”
“Shut up. Your turn.”
He scanned the room. “I’ll take the bed.”
“Ha!” Croix pointed. “You could have had the dresser.”
Mason ignored her and patted each pillow of the queen bed. He lifted the mattress to peer beneath it. He lowered himself to his knees to look underneath.
“Nothing but dust bunnies,” he muttered.
Croix grinned. “I call dresser.”
Mason used the bed to pull himself back to his feet as Croix rummaged through the dresser’s drawers.
“Jeeze, you could wait until I said I was done,” he said, peering over her shoulder.
That’s weird.
Something about Martisha’s underwear drawer looked different to its opposite mate. The stain at the bottom of the drawer was a darker shade of brown. He looked away so she wouldn’t notice his interest.
Finding nothing, Croix closed the last drawer and turned, her gaze settling on the side tables flanking the bed.
“You only get one side table,” she said.
“What? Side tables are a pair.”
“Nope. Which do you want?”
He pointed behind her. “I pick the bureau.”
Croix’s jaw dropped. “But I just did that.”
He slipped past her to open the underwear drawer with the darker bottom. Sliding it from its frame, he dumped the contents to the ground. As he turned it sideways, something thunked.
“What was that?” Croix tried to snatch the drawer and they jerked it back and forth.
“My drawer,” said Mason.
“The bureau was mine.”
“Until you were done.”
“I never actually said I was done.”
“Ooh, you’re such a cheater. How can you sleep at night, girl?”
Croix giggled as the door to the room swung open and Shee appeared, her hair a dark explosion bunched around the white bandage stuck to her head.
“What are you two doing?” she asked.
She looked annoyed.
“We’re checking Martisha’s room,” said Croix, breathless from their struggle over the drawer.
Mason released and the girl stumbled back onto the bed, starting her laughter anew. She knocked on the bottom of the drawer.
It sounded hollow.
She glanced at Mason, smirking.
“Hey now. That’s my find,” he said.
“Nope. My dresser.”
She flipped the drawer and pushed against the bottom until it slid away to reveal a hidden compartment, and in it, a cell phone.
“False bottom,” she said, looking at Mason. “How’d you know?”
He thrust his hands in his pockets. “Um, I’m awesome?”
“Don’t touch it,” said Shee, pointing at the cell. “We might need prints.”
“They’re probably all over her underwear,” said Mason, pointing to the pile on the floor.
Croix tittered.
Shee’s expression suffered an extra twist of lemon. “Can you hack the phone?”
Croix shook her head. “No, but I know someone who maybe could. I can lift prints, though; want me to do that?”
Mason pinched a pair of granny underwear and dangled it near Croix’s face. Snorting a laugh, she knocked it away.
“Ew. Cut it out.”
Shee jerked a t-shirt from an open bureau drawer and handed it to the girl. “Take the phone downstairs. See what you can do.”
Croix wrapped her hand in the tee and picked up the phone.
Mason took a step forward to block the girl’s path, bumping her as she tried to leave.
“Oh excuse me. I didn’t see you,” he said.
“You’re an idiot,” she said, snickering.
Croix left and Mason looked at Shee to find her scowling at him.
“Head hurt?” he asked.
“It’s fine. He numbed it.”
“For a couple of stitches? What a wuss.” He thought his expression made it clear he was teasing her, but she continued to frown at him.
“Why are you looking at me like
