Chapter 30
The ransacking of Dominique’s apartment might not have been obvious to anyone who didn’t know her as well as Desmond did. His sister had no problem kicking her stiletto heels deep into a corner when she came home at the end of the day, letting them lie like weary soldiers. But she believed that even the smallest bit of paper had to be in place. That was one way she’d taken after their grandmother, who regarded an ill-placed Post-It note as a signpost to hell.
Dominique’s apartment was clean enough, but it wasn’t orderly. Opened mail spilled over the coffee table, pooling on the floorboards. A short file cabinet yawned open a foot, which would have driven his sister crazy. Presumably, her laptop had been on the kitchen table, because the power cord lay there, still clinging to the outlet. The computer hadn’t been with her in Pennsylvania, and because the power supply was sitting in front of him, Desmond was sure she’d left it behind. That meant it was in the hands of whoever had broken into her home.
The kitchen seemed undisturbed, but the bedroom was a minor disaster. An entire shelf on the bookcase next to her bed was empty, and Desmond stared at it for a full moment before realizing what had been there. Dominique always kept diaries, and they were gone—not just the last year’s notes, but all of them. That realization brought bile into his throat. He had no intention of invading his sister’s privacy, even postmortem. But he had a duty to protect them, or even destroy them. The knowledge that they were in a stranger’s hands was agonizing.
The air was heavy with the scent of roses, and it enveloped him. Dominique would never walk through that door again. Her quick smile and easy laugh were gone, and he was going to have to live with that.
The invader had gone through his sister’s jewelry box, not even caring enough to reseal it. Desmond took stock of what was there, but he had no idea what was missing. The family pieces that he remembered—a gold locket that had once hung around their mother’s throat, a pearl ring that once shone on their grandmother’s right hand when she went to church—were still there. More than that, a heavy gold chain lay entwined with a pink pearl necklace, turquoise beads, and dozens of pairs of gold earrings. That told him the thief had been very selective, and had combed through the apartment with a specific objective. It seemed to Desmond that any information that might shed light on his sister’s life—and especially her recent associations—had vanished. That part of her had been whisked away.
He was surrounded by Dominique’s things, signs and signifiers of her young life, but Desmond was the one who felt like a ghost.
He knew he had no choice now but to call the police. That had been the second item on his to-do list for the day, right after making the sorrowful pilgrimage to Dominique’s home. He’d needed to see it with his own eyes, but he’d also wondered if his sister had left anything incriminating lying around. But if there had been a clue that revealed her plan to humiliate Gary, it was AWOL.
He spent some time taking whatever inventory he could of the place. He took some photographs with his phone, and he recorded every number that had dialed in or been called from Dominique’s land line. He was afraid of touching things. The apartment would need to be fingerprinted. Of course, if the man who’d bleached the stairs at the death house had sifted through the apartment, that wouldn’t accomplish much.
When he went to call the cops, he discovered he’d missed a call from Dominique’s friend Sabrina. She was sobbing so hard on the message, it was hard to make out words, but clearly she’d just heard the awful news. He knew Sabrina loved his sister, but that made the thought of a conversation all the more daunting. Feeling furtive and guilty, he sent back a text message. I just don’t have any words right now. I’ll be in touch later.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his reserve up if he got on the phone with her. Whenever he saw Sabrina, she had a way of gently prodding him to reveal things he never imagined disclosing. It was as if these thoughts were bubbling under the surface, and she guided them to daylight. It was an appealing trait, but a dangerous one. He knew that if he spoke to Sabrina that day, he would break down weeping in guilt and shame and sadness, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs. There would be a time to mourn Dominique later. Before he could do that, he had to get justice for his sister.
❖
Desmond couldn’t have explained exactly what reaction he’d expected from the NYPD, but the pair of uniformed cops that arrived at Dominique’s door didn’t fit his expectations. One was a young Latino man whose eyes spun in his head when he saw Dominique’s photograph. “I know her!” he said excitedly. “I used to have her calendar when I was in high school!”
Desmond understood that a ridiculously large percentage of men in their twenties had once owned a calendar featuring Dominique. Unlike many top models, his sister refused to pose nude, but that didn’t mean she was a prude. Her swimsuit calendar made Desmond’s face get hot whenever he remembered it.
“Did she die?” his partner asked. She was a sleepy-eyed woman in her midtwenties with straightened hair and a mouth full of gum. “I swear, I think I heard that on the radio this morning.”
Desmond cleared his throat. “She died at a house out in rural Pennsylvania.” His voice was reined in, his tone as close to neutral as he could manage. “She and her boyfriend
