A young bellhop came to help him.
“You’re going to believe that I’m going to check in?” George asked Dan dryly.
“I’m thinking that yeah, you’re going to,” Dan said pleasantly. “For your own safety, and because you know I’ll have access to all the security cameras.”
“He’s good,” George told Katie, standing by her window and leaning down to talk to them both. “Then again, if he is so damned good, why didn’t he catch the real killer in Orlando?”
He patted at the car door and walked away, following the bellhop into the lobby.
“You don’t think he’s innocent,” Katie accused Dan when George had disappeared through the hotel doors.
“I think there’s a chance he’s innocent, Katie. Yes, I really do,” he told her.
He headed back out to the street, navigating the one-way streets to head to Rampart and cross over to Treme and then on to Katie’s house.
He parked in front, turning off the ignition.
“You’re coming in?” she said.
“You bet.”
“To check out the house.”
He nodded gravely.
“The dogs—”
“Where are they? They’re usually barking away and wagging their tails at the fence when the gate between the two properties is open,” he reminded her.
“Hm. The boys aren’t out,” Katie said. She exited the car and opened her gate.
Dan followed her.
It was dark and quiet next door at the stables.
Katie opened her door. He was glad to see at least she had locks on it, one a solid bolt. But he remembered what George had said—remembered the crimes of the past.
The killer had gained access by cutting out panels in doors. And he also remembered the window in her downstairs bathroom. It was large, looking out over a pretty magnolia bush and covered with a solid plastic drape.
But it was easy access to the house.
He followed her in, and she turned on the hall lights. He stepped ahead of her and started with the left side of the house and then the right.
She followed him.
He headed upstairs next, going room to room.
She had her bedroom, while another bedroom had been transformed into an office. The third, the guest room, offered an inflatable bed and small television. Back out in the upstairs hall, he noted there was an attic. A cord pulled down the stairway to it.
“Dan! If someone was in the attic, how would they get the stairs down?” she asked him as he yanked on the rope.
He ignored her, headed up the dusty stairs, found the chain for the single electric bulb and pulled it. Light flooded the space. It was clean and neat with only a few boxes.
No one was hiding there.
He headed back down. She was waiting for him in the hallway.
“Okay?” she asked him.
He headed back down the stairs, determined to check out the back door, the kitchen door, again.
He remembered there had been a second door.
The house was built up on pilings, so there might well be a basement. There was. Like the attic, it was clean and neat. It contained yard tools, an extra refrigerator, a Ping-Pong table and heating equipment.
Little windows looked to the outside.
They could be broken.
A man—not a giant, but even a man his size—might be able to crawl through them.
He came back up the basement stairs. Katie was waiting in the kitchen, leaning on the counter.
“It’s a basement, right?” Her tone was sarcastic. “We’re at water level, but the house was built up. And yes, it has flooded, so I move stuff up when a storm is coming. But no one was in it, right?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like coffee or something before you leave?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
“No, you don’t want coffee? Would you like something else?”
“Coffee is fine,” he told her. “Nope, I’m not leaving.”
She looked at him, frowning. Then she sighed. “Listen, you’ve gotten to where you’re bearable, but I’m not—”
“Hey. I’m staying because there are no dogs out in the yard and your house is a veritable sieve.”
“But—”
“Katie, do you have any damned common sense? You could be a target! Do you have a death wish? Did you want to invite an axe murderer in?”
She seemed to freeze where she stood. “No,” she said. “My apologies. The guest room has a blow-up bed, but it’s a good one, and the sheets are clean. Please, make yourself at home. Oh, and it has its own little bathroom. You’ll barely fit in it, but I get nice hot water, and the water pressure is surprisingly decent, too. Towels on the hooks in there are clean, too. Coffee...well, you know how to fix coffee, I’m sure.”
She walked out of the kitchen, and he heard her footsteps as she hurried upstairs.
And then the click as she closed her bedroom door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dan Oliver wasn’t a bad guest, and Katie wasn’t sure why’d she’d been so sharp with him the night before. She’d heard him walk around, and she was certain he was checking all the windows. She’d heard him in the kitchen.
He had made coffee. She thought about going back down; coffee never kept her awake.
And now she was embarrassed. She’d made assumptions when he’d spoken, and it had really been idiotic. She’d just been so nervous.
She was, in truth, glad he had insisted on staying, she admitted to herself once she’d showered and curled into her bed. The dogs didn’t seem to be out.
Her house might well be full of holes.
She’d never learned to shoot and didn’t own a gun. Living in Jeremy’s house until she’d gone into a dorm at college, she had always felt safe.
Jeremy did have a shotgun, and locks and a high-tech alarm system.
She wondered as she lay awake why—after what she had witnessed—she hadn’t headed straight out to a shooting range. She should have learned to defend herself. Maybe she’d resolve now that she would do so.
Jeremy had even suggested it after college. But she had decided to buy the house next to the
