Page 72 of Deep Tide

He held her gaze. Then he tilted her chin and kissed her mouth. “Be careful,” he told her.

“I will.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Nicole turned off Palmetto Drive into the pitted parking lot. It was mostly full, but she found a space at the very edge of the lot next to a dinged pickup even older than hers. Cutting the engine, she stared up at Amelia’s building. Lights glowed in many of the units, and several tenants stood out on their narrow balconies, either smoking or talking on the phone.

Nicole slid from her truck and locked it. A stench hit her—like rotten vegetation and sewage, and she pinched her nose as she walked across the spongy lawn. A man watched her from a second-floor balcony, the orange glow of his cigarette moving through the darkness as he leaned against the railing. She reached the corner staircase and trudged up the steps. On the landing she encountered a pair of teen boys who stuffed something under their shirts as she passed them.

Nicole walked down the open breezeway to Amelia’s second-floor apartment, then pulled out the key and let herself in. The scene had been released, but the victim’s family hadn’t been here yet. From her conversation with them after the funeral, Nicole had gathered that Amelia’s parents didn’t know when they’d come down to pack up their daughter’s apartment. They had seemed too overwhelmed to think about it.

Nicole locked the door behind her and flipped the light switch. A fluorescent fixture flickered on in the kitchen, and she stood still for a few moments, just surveying the room. This was her fourth trip here, and she wasn’t quite sure what she expected to find. Clues suggested that Amelia had had a wealthy, possibly shady, man in her life. Maybe the tech mogul from Seattle. Maybe someone affiliated with the Saledo cartel. If so, Nicole wanted to find evidence of him. A number from a burner phone wasn’t enough. She needed a receipt, or a gift, or maybe a note—something she could use to prove this phantom boyfriend existed.

Nicole grabbed a pair of gloves from the box that had been left by the door. She tugged the gloves on, then toed off her dirty sneakers and pulled paper booties over her socks. She stepped into the kitchen and took a cursory look around. It had been thoroughly searched already by a pair of county CSIs. Her gaze fell on the class schedule taped to the fridge. Above it was a slip of paper with a printed quotation that Nicole remembered without having to look. It was a Bob Ross saying about no mistakes, just “happy little accidents.”

Nicole headed into the bathroom first. She pulled back the shower curtain and scanned the items lined up on the side of the tub. Razor. Loofah. Hair and skin products galore, but nothing that looked like it had been taken as a souvenir from a ritzy hotel.

Turning to the medicine cabinet, she noted the smudges of fingerprint powder as she opened the mirrored door. The prints they’d lifted from here hadn’t come back yet, but Nicole wasn’t optimistic about getting anything useful. This dingy apartment didn’t seem like the place for a romantic rendezvous. The medicine cabinet contained the typical stuff—makeup, sunscreen, whitening toothpaste—and Nicole had been through it all before. She moved to the cabinet beneath the sink, crouching down on the old linoleum floor.

A dark spatter along the baseboard caught her eye. She pulled the Mini Maglite from her pocket. Her pulse quickened as she shined the flashlight on the reddish-brown dots that looked like blood. How had the CSIs missed this? She opened the cabinet. Inside was a jar crammed with paintbrushes and a shoebox filled with watercolors. She blew out a sigh. Paint. One of the CSIs had mentioned something about paint in the bathroom, but at the time Nicole had been distracted by the discovery of Amelia’s iPad.

She stood up and looked around the cramped space. On the counter beside the sink was a sunflower-shaped jewelry box. Nicole lifted the lid and poked through. Lots of earrings and necklaces, a few woven bracelets, but nothing that looked like a gift from a boyfriend, wealthy or otherwise.

Something skittered across her foot. Nicole yelped and jumped back as a giant roach darted behind the toilet.

“Ick!” She shook her foot and glanced around, shuddering as she imagined more jumbo-size roaches crawling up her leg.

Grabbing her flashlight off the counter, she went into the bedroom.

The nightstand had been almost empty, but Nicole rechecked it anyway. Once again, nothing of interest, just a cheap lighter and a tube of lavender-scented lotion. She looked under the bed. Dust bunnies. She moved into the closet and flipped the light switch.

Nothing.

Of course, the one time she’d come here at night, the light was burned out.

Muttering a curse, she turned on her flashlight and swept it over the rack of clothes. Zeroing in on jackets, she started searching pockets. She was looking for ticket stubs, matchbooks, bar receipts—anything that might connect Amelia to a date with someone—especially anything that her date might have touched at some point, leaving behind a fingerprint.

She moved on to a shelf of purses. She went through all of them but found only some loose change and a pack of Tic Tacs. She grabbed a pink tote bag with “Aloha” scripted across the front. Inside was a bottle of sunscreen and a pair of sandy flip-flops. The bag felt heavy. She checked the inner pocket and found a small black sketchbook.

Tucking the flashlight under her chin, Nicole pulled out the sketchbook and flipped through the pages. The drawings were in heavy pencil with lots of shading. Some looked quick and unfinished, others showed more detail. Nicole turned the pages, finding a range of subjects—the lighthouse at the tip of the island, a beach umbrella, two toddlers digging in the sand, a sleeping man.

She stopped on the sleeping man and sucked in a breath. He wasn’t at the beach. He was stretched out in bed, with sheets tangled around his waist. He had muscular shoulders and his head was on a pillow with his hands tucked beneath.

Turning the page, she found a profile of a man’s face and neck. A lock of hair hung over the eyes, but the picture wasn’t finished. No mouth, and the nose was only a faint pencil stroke.

She flipped back to the previous page. No face visible. But the drawing definitely depicted a muscular, naked man lying prone on a bed. Could the sketch be from a life drawing class, maybe? But the rumpled sheets looked so real Nicole could practically smell the sex on them. She studied the lines, the shading, the contours of the muscles. Plenty of detail on the body, but the background consisted of only a few charcoal smudges. Frustrated, she flipped to the picture of the face again. Dark hair, long bangs, a faint line that suggested the barest hint of a nose... but that was it. Nothing definitive.

A soft thud had her glancing up. Was that a neighbor? Or someone outside?

Clink.

That noise was closer. She switched off her flashlight and held her breath, listening. Her heart started to race as she heard shuffling near the door. Could it be Emmet? Or McDeere?

Hearing a muffled voice, she stepped to the door of the closet.

“Yeah, I’m in,” someone said quietly. “Gimme ten.”

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