Page 28 of Deadly Secrets
“Oh, great.” She pushed out of the car, catching up to Roman who now shone the light into the interior. There was a yellow ticket on her windshield—no surprise campus security had flagged her for the lack of an overnight parking permit—but the broken passenger window was more alarming. “Someone broke into my car?”
Most of the glass had gone onto the seat, but some had fallen to the ground, likely when the perpetrator had opened the door.
Because hehadopened it. Her suitcase was gone from the backseat.
“Dammit!” Brooke said, reaching in and popping the trunk.
“Wait.” Roman grabbed her arm. “There might be prints.”
He used the end of his shirt to lift the trunk, flashing a muscled midriff that made Brooke’s brain hitch for a second, forgetting all about the state of her rental car.
Roman bit out a curse. “Your laptop is gone.”
“Oh, crap.”
Why hadn’t she taken it with her? Her clothes too? Why had she been stupid enough to leave important possessions in a rental car on a major university campus?
Because I thought I’d be gone an hour or two in the middle of the day.
She snatched the ticket off the windshield. “Where was security when this was happening?”
“What time was the ticket written?” Roman asked. He punched numbers on his phone.
Brooke held the ticket up and tried to find enough light to read by. The closest parking lamp was a dozen yards away. “Ten p.m.”
“So the break-in happened after that.”
Someone on the other end of his call answered and he told them where he was and what had happened. A minute later, as Brooke stood, mind racing, he hung up and came to stand beside her. “Campus security has been alerted and I called one of my friends at the station. He’ll be down to look for prints and find whoever did this in a few minutes.”
At least she had her purse with her ID and money. “Lot of good that does me right now. Whoever did this is long gone.” She put a hand to her head. “God, all my research notes for the Utah trip! My notes for you on The Reverend and the sigils! It’s all gone.”
“I’m sorry.” Roman squeezed her arm. “Did you have backups of your research notes for the trip?”
“I made most of them on the plane here.” An emptiness sat in the pit of her stomach. “There is no backup.”
“Tell me your laptop is password protected.”
“Of course it is, but you know kids these days. They can hack through anything.”
Roman blew out a tight sigh, then went to his car, pulled out two sets of latex gloves and handed her a pair. “Let’s have a look.”
“What’s there to look for? He even took my clothes.”
“Check for your rental papers. I assume those were in the glove compartment?”
She gripped her purse strap. Yes, she’d left them inside for ease when it came time to turn the car in, but why would the criminal who’d robbed the car care about those?
Maybe Roman was just keeping her busy until his cop friend got here. She snapped on one of the latex gloves as he examined the trunk more thoroughly. Reaching inside, she made sure to avoid the ragged glass around the window and gingerly opened the plastic glove box.
The interior of the car was too dark to make out much. She reached in and found some napkins from her previous day’s run through a fast food place. She tossed those out, thinking she saw a pale white square of paper.
Was that the rental papers? Couldn’t be. There were several copies that she’d folded up and shoved in there.
But there was nothing else in the compartment.
She touched the white square—it felt like a notecard.
Pulling it out, she saw it was an envelope. There was nothing written on the front.
