“Heads!”

Jack flipped the coin. He laughed. “It’s all yours, pal. Don’t miss anything. Women are tricky, we both know that. Look for unlikely hiding places. I’m not saying either one of those women hid anything, but it is a possibility.”

Jack walked through the living room and out to the kitchen, which was small and compact. Like the living room, the kitchen was sparkling clean. All kitchens, at least in his opinion, had their own distinct smell. Nikki’s kitchen always smelled like pumpkin-pie spice. The kitchen at Pinewood smelled like vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes garlic. This kitchen smelled like apple pie.

Jack stood perfectly still as he tried to get a fix on the room and the two women who had lived here for some time. Even with the few personal touches, like the fern hanging in the dinette window, red crockery on the kitchen counter, and red-and-green tartan-plaid place mats, there was no sense of permanence. At least he wasn’t feeling any. The words temporary and stopover came to mind.

The square table was set into a breakfast nook that overlooked the backyard and a tiny porch. Thrift-store furniture, he decided. Not ugly, not pretty. Serviceable. The cushions on the chairs matched the place mats. A small bowl with green plants sat in the middle of the table. The soil was just starting to dry out around the edges, an indication the women hadn’t been gone that long. Jack took a cup from the hook under the cabinet and watered the plant. He dried off the cup and replaced it.

The floor was covered in what looked like new linoleum, which was clean and waxed. Braided rugs that looked to be handmade were by the sink and stove. The cabinets were painted white, with bright red knobs. So in a way the women had tried to personalize at least the kitchen to some extent. Nikki would have picked up on that right away.

A small ten-inch television sat on the counter next to a toaster oven. In the corner, there was a red bowl with a green plant. It looked to be thriving with the light from under the counter. He poked his finger into the soil. It was nice and moist. Nikki would know about that, too. He made a mental note. The only other thing on the counter was a small red dish with two sets of keys.

Forty minutes later, Jack pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. He’d gone through the contents of all the cabinets, even dumping out the cereal boxes, flour, and sugar cans. He found nothing. There was food in the refrigerator—yogurt, eggs, milk, a loaf of bread, some apples, two lemons and two limes, and two cucumbers. There were two bottles of unopened wine on the refrigerator door along with six bottles of Corona beer and a six-pack of bottled water. The freezer contained two packages of frozen chopped meat, a whole chicken, and one package of pork chops along with a frozen strawberry-rhubarb pie.