Rachel threw him a flirty look over her shoulder. “It comes with a lap dance,” she said. She beamed at him and then, with a toss of her ponytail, continued down the hallway.

Archie smiled to himself and pushed open his door. He could already hear Ginger on the other side, scrambling to greet him.

Maybe he could have a normal relationship after all.

Chapter 24

CHAPTER

24

Gretchen holds back as Archie opens the door to Lidia Hays’s apartment. It has been sealed with crime scene tape and as he cuts through it the yellow plastic flutters to either side, like ribbons snipped open on a present. He uses a key to unlock the door and then pushes it open and steps back to allow Gretchen to enter. She hesitates, and he realizes that the courtesy of holding the door for a lady is probably not the best rule of thumb when entering crime scenes. She doesn’t want to go first.

“Sorry,” he says. “Wasn’t thinking.”

He ducks under the remaining piece of tape and enters the apartment. It has been sealed for two days and the smell of decomp still sours the air. The lights are off. Archie reaches and flicks on a light switch as Gretchen enters behind him. It is her idea to be here. She is usually content to see photographs of the scene, but she says this is part of some new approach to get closer to the murders. They have FBI profilers for that, but Archie figures at this point they need all the help they can get.

“Crime Scene finished up yesterday,” Archie says as Gretchen walks past him. “The apartment manager still needs to get someone in here to clean. Then we’ll let the family in to collect her things.”

The living room, where they are standing, is unremarkable. The action has happened in the bedroom. Gretchen is walking around the room, her attention drifting from item to item. A thrift store sectional takes up much of the space. Posters for bands Archie has never heard of are tacked on the walls, along with a few posters of snowboarders captured frozen upside down in midair. It is the little things that get to Archie—the cold half cup of coffee left on the coffee table the morning of the murder, the toothpaste stains on the bathroom sink, a book on the bedside table—evidence of daily life. Gretchen’s eyes keep moving, never pausing, taking everything in. She is wearing a form-fitting skirt and a blouse with a bra just dark enough that Archie can see its shadow beneath the fabric. He wonders if she’s worn that for him.

“Where do you think the killer hid?” she asks.

“In the bedroom closet,” Archie says. The closet door had been found ajar, and clothing had been pushed to the side and some of the shoes on the floor had been disturbed.