“Oh, God…” She didn’t want to think that her computer might be missing, or any of her things. She had her wallet, her cell phone, and all of her ID, but everything else, including her meticulous notes on the abductions, her small amount of jewelry—thankfully mostly costume stuff—and pictures of her father as well as her mother…oh, God, if he took those…“I don’t want to think about it.” Jay would insist she call the police and then she would have to explain about Tara Atwater’s things—assuming they were still in the apartment—and her theory that something of value within them might connect her to the other missing girls, or their kidnapper.

Then there was the issue of her father. Mentally she groaned. Despite the fact that she was an adult, there was just no way Rick Bentz wouldn’t learn about what she was doing. There would be hell to pay.

Squaring her shoulders, Kristi walked back to her apartment with Jay and Bruno. She braced herself for the battle that was to come. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t taken on Rick Bentz in the past. She would just have to do it again. Sooner or later he’d figure out that he couldn’t tell her what to do, right?

But he could sure make life damn miserable in the meantime.

At her third-story unit, the door was shut, the dead bolt in place.

“The intruder has a key?” Jay asked, as there was no way to lock the door without one. “That narrows the field of suspects a bit.”

“Quite a bit,” she said, thinking of Irene and Hiram Calloway, the only people beside herself who possessed a key. But why would either of them be nosing around her place?

With emotions ranging from anger to dread, Kristi unlocked the door and stepped inside.

“Stay,” Jay ordered Bruno; then to Kristi, “Don’t touch anything.”

“I know.” If they had to call the police for the break-in, the crime scene couldn’t be disturbed.

But the apartment was dark. Still. She hit the light switch and overhead illumination flooded the studio.

Everything was just as she’d left it. Her computer was on the desk, her posters tacked to the wall, Tara’s things strewn on the tarp on the floor. All of her pictures were where she’d left them, nothing outwardly disturbed. And no lamps had been lit; the only illumination came from the light on the old stove, the one she used as a nightlight, the one that had allowed her to see the intruder. It seemed that her small apartment was the same as when she’d left it.

Except that someone had been inside. She’d seen him. The thought made her skin crawl. Who was it? What did he want?

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

“Why?”