My first stop was the master bedroom. I headed straight for the closet, always a dead giveaway about the occupant. I checked out the wall of shoes first. Prada, Gucci, Jimmy Choo. No one paid retail for all those shoes; they alone told me that the owner of this house was some sort of TV star, probably on a hit sitcom. This woman could have given Imelda a run for her money. Boxes and boxes of matching plastic containers. Each box had a taped Polaroid of the pair of shoes inside. Very organized, although I knew the owner of the house hadn’t gotten all this together on her own. Maybe she had a second assistant take care of the shoes? Probably not, I told myself— TV stars usually have only one assistant.

The bedroom was serviceable, with a high, sloping ceiling and a plasma screen attached to the wall. A lit fireplace off to the side crackled invitingly, and a couple of potted ficus softened up the rough edges.

The bathroom needed a lot of work—it was cramped—although the listing in the paper had boasted of “original tiles.” Scoping out the bathroom of a stranger is one of the best voyeurism rushes you can get. I closed the door behind me for privacy, acting like I was trying to take in the full size of the room. I quickly opened up the medicine cabinet, and sure enough, Miss Nice Shoes had a bit of an anxiety problem, judging by the half empty bottle of Xanax with the patient name scratched off the label. I saw the tube of Valtrex and realized the herpes medicine was probably the reason for a lot of the anxiety. I was always shocked that people would leave their prescription medications in the cabinet. Xanax was a hot commodity and thirty of those shouldn’t be hanging around for just anyone to snag.

I opened the bottle and counted out eight into my hand and stuffed them into my jeans pocket. Now eight bad things could happen to me and I would be okay. The pills would also come in handy if Amy Robbins suddenly descended on Los Angeles from Atlanta.

I closed the cabinet and then stopped short.