By the time Lorraine finished talking about her luggage and her exciting life as an actress, there were no rooms left. Just two suites. At four thousand dollars a pop.

“What?” she gulped to the clerk.

“If you hadn’t posed for the camera I would have had a nice cozy room for you for twelve hundred. But look at it on the bright side. The suite faces the park. The room faces an alley.”

“You can’t see anything out there no matter which direction you face.”

“Take it or leave it.”

Lorraine slapped Conrad’s credit card onto the granite counter just as her cell phone began to ring. Clay Nardellini was calling back. And he was only three blocks away.

5

R egan and Jack retrieved a second flashlight from their kitchen drawer and methodically started to look around the apartment. Their bedroom, the place where most thieves would head immediately, seemed untouched. The safe that was bolted to the floor of their closet was still locked. Jack quickly opened it and saw that the contents were undisturbed. Regan’s jewelry, their passports, papers, and extra cash seemed to all be the way they had left them.

“He couldn’t have been here long if he didn’t touch this,” Jack observed.

The second bedroom was also undisturbed. Aside from some construction materials, nothing in their original loft looked out of place.

They walked back down the hall to their new apartment, which they sometimes referred to as “Lorraine’s Lair” or simply “the Lair.” Over the past two years, Jack had noticed that it was only she who seemed to spend any time there. Different guys had come in and out, and she always introduced them as fellow students in her acting class. There was never any sign of Conrad, but when he sold the loft to them, there was no sign of Lorraine.

The construction crew had started their renovation on the Lair, and just last week had broken down the wall between the two apartments. There was no sign of forced entry at either front door. There was also no sign of forced entry at the door to the roof.

“When we left here Thursday night everything was locked up tight,” Jack said. “Rod and his guys weren’t supposed to come in when we were gone, were they?”

“He told me if they got in supplies they might drop them off,” Regan said as she shone her flashlight around, then walked over and opened the large front closet. Last time she looked, the closet had been empty. Now several boxes of expensive Italian tile were piled high against the wall. “I guess Rod was here. The good news is that the tile they told us would take six months for delivery has arrived. The bad news is that they might have accidentally left the door unlocked. I know when they’re hauling stuff out to the service elevator they push in the button of the door so it doesn’t lock. Either that or someone who has a key came in here tonight.”