Chapter 2
I pulled out my cell phone and pressed speed dial for Stephanie.
Straight to voicemail. Either turned off or dead battery.
I punched in the RangeMan control room. Junior answered.
"Junior, activate Stephanie's GPS pen and give me a location."
"Right away, boss. One second."
I waited, listening to him punching buttons on the main control console.
"Boss," Junior said, "No signal."
"Keep it open, and call me immediately if you pick it up."
I disconnected and dialed again.
"Tank, get up here right now. Bring gloves."
Snapping the phone shut I stood in the kitchen, eyes closed, letting my mind clear, trying to get a sense of Stephanie, see if there was any residue of her spirit left in the apartment, any confusion, misery, pain, fear.
Nothing.
It was as if she had never been here.
I felt Tank's presence behind me and turned, accepting the pair of latex gloves he handed me. Pulling one glove on, I gingerly picked up the corner of the note to look at the other side.
Blank.
I left it lying there on the counter, Tank staring down at it, and pulled out my phone again to dial the cop.
"Morelli," he answered.
"It's Manoso. Is Stephanie with you?"
"No, I haven't seen her since Wednesday morning. Why?"
"She's gone."
"What do you mean, gone?"
"I was supposed to pick her up at seven for a job. I'm at her apartment and it's empty. She's moved out."
"What?!" Morelli's voice was about an octave higher than usual, and then I could almost physically feel him clamping down his control as his voice dropped back to normal levels. "Moved out? How do you know?"
"Her apartment is completely empty, cleaned out. No furniture, no clothes, nothing in the cupboards. Just a note on the counter, computer printed."
"What does the note say?"
I read it to him.
"Stay there. I'm coming right over."
I ushered Tank out into the hallway, pulling the door shut with my still-gloved hand.
"Stay here. Don't let anyone in."
Stripping off the glove and shoving it into my pocket with its mate, I walked down two flights of stairs to the basement and knocked on the super's door, searching the memory banks of my mind for his name. Dillon, I thought.
He came to the door holding a can of beer, wearing a grubby white t-shirt and baggy gray sweatpants, feet bare. His face was stubbly and his eyes were red-rimmed and bleary. His medium-length dishwater-blonde hair was sticking out in all directions, as if he'd been running his hands through it.
"Oh, hey, dude," he said woozily, recognizing me. "You're Steph's friend, uh…"
"Ranger Manoso," I supplied.
"Yeah, that's it." His expression was almost comical, like a cartoon light bulb had gone on over his head.
"Have you seen or heard from Stephanie in the past couple of days?"
"No, man. Haven't seen her in over a week, since she invited me up to fix her kitchen sink. It was dripping and I put a new washer in. We had a couple of beers and watched the game."
"Has she paid her rent yet for this month?"
"Jeez, I dunno, let me check the box. Come on in."
I entered the apartment. It was a pigsty, every horizontal surface covered with a conglomeration of stuff—clothing, tools, bags of snack food, dirty dishes, piles of junk mail, magazines and newspapers—you name it and it was probably there.
Dillon closed the door behind me and lifted the lid on a metal box fastened to the back side. There was a slot in the door and any envelopes or messages dropped through the slot would land in the box.
The open top of the box revealed its contents—one plain white envelope, sealed, nothing written on the outside. It gave me a hinky feeling.
"Wait," I said sharply as Dillon was reaching out to get it. "Don't touch it."
He stopped abruptly at my tone of voice.
"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to startle you. But Stephanie's gone, and that envelope might be evidence."
I pulled the latex gloves out of my pocket and slipped them on. Picking up the envelope, I turned it and looked at the other side.
Ordinary #10 envelope, available from any office supply store, the kind with the blue printing on the inside to obscure the contents. Self-stick, I was disappointed to note. No envelope glue, no possibility of DNA from saliva.
I pulled out my pocket knife and carefully slit the flap.
The sheet of paper inside looked identical to the one lying upstairs on Stephanie's counter. The words, however, were a little different.
I'm moving away from Trenton.
Please cancel my lease.
Stephanie Plum
I held the paper up so Dillon could read it.
"Aw, man, that sucks. Steph was cool, ya know?"
"When does her lease expire?"
"First of September."
"How much is her rent?"
"Five hundred a month."
"I'll send you a check for it. Hold the apartment for when she comes back."
He nodded.
"When did you last check the box for mail?"
"Last night around dinner time. There were three rent checks in there. I was gonna take them to the bank today, but I never got around to it."
"I need this," I told Dillon, holding up the letter and envelope.
"Sure, man, no sweat." He held a hand up, palm facing me, and backed away as I let myself out.
I entered the stairwell and stopped, leaning back against the metal fire door as it clanged shut behind me, taking deep, even breaths and fighting the nausea that was threatening. I forced my mind to go blank, not thinking about Stephanie.
It's just another missing person, I said to myself. No emotions involved. Keep your mind on the goal, eye on the prize. Investigate, follow the leads, stay on it. You'll find her.
Swallowing the bile in my throat I climbed back up to the second floor.
oOo
Chapter 3
I reached Stephanie's hallway and said to Tank, "Get Alvirez up here with a kit."
Tank pulled out his phone and punched at it, walking away down the hall as he spoke softly.
When he finished and turned back toward me I said, "And cancel tonight's operation."
"Already done, boss."
As I stood there concentrating on breathing slowly and steadily, trying to relax my tensed muscles, the stairwell door opened and out stepped Morelli. His face was drawn and he looked tired and exasperated.
"What the hell has Steph got herself into now?" he asked me.
I just shook my head, unable to even speak civilly. He loved her, I was certain of that, but he hated her job and hated her association with me even more. If he had his way, she'd be barefoot, pregnant, and confined to the house. His house. And I'd never catch a glimpse of her again.
I was still holding the envelope and letter I'd gotten from Dillon in a gloved hand and Morelli looked at it. I held the sheet of paper so he could read it.
Finding my voice, I said, "The super found it in his mailbox. It hasn't been touched. Neither has the one in her apartment."
After reading the two sentences Morelli asked, "Did you go through the apartment?"
"Just superficially. I didn't touch anything except the outside of the doorknob when I went in."
He gestured at the doorknob and I used my gloved hand to turn it. Pushing it open I stepped back to let him enter.
He walked two steps into the apartment and stopped. I could see the tension in his neck and shoulders and made a conscious effort to relax my own. I waited in the hallway while he walked through.
His voice came from the kitchen. "Do you have extra gloves?"
Tank was right behind me and he wordlessly handed me a pair. I walked to the kitchen doorway and passed them in.
Morelli lifted the piece of paper, as I had, to check the other side. It was still blank.
He reached up and pulled open cupboard doors. Completely empty. He turned to the refrigerator. Also empty, and spotless. It looked to me like the whole place had been wiped down. There wasn't a smudge, a speck of dirt anywhere.
I walked into the bathroom. The shower curtain was gone, and the tub was spotless, almost sparkling. Much cleaner than I'd ever seen it when Stephanie lived here. Not a hair in the drain, nothing. Same with the sink.
I reached up a gloved hand and opened the medicine chest. Also spotless, wiped clean. Someone had done a thorough job.
I walked back to the kitchen where Morelli was standing, hands on the counter on each side of the piece of paper, head down.
"I called for a crime scene kit," I said. "I know your hands are tied officially for forty-eight hours, and I don't want to wait that long."
"What was the job tonight?" he asked without turning but bringing his head up.
"Picking up a fugitive from Extra Innings. Richie Gonzales."
From the slight angle I had on him I could see his jaw tense, the muscle at the corner bulging.
His voice was harsh. "Is there any chance he had anything to do with this?"
"None. He doesn't know we're after him. And even if he found out, he'd have no way of knowing Stephanie might be involved."
"What do you think happened?"
"I think someone has her. This is a very professional clean-up job. And I think the quicker we get on it the better the chance we have of finding her." Alive, I didn't add, but he knew what I meant.
Tank had been waiting in the entrance hall, and his voice floated in. "Alvirez is here, boss."
Morelli turned and looked at me.
"RangeMan's crime scene expert," I said. "He'll collect any evidence there is and turn it over to the official investigation once it begins."
Morelli looked furious and opened his mouth to speak, but then snapped it shut again. He knew he had no options. As of right this moment since there was no evidence of foul play, Stephanie couldn't even be declared officially missing. As a cop he could do nothing, and I knew he wouldn't want to wait until forty-eight hours had passed. I was doing him a favor, and once he calmed down and put aside his dislike for me he'd be grateful.
"I'm going to watch to make sure he follows proper evidence collection procedures," he said.
"Alvirez is a certified crime scene investigator, formerly with the State SIS. He's more qualified that most of your TPD CSSes, and he's been an expert witness in dozens of court cases. But feel free to watch if you think that's the best use of your time. I'm going to start canvassing the neighbors before they're all tucked in for the night."
SIS is the State Police's Special Investigative Services, the most expert crime scene investigators in New Jersey. Morelli knew as well as I did that Trenton's crime scene specialists weren't even in the same league.
"I'll make some phone calls and find out when she was last seen," Morelli said, pulling out his phone.
"Try not to scare them," I said. The last thing we needed was a bunch of hysterical friends and family members on our hands.
Acknowledging his nod of assent with a slight nod of my own I turned and walked out into the hallway.
TBC