“You all right?” he asked, his eyes doing a sweep of her face. She appeared slightly shell-shocked, though her hands, lying in her lap, were steady.
She nodded. “I am now. That . . . that thing scared the hell out of me. Someone was in my house, Detective.”
Zach’s skin prickled the way it had when Horton had called him a half hour before. He hadn’t even bothered to shower, even though he’d just finished a workout, had pulled on a pair of track pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and jumped in his truck. He looked back at the officer he also considered a friend. Not a close one, but they’d worked together before and the guy was solid. “Vogel still doing a sweep?”
Horton nodded. “Yeah. We did a sweep of the rooms on the lower floor when we arrived. I stayed with Ms. Stratton while Vogel checked out the upstairs. He’s in the basement now.” As if to confirm his statement, Zach heard a thud from below.
“You all right, Vogel?” Horton called into the hallway where Vogel must have left the door to the basement open.
“Yeah,” they heard muffled from below, followed by footsteps on the stairs. A second later Dwayne Vogel appeared. “All clear.” He looked at Josie. “Sorry, ma’am. I knocked over a pile of boxes near the stairs.”
Josie shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. It’s a mess down there. I’m working on getting it cleaned up.”
“Any idea how the suspect entered?” Zach asked.
“The front door was unlocked when we arrived,” Horton said. “Ms. Stratton says she’s almost positive she locked it but can’t be a hundred percent.”
Josie grimaced slightly. “I’m usually very diligent about locking up.” She ran a hand over her forehead, the top of her hair. “But I was distracted today.” Her eyes met his. “By your visit, the shock of hearing about that girl. You’d think I’d have been extra careful about locking up, and I thought I was.” Her brow wrinkled. “But after Officer Horton came here to introduce himself, I just can’t specifically remember locking the door.” She blew out a breath. “It’s possible I didn’t.” Despite her words, there was something in her expression that made Zach think she was unconvinced. He imagined that for a woman who’d experienced what she had, locking doors was second nature. Still, she was human. Everyone got distracted.
“It’s understandable. I’m sure this whole day has thrown you for a loop.” He looked at Horton. “You said the evidence is in the kitchen?”
“Yeah. I’ll let you check that out on your own. Once was enough for me.” Horton gave him a wry smile, but then shot an apologetic glance at Josie. But she obviously hadn’t minded him making light of the situation for a moment and breathed out a small smile, even if it faded quickly.
“A criminalist is on his way to process the evidence. We’ll see if there are any fingerprints on that knife.” He looked at Horton and Vogel. “Will you stay with Ms. Stratton for a minute while I take a look?”
“Sure thing,” Horton said. “Kitchen is across the hall.”
Zach stood, walking through the foyer and across the hall where the rat lay on the table just as Horton had described it on the phone. It was a big sucker, its beady eyes open, tail pink and slinky. Nasty. Dirty fuckers. He hated rats. He was reminded of the rats that had fed on the DOA’s body from the basement crime scene and a chill went down his spine.
The knife that stuck from the rat’s stomach looked to be a standard carving knife. His eyes moved to the knife storage block on Josie’s counter but all the implements there seemed to be accounted for, no empty slots. Whoever had done this had either killed it right beforehand and transferred it inside, or had killed it right there on Josie Stratton’s table with a knife he or she had brought along for the job. Wouldn’t Josie have heard it though if that were the case? Zach couldn’t imagine a rat would die quietly. Again, nasty. He ran his hand over his short hair. It’d been damp when he’d left, but it was dry now.
He returned to the living room. “You guys can get back to your shift,” he said to Horton and Vogel. “The criminalist should be here any minute. And thank you again. I mean it.”
Both officers nodded, and he shook their hands. Josie stood, walking them to the door where she thank
ed them, closing the door quietly and engaging the lock. She didn’t turn her head in the direction of the kitchen, and Zach didn’t blame her. She stood against the door for a moment before wrapping her arms around herself and walking slowly toward where he stood in the doorway of the living room. Their eyes snagged and she looked away. The air in the room suddenly felt different, a strange awkwardness falling over the moment.
“Can I, ah, get you something?” he asked. “Water? Tea?” It felt sort of odd to offer her something from her own house, but he couldn’t imagine she was eager to go back in the kitchen at the moment.
“I’d love some tea,” she murmured. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Thank you. The tea is in the upper cabinet to the right of the sink, and the mugs are to the left of the refrigerator. Join me in a cup if you’d like.”
He nodded and went into the kitchen where he studiously kept his gaze on the task at hand, heating water in the microwave, locating the tea bags in the cabinet, and opening a couple of drawers until he found the spoons. “Do you take anything in your tea?” he called.
“A splash of milk,” she called back.
He added milk and then carried both steaming mugs back to the living room, along with a box of cookies held under his arm that he’d found in her pantry. She was back in the same spot she’d been sitting in when he’d arrived, and he sat next to her as he’d done before, putting the mugs and the box of cookies on the coffee table in front of them. He picked up her mug and handed it to her. “I hope I made it right.”
She smiled. “I don’t think you can mess up tea.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s a running joke in my family that I can’t boil water.”
Josie laughed softly and his stomach did a little flip. Damn odd time to feel a shot of physical attraction but there it was. Uncomfortable with his reaction to this woman under the circumstances, he took a drink of the hot liquid. It burned his mouth and he struggled to swallow it down rather than spit it out. She was watching him with obvious amusement as she took a tentative sip.
He cleared his throat as he placed his mug down. He didn’t even like tea. It tasted like muddy water. “Will you go over what happened before you came downstairs and found the rat? Anything you heard?”