Forty-Eight
It’s very important that you let us inside Roxanne Cabot’s apartment.” Zach tried to feed a sense of urgency to the landlord, a man by the name of Howard Mann. He was pleasant enough, but he was worried about infringing on his tenant’s right to privacy. Zach and Paige had tried knocking on Roxanne’s door several times, but that hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Yes, it was possible she wasn’t home, but there was another, much uglier possibility.
“I can’t just do that… Do you have a warrant?” Howard asked, slipping his gaze from Zach to Paige. The two of them were in the hallway outside Howard’s apartment.
“We don’t have a war—” Zach’s phone rang, and he turned his back to the landlord and answered. As he listened to Jack, he also heard Howard prattling on to Paige about how he couldn’t just make an exception and let them in, not without a court order or strong evidence that suggested Roxanne was involved in criminal activity.
Zach hung up, having received Jack’s message loud and clear, and faced Howard.
“She isn’t suspected of a crime, is she?” Howard’s eyes widened as he slid his gaze to Paige.
She shook her head and glanced at Zach.
“It might be worse than that,” Zach said in all seriousness.
“What do you—” Howard swallowed audibly.
“We need to get in her apartment. Now.” Zach delivered the directive while looking at Paige. Redirecting his gaze back to Howard, he said, “I can get a warrant if need be, but she might not have that sort of time.” Jack had called to let him know that Roxanne hadn’t shown up at work and her phone had been tracked back to her apartment. It was possible that her cell was in there and she wasn’t, but Zach’s optimism was rather shaky at the moment.
“She might not have that sort of time?” Howard parroted, his eyes widening even more. “She could be hurt in there?”
“It’s possible.” Zach glanced at Paige.
The landlord nodded. “Let me go get the key.”
Howard retreated into his apartment, and Zach updated Paige on the call. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes said it all. She wasn’t feeling too optimistic about Roxanne’s fate, either.
“Okay, let’s go.” Howard stepped into the hall, fiddling with a keyring. He closed his door behind him and led the way to Roxanne’s apartment.
Howard slipped a key into the lock and twisted the handle. He opened the door and made like he was going to go inside.
Zach touched the man’s shoulder. “You should probably wait in the hall.”
Howard didn’t say anything, but given his deer-in-the-headlights look, Zach wagered that Howard was starting to piece together that it might not just be a matter of his tenant being hurt.
“Just stay here,” Zach reiterated, and Howard nodded.
Zach and Paige entered the apartment.
“Miss Cabot, it’s the FBI,” Zach called out. “Are you home?”
No response. Just complete silence.
The feeling of dread crept over his skin and raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He hoped what it was telling him was wrong. There’d been enough death already.
Upon entering the apartment, one could go right into an open living space or go straight down a small hallway. He and Paige both chose the latter.
No doorways came off the right-side of the hall, but there was one to the left and it was a galley kitchen. In a sweeping assessment, the counters and stovetop were clean and bare except for a coffeemaker, a toaster, and a spinning spice rack.
“Miss Cabot? FBI!” he called out again as they continued to move deeper into the apartment. “Are you home?”
“Should we call her phone?” Paige asked, but she already had hers to an ear.
The trill was coming from ahead of them. They hurried to the end of the hall. As he moved, Zach strained to hear anything that would fill him with hope: a whimper, a cry for help, a sign of life. Nothing, but the ringing phone.
The hallway opened into a dining area, but there was no table, and then it veered right for a continuation of an L-shaped living room. Sparse furnishings, simplistic furniture, a modest couch, a matching chair, a coffee table, and an entertainment stand with a thirty-two-inch flat screen atop it. Zach observed all this in the milliseconds before he let the rest of the scene hit him. There was a good—and obvious—reason why Roxanne wasn’t answering her phone or responding to his callouts.
Zach drew back and pinched his eyes shut.
“I’ll call Jack and let him know,” Paige said. Roxanne’s phone stopped ringing when Paige dropped the call and made one to Jack.
Zach dialed Crime Scene and scanned Roxanne’s living room as he waited for them to answer. There was a phone wedged between two couch pillows. He’d leave it there for the CSIs to process. What he was trying to process was the level of failure he was feeling right now. They were too late. Again.