“We’ll do our best to find the assailant,” Detective Scott Delaney said, reassuring her.
Kathryn admired his salt-and-pepper hair, trimmed high and tight around his ears. Military cut. “You a vet?”
He nodded, a smile replacing his stoic expression. “Navy back in the day. You?”
“Army.” Grinning, she exchanged a glance of unspoken competitiveness with him. “Well, since you’re helping me catch the scumbag who blindsided me, I’ll hold off on giving you too much crap for the poor decisions of your youth.”
He chuckled. “Hey, I’m proud of every one of my questionable choices, and have the tattoos to prove it. Say what you will, but the Navy always gave me assignments with an ocean view.”
“You got me beat there. And envious. I never got a chance to see the ocean, though I flew over several back and forth to the desert.” Her expression fell as she steadied herself in a short stride to the freezer. An ice pack would quiet the persistent throbbing of her head.
“You all right?” he asked. “I can call a paramedic.”
“I’m fine. Just need to reduce the swelling,” she said as he helped her to the sofa.
“Well, looks like they got in through an unlocked window off the balcony. Seems to be a lot of trouble for a standard break-in. Once you do an inventory, let us know what’s missing. But you said nothing’s gone from your purse?”
She nodded, keeping the cold gel pack on the pounding knot at the back of her head. “Most of it. All my credit cards and cash are still there, but I usually keep a few business cards handy. They’re gone. Or, at least I thought I still had a few in there. And my laptop is missing. It was on my desk.”
The detective motioned to the forensics team, showing them where to dust for prints. “The chances of us getting your computer back is a long shot.”
She dropped the ice pack and raised her head. “I’m not worried about it. Nothing’s on it. It’s a shell. Everything is uploaded to a virtual desktop in the cloud. My company will just issue me another one, and all my information will be magically available as soon as I log in. Basically, they got away with a fancy four-pound paperweight. I’ve got more technology in my phone than on that system.”
“Well, you probably scared them off before they took more.” Delicately, he touched her shoulder. “You sure I can’t take you to a doctor?”
She nodded with a weak smile. “I’m okay. I used to be a nurse. No impact to my vision. No slurring of speech. I know the date. Bush is still president, right?”
Delaney’s kind grin did a piss-poor job of concealing his concern.
She laughed, waving off his worry. “I’ll just have a nice goose egg for a few days. Nothing a little good old-fashioned aspirin or two can’t cure.”
“Are you comfortable staying here tonight?”
Disappointed, she looked around at the work ahead of her. It would take more than a few minutes to get everything back in place. First thing tomorrow.
“I’ll hunker down. Looks like they got everything they came for. And if they wanted to hurt me more than they did, I’d be on the eleven o’clock news. Besides, several neighbors saw your festive red lights and have offered to help with whatever I need.”
Delaney pulled out his card and handed it to her. “Here. My direct cell’s on it. Call me anytime, day or night.”
Noticing the bright gold band on his ring finger, she asked, “Doesn’t your wife mind when random strangers call you at all hours?”
“Nah. She’s a lawyer with the DA’s office in Colorado Springs. She knows the drill, and the reason I’m here. Your company’s a long-time consultant to them. I guess your boss is worried.” When Kathryn gave him a defiant teenage eye-roll, he said, “Let me do one more check to secure all your windows, and then we’ll head out.”
She rubbed an especially stiff knot in her neck. “Thank you,” she said, grateful but ready for some peace and quiet.
After all the drama of a bizarre, stressful day, she bypassed the shower after Delaney and his team left and spent half an hour soaking in the tub. With her cabernet long gone and the delicate weight of slumber tugging at her eyelids, she got out. Her skin was a nice pink, holding the heat of the water.
Curious, she glanced in the mirror, twisting to get a better view of the slap marks on her butt. Her eyes gleamed as she admired the red hue of her new friend’s handprints burning across it.
She measured her own hand against the outline.
Well, if foot size and butt stamps are any indication, this guy will be a hell of a lot more than a handful.