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Joe pressed his hand against the window. “This is different.”
“This area’s a little more residential. Joost lives in the garage apartment of a house. He told me to go around the side of the house for his front door. There are a lot of rentals like that here—cheaper.”
The driver pulled up to a light blue clapboard house with a motorcycle parked on one side of the driveway.
They exited the car and circled around to the side of the house.
“That’s it.” Hailey gestured toward a sliding glass door. “That’s his front door.”
“What do we do? Knock on the glass?” Joe stepped up to the slider, and something crunched under his feet.
He lifted his right foot and stirred the broken glass with the toe of his shoe. “What’s this?”
“Joe.” Hailey was bending over, her face close to the glass door. “Look.”
He zeroed in on her fingertip and saw a square of glass cut out from the door near the handle. He whistled. “Looks like Joost’s place has been burglarized.”
He stuck his finger through the hole and was able to flick down the lock on the door. “How thoughtful. The thief locked up after himself.”
“Maybe he was hoping Joost wouldn’t notice, or maybe Joost is the one who locked it after he got home.” Hailey rapped on the glass and called out. “Joost? It’s Hailey Duvall. Are you home?”
Joe cocked his head, listening for a response. Then he kicked the glass out of the way and said, “Nope, the burglars locked up after they did their business.”
Joe had already unlocked the door from the inside, so he grabbed the handle to yank open the slider.
Hailey put her hand on his arm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to see what happened to Joost’s place. If we’re lucky, the thieves will still be here and I can get some answers out of them.”
“Is that always your first response?” Hailey wedged one hand on her slim hip. “That’s what motivated you to jump on that car this morning, too.”
“Damn straight. You can’t let the bastards get away when they’re under your noses.” He slipped his gun out of its holster and pulled open the door. When he stepped inside, he thought he’d made a wrong turn into a computer lab. Rows of monitors blinked at him, and others displayed scrolling data.
Hailey took a slow turn around the room. “I guess the burglars weren’t after computer equipment.”
Joe put a finger to his lips and crept toward the bathroom, the only other room in the apartment. When he saw it was empty, he returned to the other room, where Hailey was standing next to the door. He shook his head at her. “Nobody here.”
“What were they after?” Hailey picked up an upended sofa cushion and dropped it. “Loose change?”
Joost’s place was that of a bachelor—his living room doubled as his bedroom, and the large bed in the corner had been searched, its mattress askew, the covers ripped off and tossed aside.
Hailey traced her fingers down the spines of the books that had been pulled off the shelves and restacked, helter-skelter. Folding her arms over her chest, she turned toward him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That someone knew Marten was staying here and decided to look for his stuff?”
She nodded. “That about covers it.”
“Then, yeah, we’re on exactly the same page.”
“Stop right where you are.”
Joe spun around, stepping in front of Hailey and aiming his gun at the door. He stopped when he caught sight of the curly-haired blond wielding a baseball bat like Babe Ruth on steroids.
“Joost?” Hailey waved her arms. “I’m Hailey. This is my friend Joe. We just got here and saw that someone had broken into your place.”
The Dutchman tightened his grip on the bat and then dropped it and rushed to the bank of computers, jabbering in what had to be Dutch.
Joe cleared his throat. “Doesn’t look like those have been touched.”
“I hope not. I have about a year’s worth of work for this one customer cranking away on these computers.”
“Your books, your bed, every other piece of furniture, however, suffered a good going-over.” Hailey flung out one arm to encompass the disheveled room.
