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Joost pushed the curls from his eyes. “Good luck finding anything of value other than the computers.”
Joe asked, “Is there anything missing? Can you even tell?”
Joost surveyed the mess. “The only thing I can think of is in the bathroom. Did they ransack the bathroom, too?”
“Couldn’t tell at first glance. I just poked my head in there to make sure the thieves were gone.”
The bat dragging on the floor behind him, Joost loped into the bathroom and threw open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet. He spit out an expletive, which sounded a lot more expressive in Dutch.
“They took my meds.”
“Your meds?” Hailey glanced at Joe and tapped her head.
“My medication. I suffer from what you’d call social anxiety. The drugs I take for that are in high demand on the black market.”
“Oh, sorry.” Hailey grimaced. “Can you get them replaced?”
“I’ll call my doctor.”
“What about the police? Are you going to call the police?” Joe folded his arms and wedged his shoulder against the bathroom’s doorjamb.
“I have to if I want my doctor to give me refills. I think I have to submit a police report or something.”
Hailey nudged Joe’s back. “Is there anything else missing, Joost?”
“Not that I notice.” Joost hunched his rounded shoulders. “I’m just glad they didn’t touch the computers.”
“Don’t you think that’s weird?” Joe stepped back as Joost made a move to leave the bathroom. “Thousands of dollars of computer equipment and the thief takes a couple bottles of pills?”
“He was probably a junkie. Didn’t care about the computers, probably didn’t have the means to move them out of here.”
Joe pointed to the sliding glass door. “A junkie with burglary tools? That was a glass cutter.”
“I don’t know.” Joost ran his hand over the top of one of his monitors in a caress. “I’ll let the cops figure that out. It’s not like they’re going to catch him. The SFPD doesn’t put much effort into catching petty criminals.”
“If that’s what he was.” Hailey perched on the arm of a sofa covered in comic books, dumped there from the basket lying on its side next to a cushion from the same sofa.
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Joost drew a pair of shaggy blond eyebrows over his nose.
Hailey tapped the toe of her boot. “Joost, we came here because you called me about Marten, told me he’d left something with you and had asked you to call me if he didn’t return. Then Marten mysteriously disappears, nefarious types start looking for him and someone breaks into your place. You still think this was some junkie looking for a high?”
Joost’s round face crinkled. “Marten disappeared mysteriously? He just left. He was here one day and the next day...gone. Those guys searching for him? Probably bookies. I grew up with Marten in The Hague. Marten was born mysterious, so nothing he does surprises me. Are you worried about him?”
Hailey placed her hands on her knees and hunched forward. “We were supposed to meet on the last ferry to Alcatraz yesterday. You heard the news about someone falling or jumping from an Alcatraz ferry?”
Joost nodded, his pale blue eyes wide.
“That ferry.” Hailey compressed her lips into a thin line.
“You think that was Marten who went overboard? Last I heard it was a hoax and nobody went over.”
“I thought I saw him on the ferry that night, and he—” she jerked her thumb at Joe “—followed Marten right onto the ferry, but he never came off and I haven’t heard from him since.”
Joost transferred his gaze from Hailey to Joe. “Why were you following Marten?”
Joe threw up his hands. “That doesn’t matter. We think he was pushed off that boat...murdered.”
“That wasn’t Marten. He could’ve survived in the bay.” Joost shook a finger at Hailey. “He was half a second away from making the Olympic swim team for the Netherlands. The coast guard hasn’t found a body yet.”
Joe preferred the angry, bat-wielding Joost to this mellow dude who had an explanation for everything.
