Page 128 of Not a Word

McCabe started to write it down, but stopped. “Say again?”

“Alicia Zane.”

McCabe had encountered it before. She’d seen it in the file she’d dug up on Evelyn Corby. The one she took with her when she talked to Maitland, that retired detective. She was Corby’s niece.

“Excuse me,” McCabe said, moving past the woman and the assembled uniformed cops. She entered the room, careful not to step in the blood that had already become tacky, and examined the victim. The bullet hole in her forehead, the way she’d fallen to the floor. The scraps of duct tape around the table. McCabe wondered whether Zane had been tied up before she was shot, but the strips of tape were too short to bind anyone, and there were no signs of leftover tape on the chair she appeared to have fallen from.

She went back into the hall, beckoned Harper with her finger.

“What do you know about her?” McCabe asked, tipping her head toward the open door.

“She was okay. She’d had some drug trouble. Not with the police, but she was in a program for a while. Missed her rent one month but I cut her some slack. I don’t put people out on the street if they’re a day late. You have to treat people like they’re human beings. She had some shifts at the FreshCo, I think.”

“Ever see anyone coming or going here, visiting her?”

The landlady shook her head. “I don’t pay much attention to people’s personal lives as long as they don’t cause a fuss.”

“Cameras?”

“What do you mean?”

“Security cameras? You have those?”

“Been thinking about it.”

McCabe sighed. “Stick around.”

She went back into the apartment, moving from the kitchen to the living area, then down the hall. Looking for anything that jumped out at her. Made a passing glance into the bathroom, then on to the bedroom, then stopped before going in. She backed up, looked again in the bathroom.

The toilet seat was up.

Alicia Zane lived alone. No husband. But the landlady had said there was a guy she’d seen around a couple of times. Maybe a boyfriend.

Well, if he hadn’t been here recently, some other male had been, McCabe reckoned, although it was also possible the seat was up because Alicia or someone else had cleaned it. When she saw the forensic team, she’d have them scour this room. Prints, DNA, the works. Ditto for the rest of the apartment.

She returned to the main room, saw a purse, and picked it up in her now gloved hands. There was a cell phone inside, and she brought it out slowly.

The movement of the phone brought up a text that had been received, but not yet read. McCabe didn’t need to get into the phone to know what it said and who it was from.

It read:

REALLY need to talk to you

It had been sent more than two hours earlier. From HOLDEN.

Forty-Eight

Holden and Gage were the first to arrive.

He parked the Honda in the driveway, went up to the door, and rather than ring the bell, balled his hand into a fist to bang on it. A show of anger from the get-go. But as he had his arm raised, ready to pound, Gage grabbed his forearm.

“No,” he said. “You need to get your shit together before you go in.”

Holden appraised him, said, “Okay.”

“Why don’t you try the door.”

Holden did. It was unlocked. He swung the door wide and the two of them stepped inside.