Page 14 of Done Dirty

“Where are his clothes?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“He’s naked,” Jack said.

“Believe me, I noticed.”

He went into the master bathroom and I followed behind him. It was just like the rest of the condo. Spotless. Barely lived in. At least from the surface.

“Dude had issues,” I said. “I’ve never seen a man so clean.”

“I’m clean,” he said.

“Yeah, but you leave your stuff on the nightstand and leave dishes in the sink.”

“That’s because I cook and you clean.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, touching the edge of one of the perfectly hung towels on the rod on the wall. There was nothing on the counter and no soap scum on the shower door. “We live in our house.”

“Yeah, this guy was a robot,” he agreed, opening the linen closet. There were more perfectly folded towels, a scale, various soaps and lotions lined in another organizer, and hair products. And at the bottom of the closet was a box. It was the most out of place thing we’d seen.

He leaned down and opened the box, and inside were an assortment of women’s products—everything from makeup to tampons to birth control pills.

“Guess he didn’t feel like organizing this one,” I said, looking at the jumble of products.

“Must be hard living with someone if you expect things to be perfect,” he said. “Check out the closet.”

I moved to the attached walk-in closet and whistled. “How does a Pilates instructor have more clothes and shoes than I do?”

“To be fair,” Jack said, eyeing the rows of color-coded shirts and jeans, “that doesn’t take too much effort.”

“Her clothes are here,” I said, pointing to the small section of hangered clothes. I skimmed my fingers across a short leather skirt, expensive jeans, and revealing tops. “I guess Jessica was right about Paige dressing to entice. Not much left to the imagination dressed in these.”

“Either he organized them for her, or he taught her well.”

There was a built-in chest of drawers below Paige’s clothes. Here were sweaters and loungewear, along with three sets of scrubs. The bottom drawer was filled with lingerie. I held up a particularly confusing scrap of lace that looked like a spiderweb and then dropped it back in the drawer.

“Maybe the missing panties are hers,” I said. “They seem to be of the same taste. There’s no normal underwear in here. How does she go to work with something like that in all her crevices?”

“The mysteries of women never cease to amaze me,” Jack said.

“That makes two of us,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. I’m curious to meet her. Maybe I’ll ask her how she gets that thing on.”

“If you do, you have to let me buy one for you.”

“Never mind. I’ll just ask the internet. It knows everything.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Lily and Sheldon were coming through the lobby doors as we came off the elevator.

“Good timing,” I told them. “We just finished upstairs.”

Lily Jacobs was a couple of inches shy of six feet, with dark hair pulled up in a high ponytail and eyes so blue they looked like contacts. I learned on TikTok that in beauty circles she’s a witch archetype. Like Dakota Johnson or Rooney Mara. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since the funeral home blew up.

Lily had modeled in high school and college, and the gene pool had been extremely generous. She was frighteningly competent and a literal genius, and for whatever reason, she’d picked pathology as her degree of choice instead of choosing neurosurgery or other big bucks specialties. Someday I’d get her to tell me her reason. So far, she hadn’t given me too much insight even though we’d become friends.

Sheldon Durkus came in right behind her, slightly out of breath, his glasses fogged from stepping into the morning heat. He was several inches shorter than Lily and soft around the middle, with sandy hair that was losing its battle with his forehead. He had a habit of sharing whatever fact crossed his mind regardless of timing or relevance.