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“It's dark in here,” Lula said. “This guy must be a vampire.”
I turned and looked at her.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “I just scared myself ”
“He's not a vampire. He keeps his drapes drawn so no one can look in. I'll do a preliminary check to make sure the house is empty. And then I'll go room by room and see if anything interesting turns up. I want you down here doing lookout.”
Stephanie Plum 6 - Hot Six
11
THE FIRST FLOOR was clear. The basement rooms were clear, too. Hannibal had a small utility room down there, and a larger game room with a large-screen television, a billiard table, and a wet bar. It occurred to me that someone could be in the basement, watching television, and the house would appear dark and unlived-in. There were three bedrooms on the second floor. Also empty of human beings. One bedroom was obviously the master bedroom. Another had been converted into an office, with built-in bookshelves and a large leather-topped desk. And the third bedroom was a guest room. It was the guest room that caught my interest. It looked as if someone was living in it. Bed linens rumpled. Men's clothes draped over a chair. Shoes kicked off in a corner of the room.
I rifled the drawers and closet, checking pockets for something that might identify the guest. Nothing to be found. The clothes were expensive. I guessed their owner to be average height and build, under six feet and probably around 180 pounds. I checked the trousers against the trousers in the master bedroom. Hannibal had a larger waist size and his taste was more conservative. Hannibal's bath was attached to the master bedroom. The guest bathroom was off the hall. Neither held any surprises, with the possible exception of condoms in the guest bathroom. The guest had expected to see some action.
I moved to the office, scanning the bookshelves first. Biographies, an atlas, some fiction. I sat at his desk. No Rolodex or address book. There was a notepad and pen. No messages. A laptop computer. I turned it on. Nothing on the desktop. Everything on the hard drive was benign. Hannibal was very careful. I turned the computer off and went through his drawers. Again, nothing. Hannibal was neat. His clutter was minimal. I wondered if his suite at the shore was like this, too.
The guy in the guest room wasn't nearly so neat. His desk, wherever it was, would be a mess.
I hadn't found any weapons in the upstairs rooms. Since I knew, firsthand, that Hannibal had at least one gun, this probably meant he had the gun with him. Hannibal didn't seem like the kind of guy to leave his armaments in the cookie jar.
I went to the basement next. Not much to investigate down there.
“This is disappointing,” I said to Lula, closing the basement door behind me. “There's nothing here.”
“I couldn't find anything on this floor, either,” Lula said. “No matchbooks from bars, no guns stuck under the couch cushions. There's some food in the refrigerator. Beer, juice, loaf of bread, and some cold cuts. There's some cans of soda, too. That's about it.”
I went to the refrigerator and looked at the wrapper on the cold cuts. They'd been bought at the Shop Rite two days earlier. “This is really creepy,” I said to Lula. “Someone's living in this house.” And my unspoken thought was that they could be home any minute.
“Yeah, and he don't know much about cold cuts,” Lula said. “He got turkey breast and Swiss cheese when he could have got salami and provolone.”
We were in the kitchen, looking in the refrigerator and not paying a lot of attention to what was happening in front of the house. There was the sound of a lock clicking open, and Lula and I both stood up straight.
“Uh-oh,” Lula said.
The door opened. Cynthia Lotte stepped into the room and squinted at us in the dim light. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
Lula and I were speechless.
“Tell her,” Lula said, giving me an elbow. “Tell her what we're doing here.”
“Never mind what we're doing here,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“None of your business. And anyway, I have a key, so obviously I belong here.”
Lula hauled out a Glock. “Well, I got a gun, so I guess that one-ups you.”
Cynthia whipped a .45 out of her purse. “I've got a gun, too. We're even.”
They both turned to me.
“I've got a gun at home,” I said. “I forgot to bring it.”
“That doesn't count,” Cynthia said.
“It counts for something,” Lula said. “It isn't like she don't have a gun at all. And besides, she's wicked when she got the gun. She killed a man, once.”
“I remember reading about it. Dickie almost went into cardiac arrest. He thought it reflected badly.”
