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“Maybe,” Rachel said. “If she’s in.”
Griff dropped his duffel bag beside her door and followed her down the stairs and to the office at the opposite end of the building.
Fortunately, Sharon Morgan, a forty-seven-year-old divorcee, was there dressed to the nines in cream slacks with a matching jacket and a black cashmere top. Her bleached-blond hair hung straight to her shoulders, her makeup was perfect, and she wore a ready smile to greet anyone who walked through the door.
“Ms. West, so good of you to stop in. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve lost my key to my apartment, and my spare is inside the apartment. Could I get you to loan me a key or unlock the door?”
Sharon rose gracefully from her desk chair. “Yes, of course.” She unlocked a box on the wall and grabbed a ring of keys. “I’ll unlock the door for you. And I can have another spare made for you.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said.
“And who is this handsome man with you?” Sharon asked, looking up through her beautifully long, false eyelashes.
“This is Griff, my…fiancé.” She turned to Griff. “Griff, this is Sharon, our apartment manager.”
Sharon held out a perfectly manicured hand, placing the tips of her fingers in Griff’s palm. “Pleasure to meet you.” She smiled up at him and batted her eyes.
Rachel wished she could dress the way Sharon did and wear everything with the same confidence. The sad truth was that Sharon was beautifully feminine, and Rachel was more of a perpetual tomboy. She sighed and followed the timeless beauty out of the office and walked alongside her the length of the building and up to her apartment.
Sharon slipped the master key into the lock and pushed open the door. She smiled and stood back. “Looks like you have something on the floor. A gift, maybe?” Sharon winked at Griff. “I love a man who leaves me gifts.” She touched Rachel’s arm. “He’s a keeper. Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be in my office until 2:00 pm.”
The office manager left, descending the stairs like a pageant queen, smooth, elegant and completely in control while wearing four-inch heels.
“How does she do that?” Rachel sighed. “I could never look that good.”
“You’re a natural beauty.”
“Which is man-speak for girl-next-door or kid sister. She snorted. “I’m hopeless when it comes to being that well put together.” She started to step across the threshold. “What was she saying about a gift?” Then she saw it—a Tiffany blue box with a matching bow.
Rachel frowned. “That’s not mine.”
Griff stepped around her and inspected the box without picking it up. “Does anyone besides the apartment manager have a copy of your apartment key?”
She shook her head. “No. Or at least, not that I know of. Don’t touch it. There might be prints.”
When she started forward, Griff grabbed her arm. “Let me clear the apartment.” Griff slipped his handgun from his holster, held it in front of him and then moved from the entrance into the first room on the right. He emerged a few seconds later and entered the guest bathroom. One by one, he searched each room quickly and efficiently.
When he came out of her bedroom, he placed his handgun back in the holster beneath his jacket.
Her instinct was to say that she could have done the same. Instead, she let him do his job. “Thank you.” Rachel hurried past the box and into her small kitchen. She reached into the cabinet beneath the sink, pulled a surgical glove out of a box and grabbed a paper lunch bag.
Slipping her hand in the glove, she returned to the front entrance, lifted the box with her gloved hand and dropped it into the paper bag. “We’ll take this to the station after we get showered. I don’t know who left it there or how he got in, but this is creepy.”
Griff stepped outside, grabbed his duffel bag next to the door and stepped back into her apartment. “Which shower do you want me to use?”
She tipped her head toward a room to the right. “That’s the guest bedroom. I’ll clean it out later so you can get a bed in there. The bathroom is the next door.” She stepped up to the apartment’s front door and peered out, searching the shadows of the trees on the opposite side of the parking lot. “I saw the shadowy figure among those trees a couple of nights when I got off work at midnight.”
Griff stood beside her and nodded. “I’ll check it out.”
“I waited until the next morning to look for footprints. I didn’t find any, but the dirt appeared to have been brushed with something. It was too smooth.” She stepped back and closed the door, twisting the deadbolt. “Do you think whoever left the box retrieved my keys from my crashed SUV?”
Griff shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“Great,” Rachel said. “Add having the locks rekeyed to my to-do list. I’m headed for a shower. If you get done before me, help yourself to anything you can find to eat or drink. I’m sorry to say, you probably won’t find much. Or we can stop by Mattie’s Diner. They serve breakfast all day.”
“I’d like to go to the coffee shop where your sister worked sometime today,” Griff said.
