Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [29]
I shook my head.
“What did he do to you?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. “Nothing,” I said at last.
“What?”
“He turned me into a sniveling, pathetic animal. But he didn’t do anything to me,” I shouted.
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah.”
“And you never saw him?”
“A fucking animal,” I cried out. “No, I didn’t see him.”
It was queer. The softer his voice grew, the louder mine became. I screamed at poor Cliff, “What did he take?”
“Take?”
I peeled away from him, ran into the living room, the kitchen, Annabeth’s room, the sunporch. Everything in place: the stereos, the half-dozen clock radios in the apartment, Taylor’s watch, Barry’s electric razor, household money in the flowerpot. He hadn’t even stolen my wallet, which I found beneath the coffee table.
With Cliff at my heels, I opened the door to what had been Wilton and Mia’s room. It was chaos inside. Drawers turned out, books swept from the shelves, throw rug turned over.
The scene terrified me all over again. But at least now it made some kind of sense. Now I understood. I saw that I had been in no real danger. Whoever that was, he needed to get inside the apartment and then neutralize me while he searched for something—literally, some thing. I had no clue what that could be. But it had something to do with Wilton and Mia. The guy even knew which room had been theirs. He had taken something we never knew we had. It had belonged to Wilton, or maybe to Mia, or, just possibly, to the thief himself.
I thought about the noiseless way the intruder had left, just crept away, how he’d unlocked the closet door and cracked it so that I could get air and get out. Almost like he was apologizing. It meant he’d found what he came for. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I was back in my body now. Fingers, toes, all there. Breathing free again. The relief came from knowing there had been some object to the guy’s terrorizing me. I was also relieved, not to mention ashamed for even entertaining the idea, that it could not have been Nat Joffrey who’d done those things to me. Yes, for an instant there, at the very beginning of the assault, I had actually thought Nat, the professional pacifist, was mad enough to rape or even kill me.
Cliff got the kid into his pajamas and settled in his room.
“What’s he doing here, anyway?” I asked. “I thought the county welfare people took him.”
“They did. But Crash got him out last night. He told Jordan he was just going to the store this morning, but he’s not back yet. Who knows when Bev’s coming home. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Is he flipping over what happened to me?”
“Ten years with those assholes, Jordan doesn’t flip over anything. He just needs some sleep.”
“There’s something else, Cliff. Did Barry mention where he was heading when he left the house today?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No.”
“He’s up to something. It’s either a good thing—something brave—or something that stinks.”
I started with the exchange I’d had with Jack Klaus and told Cliff everything that had happened during this singular day. I omitted my humiliation at Owen’s place. But otherwise, I came clean.
“Did you call that cop Norris? Or the one you went to this morning?”
“No. And I’m not going to.”
“Why not? Some crazy fuck tied you up. That’s kidnapping or something.”
“I’m not doing it, Cliff. I told you, the guy got what he came after and he won’t be back. Besides, the police are doing a real bad number on us. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t trust them. They’re trying to frame Dan, and Klaus is some kind of front for them.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked sad, and kind of beaten.
“What do you think’s gonna happen to Jordan?” he said finally.
“To who?” His irrelevant question enraged me. “How should I know?”
“I know. He’s gonna have it awful. His life’ll be shit. Probably