City of Echoes by Robert Ellis Page B

window on the second floor that opened into Hughes’s study and, like the master bedroom, overlooked the pool and backyard. He had used a glass cutter, making a round hole just big enough to reach inside and open the latch. A long piece of clear tape had been attached so that the glass could be removed without making any sound.
    Matt looked at it still taped to the roof over the first-floor porch, then turned to Laura. She was watching from the hallway and seemed more than nervous.
    “There aren’t any alarms on the second floor?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “Just downstairs.”
    She was still dressed for bed. She was wearing another T-shirt and that pair of pajama bottoms with pictures of flowers and rainbows and pots of gold. She had added a robe, which she kept tugging on and pulling across her chest.
    “Everything was okay with Kevin, right, Laura? He didn’t seem quiet or preoccupied? He wasn’t worried about something or someone? He didn’t mention anything going on at work?”
    Those blue eyes of hers got bigger and were right on him. She seemed surprised by his questions. She seemed confused and nervous about them. When she spoke, her voice was low pitched and scratchy.
    “I thought you said it was a holdup.”
    Matt nodded. “I did,” he said. “But it might be more than that.”
    “More than that?”
    “Did you see anyone hanging around yesterday? Maybe sitting in their car looking at your house.”
    “I didn’t see anyone, but I wasn’t looking. You’re scaring me, Matt. You think this has something to do with Kevin’s death?”
    “I didn’t say that. Everything’s gonna be fine. Trust me. It’s okay.”
    He hadn’t said it, but deep inside he knew that there was no other explanation for the break-in and that it wouldn’t take long for Laura to figure it out on her own. He looked away from her just as a ray of sunlight struck the carpet. He could see shoe prints in the pile. The impressions were fresh and distinct and led out of the study and down the hall.
    “When was the last time you vacuumed?”
    Her eyes dropped to the carpet. “A few days ago. Why?”
    Matt shrugged. “Just curious,” he said. “I need to go through Kevin’s desk. It’s gonna take a while. You might as well shower and get dressed.”
    She gave him a look. “When was the last time you had something to eat, Matt?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Then I’ll go downstairs, make a pot of coffee, and fix you some eggs.”
    He watched her walk off but waited until he heard her reach the first floor and step into the kitchen. Fishing his cell phone out of his pocket, he switched on the flashlight and followed the shoe prints down the hall. Whoever the prints belonged to had made a round trip that began in the study. When he followed them into the master bedroom, when they stopped at the end of the bed, he felt his heart sink. Based on the compression of the carpet pile, the intruder had spent more than a few minutes watching Laura sleep.
    Matt tried to keep his emotions in check, following the prints from the end of the bed to a chair by the window. Laura had tossed her jeans over the arm. A bra and a pair of panties the color of raspberries were laid out on top. As he looked back at the bed, he tried not to think about what had happened here last night, or what could have happened. He tried not to give the pictures that were playing in his head any definition.
    If he hadn’t noticed the footprints, he would have thought that this was over. Whoever broke into the house took what they wanted and split.
    If he hadn’t noticed the footprints, it could have been over.
    He took a deep breath, considering his options. He needed to make two phone calls. First to Grace so that they could work things out with Glendale PD and get SID out here. But even more important, Matt knew with complete certainty that the threat to Laura was directly related to her husband’s murder on LAPD soil. He needed to bring Metro Division