“Hey, don’t go knocking my pizza,” he protested. “I live for that shit.”
“Ha, we’re too cliché.”
As they finally got to the fourth floor landing, and she opened the door, he asked, “How did you know it was on this floor?”
She stopped, looked at him. “Is it?”
He nodded slowly.
She turned her grim face down the hallway. “This is also Candy’s floor.”
They headed down the hall; a security detail stood outside one of the doors. She walked past them into Candy’s room and looked, but it wasn’t Candy. She shook her head in shock. “That’s an interesting twist.”
At her side, Rodney whispered, “What’s the matter?”
“It’s the other female from the bully group. It’s not Candy.” He looked at her, startled, and she nodded.
“So this is her apartment? This is Candy’s place?” he asked.
Kate nodded, then stopped, hesitated. “You know something. I’m not so sure about that. This is where I interviewed Candy yesterday though.”
She walked over to the desk, looking to see if anything there identified it as Candy’s. But nothing was here. As a matter of fact, it looked like it had been completely cleaned out. She turned toward Rodney. “It looks like Candy has left. Everything is missing.”
“Everything except her friend,” Rodney said in a hard tone.
Kate frowned at the crumpled body on the floor, facedown. The woman’s hands were to the side, as if to break her fall as she’d fallen forward. Only she hadn’t broken anything.
Smidge walked in, took one look at Kate, and groaned. “You again?”
“Yep, it’s me. You don’t have too many choices when it comes to detectives.”
“Nope, and you keep bringing me the best cases.”
“Glad you think so because I have a hunch this will be another one.”
He sat back on his haunches, before he looked down at the woman. “What do you mean?”
Kate explained the little bit she knew.
“Oh, shit, well, this will be a fun one. So she’s part of the wealthy group then?”
“Potentially, yes. I’m not exactly sure because my understanding yesterday was that this was Candy’s room. But, if it was, then she should be here at this hour of the night. So I don’t know where Candy has gone.” She turned, walked through the little bit of a room to the bathroom, then came back and shook her head. “Everything is cleaned out.”
“Exams are potentially over, depending on their schedule,” Smidge said.
“I know, but she didn’t make any mention of leaving, and this is not what her place looked like when I was here yesterday.”
“You were just here?”
“Technically yesterday at this point, I guess. I was looking for more information on the woman killed at the intersection.”
“Right, so this is one of the witnesses?”
“Yeah. She was part of the group who went on to the pizza parlor, instead of waiting around for questioning.” He looked at her sideways, but she shrugged. “They didn’t seem to think they would be needed right away, so why waste time with some fatal accident scene, when they could be sitting inside and enjoying life.”
He shook his head, as if to say,What the hell?
A sentiment she completely agreed with. She waited and watched, as he did a quick visual on their victim.