Inside Out (9 page)

L. I.

IT WAS WELL past midnight when Nat finally got home. As she opened her front door, she automatically braced herself, but Hannah didn’t rush to greet her in her typical speed-demon fashion, invariably careening into Nat because her paws had no gripping power on the polished hardwood floor.

“Hannah? Here, girl.”

Not a bark. Not a whimper.

“Hannah?” An edge of anxiety crept into Nat’s voice. Something was definitely wrong. Could Hannah have gotten sick? She’d seemed perfectly fine a couple of hours ago before Nat had left to rush out to the hospital.

It was the absolute silence that alarmed Nat the most. Goose bumps prickled her arms as she tried to rein in her escalating panic.

She remained at the open door, cautiously sliding her hand against the wall for the light switch. She flicked it on, but the hallway remained dark. Maybe if she hadn’t just come from Ross Varda’s ransacked apartment, she wouldn’t immediately have thought the worst. But the break-in, the mugging, the warning scrawled on his mirror, were all playing havoc with her mind.

And now Hannah wasn’t responding to her arrival, and the lights didn’t work. Had someone broken in here as well? Pulled the fuses? Deliberately intending to keep her in the dark?

At least the light from the hall corridor outside her apartment provided enough of a glow for her to see that the foyer appeared undisturbed. But the light didn’t carry into her living room. It could be a shambles. Or, even as she stood there at the door, it could be in the process of being torn apart. The assailant could be in her apartment right at that moment. Holding his or her breath much as she was holding hers.

Nat knew the wise move—the only rational move—was to turn on her heels and beat it the hell out of there, just as Varda and she had done at his place a short while ago.

But Varda didn’t own a dearly loved dog who might at that very instant be lying somewhere in her apartment, maybe injured but still clinging desperately to life. How would she live with herself if she abandoned Hannah when a little gumption on her part could have saved her pet?

“Hannah?” she called out again, this time taking a couple of wary steps inside the apartment, still leaving her front door wide open so she could make a fast getaway if she had to. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to. Hopefully, if she did have to run, she wouldn’t be impeded in her escape.

“Hannah? Here, girl. Where are you, girl?”

Nat listened acutely for the faintest whimper. Naturally, she was also listening for any other sounds. Like footsteps, creaks, an intruder’s hushed breathing. If someone was lying in wait for her, he or she had certainly received warning that she was there. She knew it was completely foolhearty to imagine her presence might scare an intruder off, but she couldn’t help hoping it might.

She took a couple more steps inside. “Hannah?” If her dog was dead Nat was seriously going to lose it. She was already biting back tears. She loved that dog. Unequivocally. Unconditionally.

She moved cautiously toward her living room. Unfortunately, there were no overhead fixtures in there. In order to discover whether all of the lights were not in working order, she would need to make her way almost halfway into the room to a lamp sitting on an end table next to her couch. At least, it had been there when she’d left that morning. She flashed back on the chaos of what had once been Varda’s assuredly tidy, orderly living room.

She took small steps, fearing that she might trip over something. Worse, over someone. Someone like Hannah.
If you harmed Hannah, you shit, I’ll make you so sorry
—

But her path was clear. Nothing on her floor that shouldn’t be there. The brass lamp with the Tiffany-esque glass shade was right where it was supposed to be. Words couldn’t express the relief Nat felt when she pulled the metal chain and the light actually went on.

She silently said a prayer of thanks to Thomas Alva Edison and his brilliant invention.

Her living room appeared untouched. Her morning mug of coffee was still on her coffee table.

Not a chance in a million that Hannah was so dead to the world that she wouldn’t respond. Unless . . . Unless she literally was dead to the world.

Nat started frantically racing around her apartment hunting for Hannah, mindless of potential danger rather than fearless of it. Like a wild woman, she was throwing open drawers and closets, crawling under beds, chairs, sofas. She had to find her dog. Dead or alive, she had to find her.

Hannah was a full-grown, sixty-pound golden retriever. If she was in that apartment, there was no place she could be hiding that Nat wouldn’t unearth her.

It was only as she approached the closed door to her bathroom that Nat hesitated. Was she, like Varda, going to find a warning scribbled on her mirror? Was Lynn’s assailant afraid she’d worm his identity out of Varda? Or figure it out for herself?

Had he left her a scrawled message—or something worse? Gruesome images of Hannah lying sprawled on her tile floor, cut up, dead, or dying, raced across Nat’s mind.

As she cupped the doorknob, she could feel a violent tremor shooting from her palm right up her arm. She forced herself to turn the knob and crack the bathroom door open, but she was having trouble opening it wide enough to see what was inside. For several moments, she clutched the knob as though it were her lifeline, and stood there listening.

Silence except for the escalating beating of her heart.

She braced herself—like that was really possible—and flung open the door. The only object on her tile floor
was
the mint-green bath towel she’d used that morning. Her gaze shifted to her closed floral shower curtain.

Cursing every horror film she’d ever seen where the heroine yanks open her shower curtain either to come face-to-face with a gruesome body or an equally gruesome killer, Nat did precisely that. Other than a faint ring around her tub, there was nothing to be seen. There was only one other conceivable place in there where Hannah might be. Even though her wicker hamper didn’t feel heavy enough to be concealing a fifty-pound dog, Nat toppled it and emptied her dirty laundry out on the floor just to make sure.

Ten minutes later, she was standing in the middle of her kitchen, cupboard doors yawning open, having yanked out all her pots and pans from the shelves in the unlikely chance Hannah had somehow managed to wedge herself deep into the back of the pantry—or someone had managed to put her there.

No sign of her. Absolutely no sign. Nor had Nat discovered the slightest indication of a struggle having gone on anywhere in the apartment.

Tears stung her eyes as Nat thought about what a trusting soul Hannah was. How she loved people. Kids especially, but women, men, too. Give her a smile, a vigorous pat and she was your friend. Give her a treat and she’d go anywhere with you.

That was the only conclusion Nat could draw. The intruder had managed to get into her apartment and steal off with Hannah. Her dog had been kidnapped.

But how had the intruder gained entry into her apartment? Nat had checked all the doors and windows by that time. No sign of forced entry. And the only people with keys to her apartment were Leo and her sister. Leo used his key occasionally. Rachel, never.

Nat remained standing there, trying to make sense of things, when she heard scratching sounds. Then a short spate of barks.

Heedless of possible danger, she went racing out of the kitchen and down the hall toward her entry foyer. “Hannah? Hannah, girl?”

There was only silence now. Emptiness. It was like she’d dreamed the barks.

A few feet from her front door, she stopped short. The door was shut.

Nat knew—she was positive—she’d left it wide open. She’d even glanced at the open door several times as she was running from room to room hunting for her dog.

Someone had been here. Moments ago. Someone had been there with Hannah. Nat was certain of it. But why had the dog-napper come back? To get her? But then, why disappear again? It made no sense.

Nat darted the few feet separating her from the door and yanked it open just in time to see the elevator doors sliding shut at the end of the hall. She raced to the windows of her living room that looked down on the street, hoping to get a glimpse of her dog and the dognapper—at the very least, enough of a description of the bastard to give the cops a lead.

Endless minutes passed as she stood at her open window with her gaze fixed on the street. No one exited. Not man nor beast.

Had the elevator gotten stuck? Could the kidnapper have taken Hannah up to the roof?

On the vague chance that they might still use the main entrance, Nat remained stubbornly at her post for a good five minutes longer. Still no sign of anyone going or coming.

Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe she was losing her mind.

The rush of adrenaline that had kept her going up to that moment, deserted her. She felt drained dry. She couldn’t even work up the energy to cry. Numb with despair, she sank to the floor beside her window and leaned against the wall.

That was where she was when her front door burst open a good ten minutes later. Before Nat could even gather the strength to react, she saw Leo and two uniformed cops, all three with weapons drawn, charge into the living room.

“What—?” This didn’t make any sense at all. Why was Leo here? How had he known something was wrong?

Leo made a beeline for Nat, the uniforms cautiously scanning the space, guns at the ready.

He knelt beside her, grasping hold of her trembling hands, concern and anxiety sweeping across his features. “Jesus, Natalie, are you okay? Are you hurt? Talk to me. What happened?”

“I. . . It’s . . . It’s Hannah, Leo. Hannah’s ...” And that’s as far as she could go. Her bottom lip was quivering, and she knew if she went on, she’d break down completely. She was fighting it desperately. Bad enough to feel so vulnerable. Worse to show it.

“Is she all right?” an anxious and familiar voice called out. A voice accompanied by a series of low whimpers.

Not waiting for a response, Rachel rushed in, doing her best to restrain the large dog struggling to break free from her firm hold of the leash.

“Hannah. Oh, Hannah,” Nat cried out.

And then the dog was running to her, careening into her, lapping her, barking, and Nat was holding Hannah so tight it was a wonder the dog could breathe, much less continue to bark joyfully. “Hannah.” Nat cried her name again as she buried her face in Hannah’s luxuriant golden hair. There might have been a happier moment in her life, but if there was, Nat couldn’t remember it.

“Oh, Nat, I am so, so sorry.”

It was nearly one in the morning. Leo and the two uniforms had gone. Hannah had settled herself comfortably on the sofa beside Nat, her head resting contentedly in her lap. Rachel was fussing with the tea she had insisted on making for them, which Nat didn’t want.

“I didn’t think,” Rachel went on as she spooned a heaping teaspoon of honey into each of the mugs. “I must have gotten here no more than ten minutes before you arrived. I heard Hannah barking frantically inside the apartment. I thought you wouldn't mind if I let myself in.” She looked over at Nat for reassurance that her assumption was true.

Nat managed a weak smile.

“And then Hannah wouldn’t settle down. She kept huddling by the door. I realize now she was probably just waiting for you to come home, but I thought she needed to go out. So I took her for a walk. And then when we got back . . . well, I saw the door wide open, and I knew I certainly hadn’t left it that way ... I was particularly careful to lock it, as a matter of fact...”

As Nat listened to Rachel she could almost laugh, it was all making such ridiculous sense.

“So, I panicked. I thought someone had . . . broken in . . . Then I heard noises and was certain the intruder was still in here.” Rachel shivered visibly. “Really, Nat, I just wish you’d find yourself a nice, safe career that didn’t put you in the middle of packs of hardened criminals.”

An old refrain of her sister’s. One that she’d sung even more often since the Walsh incident.

Rachel was stirring the honey vigorously into the tea. “So I called the police. Told them it was an emergency involving Superintendent Natalie Price and to get ahold of Leo Coscarelli on the double. I waited down in the lobby for them.”

Which explained why Nat never saw Hannah and her “kidnapper” exiting the building. Well, at least that meant she hadn’t been hallucinating.

“Leo wasted no time getting here.” Rachel handed her a mug. Nat took it only because her sister seemed so desperate to do something for her.

“He looked relieved but a bit disappointed when he left,” Rachel said. “I hope it wasn’t because of me.”

“I don’t follow,” Nat said.

“Leo. Wanting to spend the night. Not staying because of me.”

“It... It wasn’t because of you, Rachel.”

“Oh.” There was the faintest hint of a question in her words. “It’s complicated. Because of the investigation into the assault on one of my residents—”

“Lynn Ingram. The transsexual who was . . . cut up?”

Nat nodded. “Jakey’s mom is . . . Lynn’s roommate.” Rachel had met Leo’s little boy a few months back, at the Children’s Museum. She was there with her three kids and their nanny. Leo and Nat were there with Jakey. They ended up spending the afternoon together. It was nice. It felt like they were all . . . family. Thinking back on that day now, Nat felt this awful wrenching in her gut.

“Jakey’s mom is . . . serving time?”

Nat saw the look of shock and reproach on her sister’s face. Shock, no doubt, because Jakey’s mom was a convict. Reproach directed at Nat for never having shared that startling fact.

Nat felt a pang of guilt, but she was too drained to let it get to her. Besides, now that her panic had been put to rest, her focus shifted to the reason why her sister had showed up at her apartment tonight in the first place.

Nat saw Rachel stiffen as she put that question to her, but Rachel didn’t respond. Instead, she sipped her now-tepid tea.

“Are the children okay?” Nat asked, although she couldn’t imagine Rachel wouldn’t have said something by now if one of them was ill or if something bad had happened to any of them.