“I know, but I was stubborn. And now I couldn’t get along without it. But how can we access Tori’s computer if we don’t know her password? And if she had a computer, don’t you think that Mike already found it and took it down to the experts at the sheriff’s station?”
“He probably did, but it won’t hurt to look. We’re going to be searching everywhere anyway. Now . . . where do we start?”
“We start right here. I’ll search Tori’s living room while Michelle searches the patio. You start with the powder room, Norman. And then move on to the other two bathrooms. After Michelle finishes the patio, she’ll search Tori’s acting studio. There are a lot of cabinets in there and it should take a while.”
Norman looked a bit disappointed. “It won’t take long to search the bathrooms. Where do you want me to go next?”
“Tori’s master bedroom is huge and there are two walk-in closets. You’ll probably be done with the bathrooms before I finish in the master bedroom. You can join me in there.”
“That’s the best offer I’ve had in years!” Norman quipped and then he chuckled at the shocked expression on Hannah’s face. “It’s okay, Hannah. I was just teasing you. I knew perfectly well what you meant.”
“How about Tori’s home office?” Michelle asked. “You said that was the place we’d be most likely to find what we needed.”
“That’s why I think we should search that together. If one of us misses something, somebody else might catch it. When Norman and I are through in the bedroom . . .” Hannah stopped speaking and sighed. “Let me rephrase that. When Norman and I are through searching the bedroom, we’ll head for Tori’s office. You can meet us there, Michelle.”
*
Fifteen minutes later, Hannah entered Tori’s master bedroom. She’d found nothing related to Tori’s business manager in the living room and she was eager to start going through the closets. Some people stored important documents in banker’s boxes and Tori could have stacked them in a corner of one of her walk-in closets.
“I’m here,” Norman announced, coming in the bedroom door. “I finished the bathrooms.”
“And you didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing except the fact that Tori used Charmin Ultra Soft bathroom tissue, and was very fond of scented soap.” Norman walked over to Hannah. “Do you have your phone on vibrate, Hannah?”
“Uh . . . I think so.”
“Where is it?”
“In my purse in the living room. I know I shouldn’t have brought it with me, but I feel naked without it.”
Norman made a choking sound. “I’m not touching that one,” he said. “I’ll go get your purse and bring it back here. It’s so big, it would be the first thing anyone saw if they came in the door.”
“But who would come in the door?”
Norman shrugged. “A detective from the sheriff’s department who came around to check that their crime tape was still up? If he saw that it wasn’t, he’d come in here right away.”
“Right,” Hannah said quickly. “I didn’t think of that when you took it down.”
Norman was back in a moment with her purse and Hannah handed him her cell phone. “I think it’s on vibrate, but you’d better make sure I did it right.”
Norman checked Hannah’s phone settings. “It’s on vibrate. Now, what shall we do with your purse?”
“We could put it on the floor of the closet. I noticed that there were other purses there. It won’t look out of place if someone does happen to come in. But what are we going to do if that happens?”
“Hide.” Norman walked over to the bed and knelt down, looking beneath the bedskirt. “There’s room for us under here,” he said, flipping the bedskirt back into place and standing up straight again.
“How about Michelle?”
“We already discussed it. She’s going to hide in one of Tori’s costume wardrobes. There are three of them against the wall in back of the stage area and one’s almost empty.”
Hannah was impressed. Norman had everything all worked out, even an emergency plan. She hoped they wouldn’t need it, but planning ahead was a lot better than trying to find a hiding place at the last moment.
“I’m glad you’re here, Norman,” she said, smiling at him. “Let’s start in the closet and maybe we’ll hit pay dirt.”
After twenty minutes in the first walk-in closet, they had nothing to show for their efforts except a tangle of multicolored yarn that had yet to be rolled into balls, fuzz from a stack of blankets they’d unfolded, a box of old grocery receipts that Tori had kept for some unknown reason, and a torn veil that had fallen off a hat they’d been unable to identify.
“Nothing here,” Norman said lifting another box of useless receipts and putting them back on the closet shelf. It’s got to be somewhere . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence and gripped Hannah’s arm. “Listen!” he whispered.
“I don’t hear . . .” Hannah drew in her breath sharply as she heard the distinctive creak of the hinges on Tori’s front door. “Someone’s here!”
“Under the bed. Quick!” Norman pulled her to her feet and both of them raced for the side of the bed. They’d just managed to squirm underneath when the sound of footfalls on thick carpeting approached the master bedroom.
Hardly daring to breathe, Hannah gripped Norman’s hand. Would the intruder find them? Was Tori’s condo being burglarized? Or was the person who’d broken into Tori’s condo the person who’d killed her?!
Heart beating so frantically in her chest that she was afraid the intruder might hear it, Hannah shut her eyes and hung on to Norman’s hand. She was grateful she wasn’t alone. If she’d been under the bed, all by herself, her terror might have escalated even more rapidly. Norman’s presence steadied her, made her body remain perfectly motionless, listening for any sounds that would tell her what the intruder was doing.
A drawer in Tori’s bedside table opened. The intruder was searching for something, rummaging around in its contents. Hannah found herself wishing that they’d started their search with the bedside tables. Then she might have known what the intruder was searching for.