“Maybe his paranoia went into overdrive.”
“This is more than paranoia.” Lance scanned the drawings and annotations.
“Psychotic break?”
“Something like that. I don’t think we can assign rational explanations to Voss’s activity.”
“There’s a camera trained on the front door,” Lance said. “Stay out of its view.”
They went through the rest of the apartment, which consisted of a tiny living area and a kitchenette. A card table and four chairs were the only furnishings. The corners were crammed with stacks of books. Lance found a stack of packing slips on the table. He flipped through them. Most of Voss’s purchases were for home-monitoring equipment, nonperishable food items, and camping gear.
“Found his bills,” Morgan said from the kitchenette. “He’s maxed out his credit cards. Hasn’t paid a utility bill in ages. His rent is overdue. If he wasn’t in jail, he might not have a place to live soon.”
“Do you see a laptop?” Lance asked. Voss must have used a computer for his online ordering.
“No. I wonder if it was at the camp site.” Morgan continued to search the kitchen. “There’s a bit of dust in here, but not more than would accumulate in a week or two. The rest of the place seems relatively clean.”
“So he was tidy before he went over the edge,” Lance said. “You know what I don’t see? Any sign the police have been in here.”
“Maybe they haven’t gotten around to going through his apartment yet. They need a warrant, and he’s in custody, so I doubt they see any reason to rush.”
Lance went to the corner and began reading the book titles. Voss had paranoid taste in reading material. Conspiracy and spy thrillers, military memoirs, and how-to books about survival, prepping for doomsday, and staying off the radar. Lance considered the credit card bills. Maybe Voss hadn’t gotten around to reading the off-the-grid books yet.
Halfway down a high stack, Lance’s eye stopped on an odd-shaped hardcover bound in navy-blue leather. Gold script on the binding read SCARLET FALLS HIGH SCHOOL with last year’s date.
“What did you find?” Morgan peered over his shoulder. “A yearbook?”
Lance tugged it from the pile. He flipped through the pages. Voss had been considerate enough to flag his own pictures with Post-it Notes.
Morgan pointed to a photo of a large group of kids in athletic shorts. Several adults flanked the group. “Voss was an assistant track coach.”
“Was Tessa on the track team?”
“No.”
Lance went to the next bookmarked page. “He ran the video-gaming club. Tessa isn’t there either.” He turned to the next Post-it. “Bingo.”
The photo was labeled YEARBOOK COMMITTEE. Voss stood on one side of a group of twenty kids.
Morgan frowned and moisture glistened in her eyes as she pointed to a slim girl in the middle of the group. “There’s Tessa.”
“So Voss knew her.”
“Yes.”
“Do you see the girl who accused him of inappropriate behavior?” Morgan checked her notes. “Kimmie Blake. Or Ally Somers, the girl Kimmie claimed Voss kissed.”
“Neither are on the yearbook committee.” Lance went to the individual headshots section of the yearbook. “Here’s Kimmie Blake.” He turned pages. “And this is Ally Somers.”
Lance snapped a photo of the important pages, then returned the book to its original location. “We’ll get our own copy and look through it more thoroughly to see if we can find any connections between Kimmie, Ally, Jamie, and Tessa.”
“Do you need to see anything else?” Morgan asked, her eyes sweeping the room.
“What’s in the cabinets?”
“Normal kitchen stuff. I even checked the undersides of the drawers.”
“No secret compartments?”
“None that I could find,” she said.
Lance ducked into the only bathroom, a four-by-eight space with a pedestal sink, a narrow shower stall, and toilet. He opened the medicine chest over the sink. Clean spots on the shelves indicated missing pharmaceuticals.
“Was Voss taking any prescription meds?” Morgan asked from the doorway.
“If he wasn’t, he should have been.”
“Now that we’ve established that he knew Tessa, we can subpoena his medical records.”
“That’s progress.” Lance turned off the light and exited the bathroom. As they walked back to the bedroom closet, he ensured the apartment was exactly the way it had been before they’d entered.
They used Voss’s escape hatch. Lance folded the steps and eased the platform to the ceiling. It sprang back into place with a quick snap. Lance opened the exterior door an inch to find that the side yard was empty. They slipped out and walked around to the front of the garage. Looking up, Lance spotted a note taped to the front door.
“Hold on a second.” Lance went up the steps. “It’s a package delivery notification. I guess the credit card companies haven’t cut him off yet.”
Lance turned back to the stairs. Boom! Crack.
The stairway trembled. Light flashed under his feet. He grabbed for the railing. Too late! Wood splintered, and the stairs collapsed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Morgan’s heart dropped into her stomach as the stairway crumbled in front of her, and Lance plunged to the ground in a cloud of smoke and dust.
“Lance!” She rushed forward.
The structure had broken apart. Lance landed in the middle of the rubble. The small cloud of smoke dissipated in a few seconds in the breeze. Had Voss set a small explosion as a booby trap?
Morgan climbed over a pile of wood. He was on his back with several boards piled on top of him. He wasn’t moving. Her heart stuttered. He had to be all right. He just had to be.
Fear turned her hands clammy and her belly cold as she crouched next to him. “Can you hear me?”
He stirred. “Yes.”
Thank God.
Morgan exhaled. Her head swam with relief. She put a hand on the ground to steady herself.
“Don’t move.” She lifted a board off his torso. “Does anything hurt?”
“I’m all right.” He tried to slide out from under two joined steps pinning him across the thighs.
“You shouldn’t be moving!” She squatted and picked up the wood. She wobbled under its weight. No doubt adrenaline helped her lift it.
“Don’t do that,” Lance yelled as he sat up. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Staggering sideways, she dumped it into the grass.
“Morgan, I’m OK.”
“You’re bleeding.” Wary of pointy broken boards and protruding nails, she stooped next to him and ran her hands over his arms and legs.
Lance froze.
“What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?” She ran her hands up his sides. Did he break a rib? She stopped at his shoulders. His eyes were grinning at her.
She sat back. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
He was working hard not to laugh. “I told you I wasn’t, but maybe you should check every inch of me just to make sure.”