No matter what.
“All right,” Sinclair said, rocking back on the heels of his heavy-soled boots to give her bedroom one last look before fixing her with a gray stare that meant business. “The crime scene techs are on their way. Maxwell is canvassing the building to see if any of your neighbors saw or heard anything unusual. Hollister and Hale are talking to your landlord, but our initial check with dispatch doesn’t have any other reported breakins on this block today.”
Isabella had to give Sam credit. For as pissed as he surely still was that she’d pursued DuPree on her own in the beginning, he had to have walked out his door less than a minute after she’d called to tell him she and Kellan had discovered this mess.
God, this mess was her apartment. Her personal, private space.
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep inhale and trying to organize her spinning thoughts. There had to be some way of proving DuPree was responsible for this. He might be cagey, but he wasn’t the goddamned Invisible Man.
“Did you have the building’s security company pull the footage from the cameras in the lobby?” Kellan asked from beside her, putting her thoughts into words.
Sinclair lifted a brow at him before sending his answer in her direction. “Capelli’s on the footage, but it’s going to take him a little time. Is there anything obvious that’s missing?”
Isabella knew he had to ask, but still… “Other than my sanity, you mean? Come on, Sam. You know this wasn’t some random breakin.” Between the threat and the dress and the picture of Marisol, the mess had DuPree tattooed all over it.
To her surprise, he kept his cool. “Just like you know I can’t exactly ask Peterson for an arrest warrant labeled ‘because I said so.’ Now you want to try again? In order to rule DuPree in, we have to rule everything else out.”
“Fine,” she said, because as much as she hated it, he wasn’t wrong. “I don’t really have anything all that valuable. My SIG is in the safe in the closet.” She’d checked about two seconds after she’d called him, leaving everything else untouched. A stolen weapon was bad enough. A stolen weapon that belonged to a cop? Now that was a bad fucking day. “Everything else looks like it’s here. In pieces, but still here.”
“And you were gone all day?” Sinclair asked, and Isabella nodded, going through the drill.
“I left at five this morning. When Kellan and I came back from his place about an hour ago, my apartment looked like this.”
“You two have been together the whole time.” Sinclair shifted his gaze from her to Kellan and then back again, his brows rising just enough to let her know he’d read between the lines, and although her gut tightened, she didn’t hold back the truth.
“Yes. We’ve been together all day.”
Kellan stiffened from his spot next to her on the floorboards. “Sorry,” he said, his arms forming a knot over the front of his dark blue hoodie. “What does that have to do with the fact that DuPree trashed Isabella’s apartment, exactly?”
Her pulse jumped. Time to step in so Sinclair wouldn’t. “He just needs to confirm there was no threat made to you, too, since we were both at the party together. Don’t worry, it’s standard procedure to ask.”
Kellan’s shoulders lowered, if only a fraction. “Oh. No, nothing out of the ordinary on my end. My buddy Devon has my sister covered. He’d have called if something went pear-shaped there.”
“Okay, good.” Sinclair paused to look around Isabella’s wrecked bedroom, the frown lines bracketing his mouth turning softer. “Well, you know the drill, Moreno. We’re going to need to get you into protective custody.”
Her pulse clattered in yet another round of you can’t be serious. “What? No.”
“A clear and present threat was made against you,” Sinclair said, gesturing to the mirror where her dress and the ominous message still stood like a taunt. “What else would you suggest we do?”
“Let me back on the case?” she asked with a little bit of sarcasm and a whole lot of honest suggestion. “This is beyond personal now, Sam. You can’t really expect me to sit in protective custody while you guys track this bastard down.”
Aha. The look on Sinclair’s face said her words had found their mark. Still, he asked, “Are you refusing protective custody?”
Isabella answered with care. “I’m not an idiot. I know how to watch my back and I’ll check in at regular intervals. But as far as staying in some safe house in the hinterlands of the city, yeah. I’m refusing protective custody.”
Sinclair frowned, but he also didn’t argue. Thank God. “You’re going to have to stay somewhere else, at least for tonight while CSU goes over this place and we look into leads. If one of them points at DuPree, we’ll let you know.”