“You said twice, though,” Deiss says gently. “Did you find him the first time?”
She nods eagerly. “I raced through the streets searching, but there was no trace of him. Finally, I gave up, but when I got back, there was a man here. He’d found Cat and gotten the address from his collar and brought him home.”
Phoebe waves her hands in the air with exasperation. “And then what happened?”
I’m completely numb.
“He brought Cat back?” Deiss asks. “That was nice of him.”
“Right?” Elena gazes up at him, relief shining in her eyes at the thought of an ally. “I wanted to give him a reward, but I didn’t have any cash. So, I offered him a drink. I thought it was the least I could do.”
“I would’ve thought the least you could do would be to close the door,” Phoebe mutters, pacing across the living room, right through the space where there would normally be a couch.
“I’m sure he appreciated the offer,” Deiss says. “Did he accept the drink?”
“Yes. But I took him to the bar down the street. Obviously, I wasn’t going to invite a stranger into Olivia’s house.” She looks to me as if for approval, but I can barely see her. My vision is too full of white. Alhambra Cream where my paintings used to be. Chantilly Lace on the walls beyond my bedroom door. I guarantee, though, if I were to walk through that door, I wouldn’t see the cotton sateen duvet on my bed. Nor would I see the bed.
I take a step toward it, but stop before my suspicion can be confirmed. I’d rather not know. The couch might’ve been ridiculous, but that bed was like sleeping on a cloud. I won’t miss it as much as I’ll miss Cat Stevens, but I’ll probably never sleep as well again.
“So,” Deiss says. “He never came inside?”
“Well.” Elena hesitates. “For a minute. Just to get Cat Stevens through the door.”
“And did he start robbing Liv right then?” Phoebe asks. “Or did he wait until after you bought him a frosty lager?”
“He couldn’t have done it.” Elena tears up again, her chin wobbling as she looks to Deiss for reassurance. “He came all the way here just to bring Cat Stevens home. A cat rescuer doesn’t rob houses.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Deiss says. “But just for argument’s sake, did you happen to mention that Liv was out of town?”
Elena’s tears start to flow in earnest. Miserably, she nods. “I guess I must’ve mentioned it when I told him I’d be checking in on Cat until Liv got back on Tuesday. I thought, if he lived in the neighborhood, he might want to meet up again.”
“And did he?” Deiss’s voice quickens with excitement. “Did he want to meet up again?”
“Tell us you got his number,” Phoebe demands before Elena has a chance to answer. “Better yet, tell us you went home with him.”
“I got his number,” Elena says, not meeting our eyes. “But when I called it, it was for a pizza place.”
Phoebe shakes her head. “And did you go home with him?”
“No.” Elena studies the floor. Her shoulders droop with shame.
“You brought him back here,” Deiss says, his voice kindly devoid of accusation, “didn’t you?”
“No.” Phoebe slaps her hand against her forehead. But her disbelief is pointless. It’s obvious by Elena’s lack of response that Deiss is right.
“You did,” I say in a deadened tone.
“You don’t understand,” Elena wails. “We had talked for hours. We had so much in common.”
I stare at her, and she crumples.
“But when we were talking, I must’ve mentioned you were moving,” she admits through her tears. “Because your neighbor said he saw them taking everything. He even asked where you were. But they said you’d hired them. That they were professional movers. They were even all wearing white shirts. And they had a key!”
Just like that, I know exactly what happened. It hardly takes Sherlock-level deduction on my part, which is convenient, because Mr. Holmes would certainly be smarter than to leave a spare key in plain sight. Like the fool that I am, I kept it in the same rose-gold leaf on the floating shelf next to the door where I drop my regular set of keys.
The spare was for runs; when I needed a single key I could zip into yoga pants. Normally, I only had one, the one I gave Elena, but Mr. Rosenthall had returned my emergency copy when he decided not to buy his apartment. With his back in my possession, I had two. One for Elena and one, conveniently, for Cat Stevens’s rescuer to find. The poor man hardly had a choice. A key and the neighbors’ expectations that I was moving all my stuff out? I was practically begging to be robbed. I might as well have flung my door open and announced an Oprah-style giveaway.