Page 69 of Liar's Point

Great. Very subtle.

The little dog on the corner started yapping, and Nicole turned to look at it. Perfect, now the neighbors were watching. Their stealth approach was blown at this point, so she pulled out her flashlight and walked up to the other window.

“There’s a gap in the blinds,” she said, peering through.

Her heart sank.

“Damn it,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s empty. No TV, no furniture. Nothing but a bare mattress.”

Emmet came over, and she felt him looking over her shoulder. “Fuck. I thought he lived here.”

Her stomach twisted with disappointment. “Not anymore.”

CHAPTER

TWELVE

A sharp knock at the door made Emmet look at his watch.

“Hang on,” he told Owen over the phone. “I think my food’s here.”

“I’ll let you go. I just wanted to hear how it went. Sorry it was another dead end.”

“We’ll hit it again tomorrow.”

Emmet left his phone on the coffee table and went to the door. He was surprised to find Nicole standing there.

“Hi.” She looked him up and down and bit her lip. He’d changed into sweats and a T-shirt as soon as he walked in, but she was dressed the same as earlier in her LBPD windbreaker, and clearly she hadn’t been home yet. “Is it too late?”

“Not at all.”

“I wanted to update you.”

He pulled the door back. “Sure. I’m watching the game.”

She stepped inside. “So, I tracked down the superintendent at the building and—”

“Hang on,” he said as a dinged white car pulled up to the curb. Emmet waited for the delivery guy to come up the sidewalk, then tipped him and brought the pizza into the kitchen. He set the warm box down and opened the lid, and the smell of Italian sausage filled the room.

“Want some?” he asked.

She eyed the pizza and gave a little sigh. “No, thanks.”

He pulled the slices apart as she stepped over to look at the framed picture on the wall.

“This is new.” She studied the poster-size photograph of the Grand Canyon at sunset. “Where’d you get it?”

“It’s from my trip last summer. Remember, I went rafting with Calvin and Kyle?”

She turned around, eyes wide. “You took this?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were a photographer.”

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