Page 86 of Little Hidden Fears

Ramona entered the room. “What do you think? Anything?”

I pointed at the top drawer. “There are only a few pairs of panties in this drawer, and a few bras in the next. Women never own just a few pairs of panties. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ll be right back.” Ramona marched down the hall, returning a minute later. “Washer and dryer are empty, and I don’t see a laundry basket full of clothes anywhere around here.”

“It’s possible Dawn packed a few things before she took off.”

“I take self-defense classes two nights a week. If she was here during that time, she could have come and gone without me seeing her.”

“Are there any security cameras in the community?”

Ramona laughed. “Security cameras? I can’t even get them to spring for a vending machine, which the guy who owns this place would make money on, I might add.”

I spent the next several minutes looking around the rest of Dawn’s room. In one of the drawers, I found a notebook with theword POETRY on the front. I flipped through its pages, noting several handwritten poems, my eyes wide as they came to rest on the title of the last poem in the book. It was titled: “Winter Is Like a Trickster, Full of Lies.”

A chill ran up my spine, as I realized the title of the poem was the exact words Noelle had spoken to me in my dream. Aside from the title, the poem hadn’t been written yet. Even so, it told me one thing—I was in the exact place I needed to be.

I entered the bathroom and looked around.

“Hey, Ramona, did Dawn wear a lot of makeup?”

“More than most women I know. Why?”

“There’s not much of it in these drawers.”

“How odd.”

Odd, indeed.

In the wastebasket, I noticed a crumpled-up napkin with writing on it. I leaned over, fishing it out. The napkin appeared to have gotten wet at some point, blurring part of what had been written. All I could make out was 5 Salt.

I grabbed my phone and made a call.

“How’s it going?” Hunter asked when she answered.

“It’s going,” I said. “I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I’m in Dawn’s apartment, and I found a napkin in the trash that’s been written on, but part of the word is blurred out. I’m thinking it might be an address. I can make out 5 Salt, but that’s it. Will you search for any addresses around here that have the wordsaltin them, and then take those addresses and cross-reference them with everyone we’ve spoken to during this case?”

“I’ll get on it right now.”

I thanked her and ended the call.

“I believe I’m done here, Ramona,” I said. “Thank you. I know you agreed to ten minutes, but you’ve allowed me to look around a lot longer.”

She gave me a wide smile and said, “Aww, it’s nothing. What are rules for if ya can’t bend them once in a while, right?”

“Right.”

“Now that you told me the scoop, I have to say, I’m worried. If there’s anything else I can do, anything at all, you just buzz on over here.”

As we stepped outside, I said, “Is there anything else you can tell me about Dawn before I go? Anything to help me understand her better?”

“Sure.”

For the next several minutes, I listened as Ramona went over Dawn’s daily routine in excruciating detail, including how she dressed, what days she worked, what days she had off, the type of food she liked to eat, among other things. As she wrapped up, I received a text message from Hunter, and with it, a shock to my system.

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