Page 44 of Shadow of Fear
Stewart glanced back at them. “Maybe your suspect added something to the scene. Like installing a camera or a listening device, or he took something on his first visit and returned it.”
“Why would he do that?” Kinsley asked.
“Now that I can’t answer,” Stewart said. “Could be he thought the missing item might lead you to investigate him.”
Kinsley took another good look at the room. “I don’t see anything like that or a camera.”
“They make them pretty small these days. It would take a very detailed search to locate one.”
“We can use a detector to scan the place. It’ll pick up any camera or recording device.” Dev looked around. “But before we do, let’s compare the photos we took to the room, and see if something obvious jumps out at us.”
He grabbed his phone from the entryway table where he’d set it on the way in. He opened the first photo containing the items on the back wall of her living space and expanded the picture.
Kinsley glanced between the photo and the room before her, searching for any little detail out of the ordinary. “I don’t see any difference.”
“Me neither.” He moved to the next picture, this one of the end table contents strewn on the floor. A mound of jewelry dumped in front of it glittered in the overhead light.
She glanced up at Dev and lost her focus. She was in her ransacked apartment, but her lips still tingled from the kiss. Having her wish fulfilled after years of longing left her wanting another kiss. Badly. Even now. Here.
Stop it. Focus.
She looked at the screen again. Searched it. Nothing unusual to see in the photo compared to the room. “Ditto for this pic. Next one, please.”
“Hold up.” Dev’s eyes gleamed as he made the photo even bigger, highlighting the pile of jewelry. “Check this out again.”
She compared the space and the photo. “Oh! Oh, I see it now. The picture has a gold piece poking out of the side of the pile, and it’s not there now.” She looked up at Dev. “Do you think he came back for that?”
“I don’t know.”
She gave it some thought. “I’d be surprised if he did. None of my jewelry is worth stealing or risking being caught on a second break-in. And the only piece of jewelry I have that would match that shape isn’t a very expensive necklace. Why would he take that?”
Dev cocked his head. “What if it’s not your necklace?”
She tried to process his comment, but nothing made sense to her. “Then what?”
He looked at her with a pleased expression. “What if the intruder dropped this piece of jewelry the first time and didn’t realize it until he got home? Then he came back to get it because it would’ve identified him.”
“Sounds like a good possibility,” Stewart said from near the jewelry. “You should go through the pieces to see if the one you think was visible in the photo is still here.”
She didn’t need any encouragement and picked her way through the mess until she could kneel next to her empty jewelry box and the mound of costume jewelry she’d bought over the years.
She carefully sifted through the top pieces, untangling and placing them in her jewelry box. She neared the bottom of the pile, and the necklace that she thought had been poking out of the pile lay right before her.
She held out the flat gold medallion on a matching gold chain. “It’s here. The piece you captured in the photo. If he didn’t take this, then he must’ve taken something else.”
“Did you have another piece of jewelry that resembled this one?” Stewart asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing nearly this big.”
Dev crossed the room to join them. “So he came back to get jewelry he must’ve left on his first visit.”
“But why leave it in the first place?” she asked.
He squatted and pointed at a tiny, shiny object lying on the laminate floor three feet from her jewelry pile. “Looks like a link from a large chain. Maybe he was wearing the medallion around his neck, it broke, and he didn’t know it happened until later.”
“Or the link belongs to Kinsley.” Stewart peered at her.
“No,” she said. “I’ve never had a chain with such large links.”
