Free Consigned to Death by Jane K. Cleland Page A

door for me when he brought me home after a date, I should just tap on the horn and he, my father, would come right out of the house and escort me inside. I smiled at the memory. Oh , Dad .
    Max reached down and raised the lever so the passenger seat lay all the way back. When I got in and leaned back, I was prone.
    “You look exhausted,” Max said as I got settled. “Just rest on the drive over.”
    “I was going to offer to drive,” I said. “You look tired, too.”
    “I’m fine. Go ahead and shut your eyes.”
    I started to protest out of a long-standing habit of pretending I was completely self-reliant, but stopped when I realized I was in Max’s capable hands. Instead of arguing, I said, “Okay, Doctor.” After a pause, I added, “Thank you, Max, for coming out. Tomorrow’s going to be a bear. It’ll be easier for me to get through the day tomorrow knowing that we’ve looked for the Renoir tonight.”
    “You’re welcome. Rest, now.”
    I heard nothing but the comforting hum of the engine until there was a small clicking sound. Opening my eyes, I saw Max ease the car onto 1-95 south as he entered numbers into his cell phone. He was calling Alverez. I closed my eyes again, but stayed alert.
    “Josie thought she heard something in the warehouse. We looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the way.” Max said. “Okay ... uh-huh ... okay, I’ll tell her. ... We should be there in about ten minutes.”
    The car was warm. I felt oddly removed from responsibility, disassociated, as if I were floating on a cloud. I was aware of utter fatigue, Max’s words, the even drone of the motor, and nothing else.
    “Josie?” he asked quietly, maybe thinking I’d drifted off to sleep.
    “Yeah?”
    “Chief Alverez is going to have some technicians come over tomorrow and look around the place.”
    “There’s no need,” I protested.
    “Stop being so damn polite.”
    I smiled, eyes still shut. “Okay.”
     
     
    After a while, I sat up. Our headlights cut through the thickening fog. As we drove toward the ocean, I became increasingly somber. The frightening reality of tonight’s events was sinking in. Alverez’s saying he would send a technician obviously meant that he thought it was possible that someone had entered my domain.
    “Max?” I asked.
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you have any idea about what’s going on?”
    “With what?”
    “With everything? This whole situation?”
    “No. Do you?”
    “None. I’m completely mystified. I hate the feeling of not understanding what’s going on.”
    “Just for the sake of argument, forget about Mr. Grant’s murder. Assuming the two events are unrelated ... can you think of any reason why someone was in your place tonight?” Max asked.
    I considered for a moment. Why would someone have entered my building? Had the person known I was there?
    “Maybe it’s a coincidence,” I said, trying to think of alternatives. “You know, it could be just a garden-variety attempted robbery.”
    “Maybe,” he responded, sounding unconvinced. He cleared his throat. “Hard to think so. Be a pretty spectacular coincidence.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “Especially if we learn that nothing was taken.”
    “So what other reason could there be for someone to break in?” Max asked.
    “Maybe whoever it was wanted to prevent the sale of some item,” I mused. “But if that’s the case, why not just tell me? It happens fairly often.”
    “Really?”
    “Sure. Just last week a woman walked into the office and asked me to sell her a sterling-silver tea set that was scheduled for sale at auction. Turns out that it had been her great-grandmother’s and had ended up in a cousin’s used furniture store, of all places. When the store went out of business, the mortgage holder sent everything to me to be sold, including the tea set.”
    “What happened?”
    I shrugged. “I sold it to her.”
    “How’d you price it?”
    “We negotiated. I gave her the range I expected it to