Free Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) by Josi S. Kilpack Page A

opened into the back of the room, which was about twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long. A desk sat against the wall opposite the door while bookshelves stacked with books, knickknacks, and miscellaneous, semi-organized minutiae flanked the doorway.
    A closet gave away the fact that this room was a second bedroom by design, but obviously not used as such. Wendy having a home office was further evidence of the idea that Wendy’s life might not be so different from Sadie’s. It was an incredibly uncomfortable thought.
    After observing the space, Pete stepped past Sadie into the living room and crossed to the other closed door. He wasn’t as slow opening the second door, and this time Sadie was right behind him. The door opened inward and blocked the back portion of the room.
    It was a bedroom with a large queen-sized bed set near the bay windows and a chest of drawers a few feet past the footboard, set against the shared wall of the living room. Across from the doorway where Pete and Sadie stood was a closet twice the size of the one in the office.
    Pete stepped into the room and Sadie followed so that he could close the bedroom door, revealing another door. Was that the bathroom? Accessed through the bedroom?
    The paint smell was stronger here, thankfully blocking out any other scents that might be in this portion of the apartment. Pete opened the final door, and Sadie tensed even as she stepped forward to look over Pete’s shoulder. She relaxed when she realized that the bathroom had been completely gutted.
    There was no toilet, tub, or sink—just pipes sticking out of freshly painted walls. Big sections of drywall were missing, exposing the wooden framework coated with a green substance, perhaps some kind of chemical. On the far wall, above where the tub would be, Sadie assumed, was a small window, no more than eighteen inches square. It had a handle that when turned opened the window a few inches—Sadie’s parents’ home had had the same type of windows.
    Pete stepped over the threshold onto naked subflooring. “They took everything out.” He pointed up at the bathroom fan in the ceiling, still whirring. “I wonder if that was on the whole time she was here? If the window was open and the fan on, it might explain why no one smelled anything and why the smell didn’t seep into the apartment too much.”
    Sadie nodded to confirm she’d heard the morbid observation and looked at the thick rubber strip nailed to the bottom of the door. It would create a good seal when it was closed. Was that coincidence or design?
    “If the fan vents to the roof,” Pete said, still looking up at the ceiling, “it’d also help explain why no one noticed the smell. This bathroom is on an exterior wall of the building and as far from the other tenant on this floor as it could possibly be.” Pete looked around. “But that doesn’t explain why no one would miss her or check up on her.”
    One of the newspaper articles Sadie had read about Wendy’s death pointed out that no one had reported Wendy missing. Didn’t she have any friends? Anyone she interacted with on a regular basis?
    Maybe it wasn’t just family Wendy had pushed out of her life.
    Sadie turned back to the bedroom and her eye caught the enormous painting hung across from Wendy’s bed and above the chest of drawers. She immediately felt herself blushing, then glanced at Pete to see that he, too, was avoiding looking at the painting. Like the canvases in the living room, it was unadorned with a frame. She took a breath and looked again in order to confirm that the nude portrait was indeed of her sister, though she was a young woman in the picture.
    “Maybe we could take that down,” she said.
    Pete nodded, and between the two of them, they were able to lift it off the wall and lean it against the footboard of the bed. Why on earth would Wendy want to stare at herself naked? Especially a younger version of herself? It served as a reminder that there were things