Free Downton Tabby by Sparkle Abbey

out to Malone.
    “Push it.” He nodded.
    The panel slid open just as I remembered.
    But all that was behind the door was a wall of empty shelves.
    All of the equipment, all of the blinking lights. Gone.
    I was speechless.
    Malone looked at me, his face serious. “I assume this is not what it looked like earlier today.”
    I shook my head. I was glad he didn’t think I’d lost my mind. I was beginning to doubt my sanity. He seemed to take my word that there truly had been a secret room full of equipment.
    “No, there were . . .” I waved my hand toward where all the electronics had been. “And all the boxes were blinking. They kind of looked like some kind of computers, but you know, not like my computer at home.”
    “Well, it appears someone didn’t want us to find whatever was here.”
    “Who do you think?”
    “The obvious answer is Graham Cash.”
    “Why would he steal stuff from his own home?”
    “I don’t know. Could be it’s something he needs wherever he is. Could be it’s something that would incriminate him.” He examined the opening, running his hands over the mechanism. Then stepped into the room and stared at the shelves.
    “It could be the guy that was here earlier who was hiding in there. I wish I’d been able to get a license number for his car.”
    “We’ve asked around to see if anyone in the neighborhood saw him or has seen the car before.” Malone wandered the circular room, inventorying everything with his eyes.
    “I talked to the guy next door.” I pointed out the window at the house. “He was outside when I left but he claimed he didn’t see the guy.”
    “Claimed?” He continued his visual cataloging.
    “I don’t know how he could have missed him.”
    “Maybe he was busy or not paying attention or doesn’t want to get involved. You’d be surprised how uncooperative eyewitnesses are.”
    “Heidi, Cash’s girlfriend, says the guy had claimed Toria was vicious.”
    “Toria is the cat?”
    “Yes, she’s named after Queen Victoria, and I’ve not seen anything to make me think she’d be aggressive.”
    “Hmmm.” His tone said he wasn’t all that interested in how Cash had named his cat or my assessment of Toria’s temperament.
    “I wonder what that guy was doing here,” I mused.
    “I’d just as soon you didn’t wonder anything.” Malone turned to look at me.
    “I know. I know.”
    “And if you hear from Cash again, see if you can find out where he is before he hangs up. And make sure he knows he must call me.”
    “I feel bad about that, but he really didn’t give me a chance to ask anything.”
    Malone paced the small space. “I’ll get our crime-scene techs up here to see if there are fingerprints or anything else that would tell us who has been here, but I’m not very hopeful.”
    I stared at the empty shelves. Whoever it was had been pretty thorough. “What are we going to do about the persistent press outside?”
    “We’re going to go out, get in our cars, and drive away.”
    We made our way back downstairs. Malone phoned in his request for a CSI tech, and I stared out at the patio. The pool area hadn’t really been cleaned up. The energy drink I’d knocked over still lay on its side. I remembered the chill of the liquid as it spilled onto my already soaked jeans. I shivered.
    When I closed my eyes, I could still see Jake’s face when I’d finally been able to turn him over. How on earth did people manage to go on living in a house when there had been a violent crime? I wondered who would clean up the place with Jake dead and Cash missing. Were there relatives? Neither of them had talked that much about their personal lives.
    I knew Malone was convinced Cash was involved, if not actually Jake’s killer, but I hoped and prayed he wasn’t.
    Granted, it looked darn suspicious that he’d disappeared at the same time. But though he’d sounded furtive on the phone, he hadn’t sounded like someone on the run. Whatever that sounded