Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(23)

“Someone has gone through this suitcase,” Kendra said.

Lynch looked at it. “Are you sure? You should see my bags after I’ve been out of town for a few weeks.”

“It looks like it’s been turned upside down onto the floor, and all the contents shoved back in here a piece at a time. It’s possible he did it himself, but the rest of the place is so immaculate that it doesn’t seem consistent with his fastidious nature.”

Lynch looked around. “No computer.”

“No computer, no phone. Although he did have an Acer laptop and an iPhone in here. And a computer bag, too. They were taken.”

Brantley’s brow wrinkled. “How do you figure that?”

“There are two power adapters still plugged in under the table. One’s for an Acer laptop, the other has an Apple iPhone connector.” She turned back to the open suitcase. “In that jumble of clothes, there’s a leather computer-bag carry strap. With a good look and a bit of research, we’ll probably even be able to identify the maker and style of the computer bag it goes with.”

“You can’t tell us off the top of your head?” Brantley joked.

“Don’t even say that,” Lynch said. “I have a hunch she’ll soon know more about laptop-bag carry straps than we ever knew existed.”

“Only if it’s necessary,” Kendra said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste my time right now.”

Brantley stared at her. “I’m starting to get an idea why the FBI and all those police departments like you so much.”

“That’s not at all accurate. I don’t think any of them will admit to actually liking me.” She continued her scan of the room until she spotted his toiletries next to the sink in the connected bathroom. She stepped inside and looked them over. “Nothing unusual here. Though it does help to confirm that he was English. Maclean’s toothpaste is a British brand.”

Lynch had already begun opening the drawers and closet door. “Nothing here,” he said. “Just a jacket in the closet, nothing in the pockets.”

Kendra shook her head in frustration. “Unbelievable. Not a thing to let us know who he really was or what he was doing with Waldridge.”

“We’ll take the whole place apart to make sure there’s nothing hidden someplace,” Brantley said. “And, of course, we’ll photograph and fingerprint the body in the next few hours.”

“Good,” Lynch said. “We’d appreciate it if you could forward your docs to the FBI field office in San Diego. It might help to find the man we’re looking for.”

“We can do that.”

Kendra stepped back into the hallway. Damn. The trail to Waldridge had come to an abrupt halt, right to that man lying dead in the snow. A man without a name or even a— She stopped.

What in the hell?

The work lights outside bathed the shadowy hallway in a dim glow, just enough that she could see that something was out of whack in the wood-paneled hallway.

“I know that look of yours,” Lynch said quietly from behind her. “What do you see?”

“The pictures in this hallway … Can you see it?”

Lynch studied the nature scenes. “Other than they wouldn’t be out of place in a cheap hotel room? No.”

“It’s not the pictures themselves … It’s the walls. They’re slightly faded from the sunlight that streams in here. It’s darker where the pictures have been hanging. But it looks like they’ve been rearranged.”

Lynch nodded slowly. “I see what you mean. The walls are slightly darker where the pictures have been, but they don’t quite match now.”

She stepped closer to the picture nearest to her. “It looks like these have been taken down for some reason, then put up in different places. And it happened recently.” She pulled the picture off the wall and stared at the backside.

“What is it?” Lynch asked.

“Nothing, except…” She turned the picture around to show that the back of the canvas was covered with several purple splotches.

“Paint?” Brantley asked.

“I don’t think so.” She dabbed her finger into one of the splotches. “It’s still sticky.’

Lynch pulled two more pictures from the walls and spun them around. The backsides were covered with splotches that matched the ones on the first. He put them on the floor and continued down the hallway, pulling pictures off and setting them on the floor with their rear sides exposed. All ten pictures had the same markings.

“They’re fresh,” Lynch said. “All of them.”

Brantley picked up one of the pictures and examined it more closely. “I don’t get it.”

“Join the club,” Lynch said.

Kendra picked up the smallest of the pictures. “I want to take this one with us. The FBI lab might be able to tell us what it is.”

*

KENDRA AND LYNCH DROVE back to the Big Bear Airport, and as arranged, they left the car parked outside the main departure building with the keys in a magnetic box tucked under the rear wheel. Kendra held the picture carefully in front of her as they boarded the plane.

“What do you think you have there?” Lynch asked.

“I have no earthly idea. Just like everything else we’ve run across … Lots of questions, but no answers. And I don’t feel like I’m any closer to finding Waldridge.”