Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(81)
Kellan scanned the tiled, hallway-style lobby, and nice, there were two—make that three surveillance cameras in place. “Not bad security,” he said, jutting his chin at the acrylic dome anchored to the ceiling by the bank of metal mailboxes lining the main corridor.
She nodded. “The feeds aren’t monitored live, but the cameras are a nice deterrent. We haven’t had so much as a purse-snatching since they were installed a couple of years ago.” She pressed the up button, stepping onto the elevator when the doors opened a few seconds later.
Kellan followed, and as much as he knew his segue to the next topic might tempt her to clam up, he also knew he couldn’t dodge it. “Are you going to be okay, not working on this case?”
Isabella’s shoulders tensed around her neck. Still, she answered. “I don’t know. The most important thing is that DuPree gets caught. But this is personal. My c—”
Her lashes fanned wide for just a breath before her eyes dropped to the thin carpet covering the elevator floor, and Christ, the sadness on her face was enough to gut him.
“Hey.” Kellan stepped in, hooking a finger beneath her chin. “I know you feel responsible for Angel. Your team will get DuPree, Moreno.”
By the time Isabella lifted her gaze back to his, she’d nailed her guard back into place. “I know,” she said, her smile as small as it was brief. Before he could answer—or call her out on her answer—the elevator bumped to a stop, the doors sliding open at the third floor. He and Isabella moved down the hall, the jingle of her keys breaking the silence as she flipped them against her palm.
“This is me,” she said, stopping in front of a glossy black door labeled with a brass plaque reading 311. The hallway looked as bright and well-kept as the rest of the building, the door solid and undisturbed, and Kellan’s muscles loosened with ease.
Right up until Isabella turned her key in the lock, and the deadbolt didn’t click.
She whipped her hand from the door just as a shot of adrenaline punched through Kellan’s chest. “I always lock it,” she whispered, bending down noiselessly to liberate the Glock 43 from the ankle holster beneath the cuff of her jeans.
Fuck. He reached beneath his hoodie for the holster at his side, pulling out the SIG Sauer P229 he’d been licensed to carry ever since he’d been discharged from the Army. Sending one last split-second gaze over the hallway, Kellan double-checked to be sure the space was empty of either potential threats or friendlies who could get hurt.
“You’re clear,” he whispered.
She nodded, one hard dip of her chin. “My kitchen is at three o’clock, and there’s a breakfast nook next to it. Clear that space while I check the bedroom on the other side. You copy?”
“Affirmative.” Focus. See what’s in front of you. Breathe. “I’ve got your six. Go.”
Reaching down with her left hand while she held the Glock steady in her right, Isabella turned the knob, pushing her way inside the apartment. Her body tensed three steps over the threshold, and holy hell.
The place was ruined.
A hard prickle of warning set in over the back of Kellan’s neck, growing sharper with each passing second. Daylight slanted in past the mostly closed blinds, outlining the wreckage of what looked to have once been her living room. An upholstered love seat sat in the middle of the room, sideways and slashed to ribbons. The coffee table in front of it had been upended, the TV beyond smashed and scattered to the four corners of the hardwood floors. Although the room wasn’t particularly large or overly cluttered, everything Kellan could see—picture frames, a handful of throw pillows, books that had presumably been yanked from the shelf on the wall—was all shattered or shredded beyond repair.
Although her eyes were saucer-wide, Isabella still remained on point, her movements quiet and her muscles spring-loaded and ready to strike. With her left hand, she indicated for him to head to the right side of the apartment, leading with her Glock as she headed down the hallway to the left.
Air so hot it hurt to breathe…sunlight scorching in through the windows…
“If you move, I will kill your friend. You’ll watch him die screaming, and then I’ll kill you just as slowly.”
Old emotions threatened to burn bright and bubble up, but Kellan set his mind on the here and now of Isabella’s apartment. Focus.
He inhaled, marshaling his heartbeat to a steady rhythm and squeezing his shoulders in readiness. The kitchen was as trashed as the living room, pine cabinets gaping wide, dishes scattered in pieces over the terra cotta floor tiles. But both it and the breakfast nook were thankfully free from threats.
Or at least the people who had caused them. For now.
“Clear,” Kellan called out, his voice sounding canon fire-loud in his ears. Relief spun through him as Isabella echoed the sentiment a few seconds later, and he retraced his steps back to the living room.
“The place has been completely tossed,” he said, holstering his weapon and waiting for her to do the same before reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. “This had to be DuPree.”
Isabella let out a slow exhale, her expression unreadable. “It was.”
Concern mixed with confusion in Kellan’s veins. Both must have shown on his face, because she turned on her heel to lead the way to her bedroom. The quilt had been pulled from her bed along with the powder blue top sheet, and Kellan’s blood turned to ice at the sight of the deep gouges cut into the mattress, all the way down to the fabric-wrapped springs. Every dresser drawer had been yanked open and emptied, her underwear strewn all around the room as if on display. But it was what hung over the full-length mirror in the corner of the once-cozy space that made Kellan’s heart go ballistic.