In Too Deep (Looking Glass Trilogy #1)(55)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

"So, to the best of your knowledge, no one except you, the manager and the guy from maintenance has entered the trailer," Fallon concluded.

"Nope." Mrs. Ragsdale snorted. "Trust me, someone would have noticed straight off if an outsider got within fifty yards of that trailer. Everyone in the Court pays attention to everyone else’s business. It’s about all the entertainment we get. Some days it’s more interesting around here than one of those reality TV shows."

"Thank you for looking after things," Isabella said.

"No trouble at all, dear. And I’m real sorry your grandmother is gone. She was a live wire. Kept up with all the latest news on her computer. Always seemed to know what was going on behind the scenes. Bridge won’t be nearly as interesting without her. Let me know if you need anything. And don’t forget about that microwave."

"I won’t," Isabella promised.

She got the door of the trailer open. Stale, musty air spilled out. She took a breath and stepped inside. Fallon moved in behind her and shut the door.

Isabella looked around. The interior of the trailer lay in shadow, but it looked very much as it had the last time she had visited three months earlier. The small space was neat and carefully organized.

"Grandma always says that living in a trailer is like living on a boat," she said. "A place for everything and everything in its place."

"She was the methodical, organized type?"

"Oh, yes. To a fault."

"That makes it easy then. We just look for whatever seems wrong or out of place."

"Easy for you to say. Grandma may have been organized but she had a lot of stuff."

Fallon took in the tiny kitchen, the dining nook, the bed and the miniature bathroom in a single sweeping glance.

"Where’s her computer?" he said.

Startled, Isabella turned toward the dining nook. It took her a second or two to register what was wrong.

"It’s gone," she said. "Grandma had a new laptop. I gave it to her. She kept it on the dining table. If she was going underground, that is the one thing she would have taken with her. But if someone did murder her, that is the one thing the killer would have grabbed."

"It is also the one thing that a thief looking for electronics to sell in order to support a drug habit would have stolen," Fallon said patiently.

"True." Isabella pulled herself together. "But you heard Mrs. Ragsdale. No one has been inside the trailer since the night Grandma was taken away."

"Except Mrs. Ragsdale," Fallon said. "And the manager. And some guy from the maintenance crew. I’m sure Mrs. Ragsdale does her best to keep on top of things, but she’s a seriously senior citizen. Probably hard of hearing. And this trailer sits at the far end of the Court. Late at night a thief could have gotten inside without being seen."

"Not in this trailer park," Isabella said. "Everyone here is elderly."

"Your point?"

"Older people don’t sleep well. Grandma said that this place was like a Vegas hotel. Someone is always watching because someone is always awake."

"I’m not trying to argue with you," Fallon said. "But the fact is that the computer is gone and there are a number of possible explanations. The one that has the highest probability is the theft scenario. It may have been ripped off by one of the maintenance crew or the manager or a burglar."

"Okay," Isabella said. "But there are other possibilities, right?"

"Yes, Isabella, there are other possibilities. They just aren’t very likely."

"Unless my grandmother is alive."

Fallon started to methodically open and close the myriad built-in drawers and storage cabinets that lined the interior of the trailer. "If your grandmother is alive, that changes everything."

She watched him glance into another drawer. "What are you looking for?"

"Something else that looks wrong or out of place. Get busy. You’re the one who knew her best. Take a good look around. Do it first without your talent. You don’t want to miss what your normal senses can tell you. Too many agents rely on their psychic abilities and wind up missing obvious clues."

"Got it." Isabella opened the cabinet beneath the sink and peered inside at the half-empty bottle of dishwashing liquid. "You know, what Mrs. Ragsdale said about the pictures was sort of strange."

Fallon closed a drawer and looked at a calendar that hung on the wall. "Why was it strange?"

"Because in my family we never took photographs." Isabella felt sudden hot tears in her eyes. "I don’t have a single picture of my parents or of my grandmother."

Fallon offered no sympathy. He was still studying the calendar. "I can understand that a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist like the Sentinel would not go in for family photo albums, especially in this day and age when the pictures might wind up online."

Isabella dashed away the tears with the back of her hand. "That’s what Grandma said."

"So what pictures was she talking about?"

"I don’t know. If she had any here in the trailer, she never told me about them." She closed another drawer. "Nothing looks strange or out of place, Fallon. Except for the missing computer, of course."

"All right, use your finder-vision. Your grandmother was aware of your talent. If she hid something that she wanted you to locate, it should be obvious to your para-senses."

Isabella opened her other sight carefully. She knew what to expect. Her grandmother’s secretive nature had generated layer upon layer of fog in the trailer. But most of it was in the cool, gray zone.

The exception was the searing mist that swirled around the wall calendar. She took a closer look at it.

"That calendar is locked in hot fog," she said.

"Wrong month," Fallon said. "It should be showing the month that your grandmother was taken away in an ambulance."

Isabella felt her pulse kick up. "Maybe she wrote something important on one of the dates."

Fallon moved to stand directly in front of the calendar. Isabella joined him. Together they studied the colorful, glossy picture of a stretch of beach complete with crashing waves. The focal point of the shot was a large, oddly shaped rock. Eons of wind and tides had formed the stone into the shape of a roughly hewn arch.

"I don’t understand," Isabella said. "It’s just a generic calendar landscape. The rock is a little unusual, though."

"Yes," Fallon said. "The rock is very unusual."

"I’ve seen rocks similar to that on the beach in Santa Cruz."