I led the way through Faith's main apartment hallway with Broadrick two steps behind me. He kept glancing around like we were here to commit a crime. One look at him and they'd be calling the cops.

"Shouldn't we leave this for Anderson?" he asked as I stopped in front of Faith's door. She had a cute brown fiber welcome mat that said, "I hope you like kids." Good thing we didn't bring NB.

"Anderson won't touch it because he doesn't think he has enough reasons to ask for a warrant." I'd already tried to talk the town's chief into checking out the place, but he was downright rude.

Something about how he wouldn't risk his relationship with the judge on some hairbrained idea I had in a fever dream. Anderson wasn't great with the insults. I'd come up with this theory after lots of consideration for the facts. This job would be a hell of a lot easier if I dreamed about the murderers and found them that way. That'd be the life, but also one full of nightmares.

I'd just stick to my regular methods-sneaking around.

"If Anderson doesn't think he can get a warrant, that's a sign," Broadrick said as I pulled out my lock pick set. He eyed it with trepidation. The man blew things up for a living and ran into dangerous situations when the government told him to but had no sense of adventure.

"It's fine." I waved a hand at him and slipped the pick into Faith's lock. As I leaned over my nose picked up a smell from the brown carpet in the apartment hallway. Wet dog. Or wet shoes. But definitely something with moldy water. "Can water mold?"

Broadrick leaned against the wall like he was giving me cover in case someone came up the staircase. "I have no idea. Is this an issue we need to deal with right now?"

He sounded stressed.

"Someone should deal with the carpets before the smell gets worse." The locked clicked, and I stood up straight with a smile. "We're in."

Broadrick grimaced. "You're way too good with those things. How do we know she's at work?"

"Deadbeat dad," I said as I twisted the handle and pushed the door open.

Broadrick grabbed on to my upper arm, stopping me from entering the apartment. "How is that an answer, Von?"

"Shhh." I glanced at where he had a hold of my arm, and he dropped his hand. "It's going to be fine. I rarely get caught."

"Dear lord," he whispered as we walked in. "At least wear these?"

"Huh." I accepted the pair of black leather gloves he pulled from his back pocket and tried to hand them back. "I have my own."

A good PI always carried gloves. Especially when they were having a glance around a suspect's home. I patted both of my back pockets. Nothing. Then the fronts. Still nothing. Shit. I forgot my gloves.

"Fine." I slipped the gloves over my hands. They were big, giving me at least a half-inch of space at the end of each finger.

He put on his gloves after using his shirt to wipe the door handle, and we both surveyed the area. "You should always keep a pair on you."

"Yes, I know. It's on my list." Somewhere.

I bypassed a long brown couch in the middle of Faith's living room and almost stepped on a Bluey plushy lying haphazardly on the floor. She had a medium-sized television with a bouncer sitting in front of it. A circle of toys radiated out from the bouncer, creating different levels of the crash zone. Between the toys and crumbs, pieces of paper dotted the area like an asteroid belt. She had five kids living here. How did they all fit?

"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb," sang out behind me. I spun with wide eyes as Broadrick righted the white sheep he'd knocked over behind the couch.

I waved at him. "What are you doing? It's not playtime."

His attention jerked up at me. The expression definitely screamed he was two seconds away from a heart attack.

"Geeze, dude," I said, making my way to the kitchen to open drawers and cabinets. "Don't you dodge bullets for fun in the military."

"This is completely different," he whispered. "I don't like when you put yourself in danger."

I rolled my eyes. Such a man thing to say. He could run off and save the world, but I couldn't spend a few minutes prowling around a suspect's home. Such double standards.

"It's fine, Broadrick." I opened a cabinet above me and a large butcher knife slipped out. "Shit."

The knife hit the cabinet and clattered to the floor. Hopefully, he didn't see that. A groan came from the living room. I guess he did.

I squatted down, staring at the edges for blood. Nothing. Why would she store a sharp knife in a high cabinet?

"Anything?" Broadrick asked as he leaned over the kitchen island, watching me.

I grabbed the blade and shoved it back in the cabinet next to a small pile of them and the reason for their placement hit me. "Nothing."

She probably hid the blades higher so one of her five kids wouldn't open a drawer and grab one.

Broadrick stayed as lookout in the living room, sidestepping toys as I hurried to check the other rooms in the home. Faith had toys scattered in every room. Bathroom toys, bed toys. She even had a super long-necked giraffe in the top drawer of her dresser.

Nothing that said murderer, though.

That sucked.

Well, good for Faith and the kids, I guess. But sucky for me.

It's not that I expected her to have a sign confessing to the murder, but some bloody shoes or a gun would have been a decent find. Anderson didn't know where they'd killed Emma since they'd seen no evidence at the park, and I didn't find any suspicious marks on Faith's carpet either. If it happened here, she'd done a remarkable job at the cleanup, and the rest of the house didn't give good housekeeper vibes.

"I give up," I said to Broadrick, finding him in the living room, peeking out from the first-floor window.

He released a deep breath. "Finally. Let's get out of here."

"You're such a worrier." He held the door open for me, and we walked out together. "I told you everything would be fine. I rarely get caught."

"Let's not count any chickens," Broadrick said, closing the door quietly behind us.

See? We were fine. He'd gotten all worked up for nothing.

We were halfway to the exit at the end of the hallway when I spotted it. If nothing suspicious was in Faith's apartment, maybe we'd find something in the place she did laundry.

"Broadrick, look." I pointed to the sign attached to the wall with painted over screws. "The laundry room."

"That's great. We have a washer and dryer at home."

I shook my head. Seriously, he had no imagination. "Come on."

He hesitated but then let me drag him into the room as we passed by the opening. "What are you looking for?"

Five washers lined one wall with stackable dryers on the other. "Blood, knives, guns, murder scenes. I'm open to evidence."

I lifted the lid on the first washer and closed it. Empty. The second one was as well. In the third, a pile of wet clothes lay waiting for their owner to collect them. The other two were empty. Same with the dryers. I searched all the edges but didn't find any dried blood.

"Vonnie, check this out," Broadrick said as he crouched over by the drying rack.

I hurried over and mimicked his pose. On the concrete floor, directly under the long white table they'd set up for people to fold clothes, was a smear of something red. My heart quickened, and I almost reached out to touch it.

"Seems dried," he said.

I stood up and so did Broadrick. A laundry soap odor permeated the room, making it impossible to smell anything else. Plus, I wasn't sure dried blood even had a smell. "We have to call Anderson."

**

The cranky chief of police-who constantly forgot I was the only reason he had the job-stalked into the laundry room twenty long minutes later.

"This better be good, Vonnie," he said in place of a hello.

His girlfriend had to be a saint-another part of his life he had yet to thank me for since I introduced them.

I waved him over to the spot where we had kept guard since he agreed to come. "It's definitely good. Well, bad. It depends." When it came to murder, good things were often bad. Or vice versa. I got it confused sometimes. Good for me and bad for murderers.

Anderson hunched over to check out our blood smear. He tipped his head to the left and stood. "It looks like dried paint."