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CHAPTER 4

“There was no such thing as a slow news day. You could always count on the weirdos of the world to keep things interesting.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

Just trying to follow the little black words printed in the next morning’s Chronicle seemed to upset my equilibrium. I searched for some mention of what had happened in my neighborhood the night before, but as I expected, whatever took place had happened long after that edition would have gone to press. I might have found something out on the local news, but then I would have had to get up before nine. There was an interesting little article about Alex Tolsky. His daughter, Shannon, was convinced that her father was not capable of suicide and she was trying to lobby the LAPD to reopen the case, but to little avail. Even her mother believed it was a suicide, citing their impending divorce as the motive. That, coupled with the fact that Tolsky had a drinking problem and suffered from clinical depression, was enough to satisfy the police. Still, Shannon Tolsky was adamant.

A little voice inside me told me she was right. I reached past Mr. Katz for the scissors. Molded correctly, it could be a good premise for a future novel.

My eyes traveled to the kitchen window. It was open just a crack—exactly the way I had left it before going to sleep. Of course it was—why would it be otherwise? I had obviously forgotten to close it before going out with Marcus. Still, I would have sworn… I gently massaged my temples. My head hurt enough as it was, I didn’t need to add to my pain by stressing out over nonexistent problems.

I pushed myself into a standing position and went to the bathroom to perform my morning ritual, starting with a marathon shower. Today had “mellow” written all over it. After all, I had just completed a book, which meant that I had earned at least a month of laziness. After getting myself cleaned up, I threw some kibble in a bowl for Mr. Katz, put on some dark glasses and went out to search the corner market for more artificial energy which I found in the form of a can of Red Bull. I smiled at the petite Chinese woman behind the register.

“Hi, Alice, just the drink.”

“Did you hear what happened here last night?”

I slipped my sunglasses down my nose a bit to get a better look at the store’s proprietor. She had the flush of someone who had heard something horrible and shocking and now couldn’t wait to shock somebody else with it. “Does this have anything to do with all those cop cars and the ambulance I saw when I got home last night?”

“Yes. It’s really bad.”

I took my glasses off.

“You know Susan Lee?” Alice asked.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Oh, you know her. She’s in here all the time. She’s in her twenties, Chinese—she wears DKNY a lot.”

“Oh, right, Susan.” I had no idea who Alice was talking about. She had just described half the women in San Francisco.

“They found her body in the Dumpster in her garage last night. She’d been strangled.”

I glared at my hand that had somehow positioned itself dangerously close to the Mon Chère chocolates on the counter. “Any suspects?”

“They didn’t say on the news. They think the body had been lying there for a long time. Hours maybe. Can you believe it? She was such a pretty girl, and someone just threw her in the trash.”

Of course I could believe it. The Dumpster bit was right out of a B movie. Definitely not something I could use in a book.

“They interviewed her brother on TV. He just kept saying the same thing over and over—‘But I just talked to her, I just talked to her.’ It was like he was in a trance. He couldn’t think right.”

I winced. How could I be so heartless? A woman had been killed and the lack of creativity of those who murdered her meant nothing to the people who loved her. All that mattered to them was that someone who was an intricate part of their existence had been taken suddenly from them, without even the chance to say goodbye.

Alice punched the price of the Red Bull into her register at a speed that indicated that she was not done talking. “Andy’s taking it really hard. He’s so sensitive, and I think maybe he had a little crush on her. Usually he won’t take his full lunch break, but today I made him. I told him to walk around the block and get some fresh air. I even offered to give him the day off, but he said no. He never takes a day off. Doesn’t matter if he’s sick. He always comes to work.”

I smiled and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. I was only half listening. My mind had gone back to my window and the broken glass. But I was being stupid. If there had been a murderer in my apartment last night, why was I still in perfect health? Well, not perfect, but I’d have a hard time pinning my current condition on anyone other than my buddy Smirnoff. I pushed my sunglasses back in place. Nothing like starting off the day with a few paranoid delusions. Maybe I needed a little chocolate to help bring me back to reality. Really…how many calories could be in one Mon Chère?

I silently gestured to Alice that she should add the candy to my purchase before handing her a few crumpled dollar bills and scooping up my items. “Be careful when you’re locking up tonight.”

“Oh, I will,” Alice called after me. “And you be careful too. You never know what this crazy man might do next.”

I gave a little wave over my shoulder in response. I stepped onto the sidewalk, looked down to check that I had zipped my purse, and boom, I had a head-on collision with the Jolly Green Giant. Or at least that’s what I assumed upon impact. In reality it was just Andy. The corners of my mouth curled up.

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” I said.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Miss Katz!” Andy retrieved my dented beverage from underneath a newspaper stand.

“It was my fault—again. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” I craned my neck back to meet his gaze. His eyes were even more bloodshot than mine. “Andy, I heard about your friend Susan. I’m really sorry.”

Andy’s face scrunched up to about half its normal size and his breath shortened into little gasps. I impulsively reached my arms out to him. His huge body collapsed against me, and I gently stroked his back. “Shh…it’s okay, Andy. Shh.”

“No, no it’s not okay, I liked her. She wasn’t supposed to die—I liked her.”

“I know, I know. It’s messed up, but she’s in a better place now.”

“Really?” Andy pulled back to use the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt as a makeshift Kleenex. “You believe that?”

“Really.” Maybe. I gave what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze to the portion of his arm that hadn’t been soiled yet. “The best way we can honor her memory is to do everything we can to improve matters in this world so that things like this won’t happen anymore.”

“I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. Never.”

It must be wonderful to be that naive. “Well, all we can do is our part, be nice to people, do unto others and all that jazz.”

The two thin blond lines that made up Andy’s eyebrows joined forces as he tried to figure out what the hell I was talking about. I tapped the top of my bloated Red Bull can with my fingernail. “Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

Some of the confusion and distress slipped from his countenance. “I can do that!”

“Yeah, you can. Andy, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay, Sophie.”

I patted his arm again and started my journey to my Acura, which was parked somewhere near Siberia. As sick as it was, the morning’s drama had actually put me in a better mood. I felt sorry for Andy, but I couldn’t help but feel good about having been able to help him. Hell, the guy had even called me by my first name.

Of course, I would have felt even better if the murder hadn’t happened so close to home.

Free Vibrator With Every Purchase Over $100

I didn’t bother to suppress my laughter when I read the sign perched on Guilty Pleasures’ front display table.

Dena emerged from the back of the store wearing a pair of black boot-cut pants and a Castro long-sleeved shirt. Considering her small size, the bold abstract on her top should have overwhelmed her. It didn’t. She gave me a quick hug before gesturing to the sign.

“What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.” She shrugged. “So are you here to shop or visit?”

“Visit,” I said absently as I toyed with a penis-shaped water bottle. “Do you have time for a short break?”

“Barbie, I need you to watch the floor while we go in back.”

A Puerto Rican woman with heavy black eyeliner and dressed in a kind of dominatrix-style vinyl outfit looked up from straightening a stack of crotchless panties and gave Dena a cheerful smile.

I followed Dena into a small office connected to her stockroom. “That woman is not named Barbie.”

“I don’t care if she wants to be referred to as the Cabbage Patch Kid, that woman knows more about sex toys than any other employee I’ve ever had. It’s like she has a Ph.D. in erotica.” Dena removed a stack of invoices from a padded folding chair before offering it to me and seating herself at her desk. “So what’s up?”

“I met a guy.”

“A guy you want to date?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Glory hallelujah, it’s a miracle! My God, Sophie, if you had gone any longer on this celibacy kick of yours, I would have staged an intervention.”

“I can only imagine what that would have looked like.” I fingered an odd-looking Beanie Baby with five legs that had been left on top of a small filing cabinet. Wait a minute. “Dena…your Beanie Baby seems to be rather…um…excited.”

“It’s not a Beanie Baby, it’s a Weenie Baby. I’m going to put them out tomorrow. I know they’re going to blow. No pun intended. So tell me about your new love interest!”

“Well, he’s not perfect. He doesn’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos.”

“Sophie, I’m going to let you in on a secret…there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos. Hell, I give him ten points just for not frequenting Starbucks. That place is a fascist corporate monster.”

Dena has an odd point system that she uses to rate men. I have never figured out what the scale is, but the men I’ve dated in the past were clearly on the low end. “Sorry, he frequents Starbucks, he just doesn’t buy Frappuccinos.”

“Okay, five points.” She tapped the number five on her desktop calculator.

“He does have an accent.”

“What kind?”

“Russian.”

Dena turned back to her calculator and pressed Plus Five.

“Yeah, it’s very slight—you have to listen for it—but the way he says certain words…like when he pronounces his name, Anatoly, it’s really very sexy.”

“Anatoly…I like that.” She added, three more points.

“Mmm. Anyhow, he’s somewhere in his mid-thirties, about six foot, dark hair, brown eyes, very physically…fit.” Dena raised her eyebrows before adding fifteen. “And he’s got the most incredible hands I have ever seen—you know, big, strong, and just a little rough.”

“Shit, you’re turning me on just talking about him. Twenty points for the big hands. I think we’re up to an overall score of forty-eight. That’s a new high for you.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely eye candy. I wasn’t sure what I thought about him at first—personality-wise he’s a little rough around the edges.”

“I thought you just said you liked it rough.”

“Hands, Dena. Rough hands.”

“Whatever.” Dena turned away from the calculator and swiveled back and forth in her wheeled chair. “Look, the guy obviously does it for you, so when are you going to jump him?”

“Do you ever bother even pretending you believe in traditional courtship?”

“It’s hard to spout puritanical ideals when you own a sex shop. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m going out with him this weekend. He’s new to the city so I’m going to play tour guide for a day. You know, ride the cable car, go to the top of Coit Tower, all the stuff I openly denounce as beneath me but secretly long to do…then maybe I’ll jump him.”

“Sounds like fun.” Dena’s smile changed to one of mischief. “Hey, the guy I’m dating just moved here too.”

“Right, I remember you mentioning him…the ‘notch in your bedpost’ guy.”

“Yes! Sophie, he’s sooo fucking hot. Easily scores over fifty points. He’s intelligent, has a goatee, works as a bartender in the Lower Haight, so you know he makes a mean martini, plus he just has a different approach to things, you know? He doesn’t automatically conform to all the dictates of society.”

“In other words, he’s a sociopath.”

“Funny,” Dena said. “He is not a sociopath. He is perfectly sane…or…he sort of is. Okay, I’m sure there are some people who think he’s a little crazy, but they just don’t get him. He’s just…different.”

“Oh my God, you’re dating Michael Jackson.”

“I am not dating Michael Jackson. Besides, it’s not like he has long conversations with his cat or anything like that,” she said, and graced me with her most antagonistic grin.

I responded by giving her the finger.

She laughed and checked her watch. “He’s supposed to meet me for lunch in a few minutes, so if you hang out you’ll get to meet him.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for this.” I repositioned the Weenie Baby so that he was balancing on his two heads. “Speaking of bizarre things…”

“We weren’t.”

“Okay, sorry, that came out wrong. I just want to tell you about something weird that happened to me last night.”

“Does it involve some kind of sexual foreplay with your Russian love god?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I came home last night and there was a broken glass on the floor.”

“Uh-huh, so your cat knocked over a glass.” She glared at the overhead fluorescent light that had begun to flicker. “He’s always knocking stuff over. Maybe if you didn’t feed him twenty-four–seven…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Dena, it was the way the pieces were scattered…it almost seemed like the glass was dropped in the middle of the room.”

“What are you saying? Do you think someone was in your apartment?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was anything taken or out of place?”

“No.”

“So you think someone broke into your flat, dropped a glass and left?” Dena was wearing an expression that she usually reserved for Mary Ann.

“Right, it doesn’t make sense, I know that. But here’s the thing…do you remember my book Sex, Drugs and Murder?”

The condescension disappeared. “The broken-glass-in-the-kitchen scene.”

“You do remember.”

“It was the first indication Alicia Bright had that someone had been in the house.”

“Exactly. Of course, that’s stupid.”

“It’s at least highly unlikely.”

“There’s more.”

Dena swallowed visibly and waited for me to continue.

“I got a note in the mail a little over a month ago, no return address. It was typed, and it contained just one sentence, ‘You reap what you sow.’ And then last night, before the whole glass thing, I got a whole bunch of prank calls. The person calling didn’t say anything threatening. He—or she—just called and hung up.”

“Okay, that’s it. You need to call the police.”

“And tell them what? That someone sent me a note in the mail that is, for all intents and purposes, perfectly benign? That I got a few hang-ups? Or that I found a broken glass in my apartment that may have been knocked over by my cat?”

Dena pressed her palms into her thighs and studied the discarded price tags on the floor. “All of the above?”

“Dena, I told you this because I wanted you to calm me down and bring me back to reality, not so you could further bolster my paranoia.”

“Sophie, if there’s a chance that someone is stalking you, the authorities should be alerted.”

“Great, now we are both being paranoid.” I ran my fingers through my hair, inadvertently tearing it as I went. “Look, I even cut my finger when cleaning up the glass, the way Alicia Bright did.” I held up a bandaged finger for Dena’s inspection. “Do you think that was planned too?”

“Okay, I get your point.” Dena chewed her lower lip. “Still…”

“Dena?” Barbie peeked her head through the door. “Your maaaann is here.”

“Oh good, I do get to meet him.” I stood up and waited for Dena to do the same.

“Sophie…”

“Dena, it’s fine, really. It was the cat. Now come on, you have an introduction to make.”

Dena put her hands on her hips and paused for a moment as she tried to figure out what her next move should be. Finally she shook her head in defeat. “Fine, I’ll let it go for now. Let’s have you meet Jason Beck.” She took my arm and guided me onto the selling floor, and there he was.

Mr. Velvet Pants.

CHAPTER 5

“One look at Kittie’s car told Alicia that there was more to the story than she was letting on.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Dena did a quick double take. She had every reason to be offended—I was being rude—but what the hell was she thinking?

The freak smiled. “Sophie and I met last night,” he said. “I ran into her at a gallery south of Market.”

“A gallery?” asked Dena. “I thought you were…”

“Going to participate in the vampire games? I did, but I was a little early, so I crashed an opening. It wasn’t worth the effort. The stuff being exhibited was the kind of shit people buy to match their thousand-dollar couch. No message at all.”

Okay, we needed to back up a bit. “The vampire games?”

“Right, let me explain that one.” Dena slipped between Jason and me in an attempt to ease some of the mounting tension. “Once a month a group of people—”

“Vampires,” Jason corrected.

“Right, okay, let’s call them vampire people.” Dena folded her hands under her chin. “Anyhow, a whole bunch of vampire people get together and act out some kind of vampire story. It’s often based on a novel or a movie.”

“Have you read much about vampires?” Jason asked. He stepped to the side so we could have a full view of one another again.

“I’ve read Dracula and The Vampire Chronicles.”

“Then you know a lot about the creatures of the night. I often get to play the part of Dracula.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I am Dracula.”

You are insane is what you are. I examined Jason’s current ensemble. The velvet was gone and in its place were a pair of black suede jeans, a white dress shirt with the breast pocket not so carefully cut off, and the motorcycle jacket from the night before. Dena was right, Jason had a different approach to things.

“Last night, how did you know my name?”

“Well, when I was at Dena’s place I was looking through her bookcase and noticed that she had several titles from you, which sort of threw me off ’cause Dena’s not the type to buy into that whole bestseller thing. She’s more an Anaïs Nin type than a Jane Austen chick. So I got curious and flipped one open and saw your autograph. You wrote a pretty detailed message, so it stuck in my head. I recognized you from the picture in back.”

Dena shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were in the shower,” he explained without bothering to move his eyes in her direction. “I know I came on a bit strong. When I’m in vampire mode I can be a little dramatic.”

“Understandable.” Not.

“I got one of your books this morning. I just started it.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“Your first one. Criminally Insane.”

“Always good to start at the beginning. I hope it’s not too ‘Jane Austen’ for you.”

“No, I’m sure I’ll like it.” He brought his hand up to stroke Dena’s back. “She and I have similar tastes. Although, as a general rule, I’m not all that into fiction.”

“But you do like books about vampires.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure they’re all fiction.”

“Well.” I tried to choose my words carefully. “Parts of many novels aren’t. The writers tend to use a lot of accurate historical references.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Come on, you read the books. You had to have stopped sometimes and said to yourself, ‘Man, these characters are so real—too real.’ It must have crossed your mind that some of those guys are really out there—that the immortals exist.”

“I’ll concede that some of the writers who wrote on the topic are talented enough to bring their characters to life on the page, but I’m pretty sure it stops there.”

“And why are you so sure of that? Because our current western Judeo-Christian ethic says so? You need to broaden your thinking, Sophie. Open your mind to the bizarre.”

I looked over at Dena. She had become very busy rearranging her glow-in-the-dark condom display. “Okay, Jason, for the sake of argument, let’s say there really are vampires. Does the fact that you are so involved with this—this vampire subculture mean that you want to become one of them?”

“I would be open to it. Vampires aren’t inherently bad. They drink blood because they have to in order to survive. We, on the other hand, slaughter chickens and cows because they taste good. So ask yourself, which one of us should be wearing the black cowboy hat?”

I had to admit I was moving from irritated to amused fairly quickly. I decided to dispense with the standard etiquette I would normally observe upon meeting a new acquaintance. I leaned against a display table and stuck a thumb through my belt loop. “You really are weird, you know that?”

“Yeah, but I got your attention, didn’t I? Crazy beats the shit out of boring.”

I laughed. I was beginning to like him. So he was schizophrenic, he still had a certain je ne sais quoi. “So what are your feelings on Santa Claus?”

“Sophie, I know you just stopped in briefly to say hello, and I wouldn’t want to keep you….” Dena took her attention away from the condoms long enough to stop an impending conversation about the existence of Rudolph.

Jason didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. It probably wasn’t a stretch that he had met up with other people who had difficulty accepting his creature-of-the-night theory. “Okay, I’ll get going. Dena, I’ll see you later, and Jason…it’s been interesting. Have a good lunch—or are you on a strictly liquid diet?”

“For now I’ll settle for sucking the juice out of a red grapefruit.”

He could laugh at himself. That was good. Dena rewarded him with a light kiss and then turned her triumphant smile on me. “I’ll see you later, Sophie. Oh, I almost forgot, I have to do inventory Sunday. Can we move movie night to Monday? I’ve already cleared it with Mary Ann.”

“No problemo, I’ll see you Monday.” I turned to leave.

“Hey, Sophie,” Jason called after me.

“Yeah?”

“You’d make an awesome vampire. Exotic features with supernaturally white skin…that would be cool.”

“Thanks, but I’m kind of digging the whole mortal thing right now. I’ll see you two later.”

I left the store and looked both ways down the sidewalk as I tried to remember where, exactly, I had parked. There was a man sporting a scarred face and a rather obtrusive gold chain peeking into the store window, clearly hesitant to enter.

“You should go in, it’s a good store,” I assured him.

Glazed eyes stared silently back at me. He used his finger to pick some food out of his teeth. Lovely. That was the problem with owning a sex shop. Most of Dena’s customers were fairly respectable, but at least once a day she had to deal with some heroin-loving scumbag looking for a public place to whack off. I considered going back in and warning Dena, but the man turned around and wandered off before I had a chance. Gross, but harmless. I left to find my car. If he did go back, Dena could handle it. After all, she was now being backed up by the power of the living dead.

By the next morning I was physically in much better shape than I had been twenty-four hours previous, but I was also intensely anxious and confused. I approached the mirror and turned from side to side, then turned my back to it and tried to do some kind of contortionist move with my neck so I could review every angle. In a half hour Anatoly would come to pick me up and I had just changed clothes for the eighth time. I was now wearing black boots, jeans, a black V-neck shirt and a leather jacket. “I don’t know, maybe this neckline is a little too low,” I mumbled to myself. I struck a couple of poses to ensure that my boobs would be contained in any position I might need to assume. “What do you think, Mr. Katz? Does it look like I’m trying too hard?”

Mr. Katz was busy making a nest out of a discarded wool sweater. I picked up the fitted gray turtleneck that I had tried on three tops earlier. “But what if he wants to kiss my neck?” Mr. Katz licked his fur suggestively. “I didn’t say I’d let him kiss my neck, but it would be closed minded of me to completely eliminate the possibility.” I looked in the mirror again. This was just going to have to do. My hair couldn’t take another shirt change.

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Katz lifted his head in alarm.

What kind of jerk shows up a half hour early for a first date? I didn’t even have my makeup on yet. I should have trusted my first impression of him. I had a date with the last living caveman.

The knock came again.

“All right, I’m coming.” I gave Mr. Katz a “why me?” look and headed for the entryway. “Which one of my idiot neighbors let you into the building anyway?” I asked before throwing open the door.

“Oops.” It was one of my idiot neighbors.

“Sophie, I didn’t know you had such a high opinion of us.” Theresa Conley wasn’t going to let that one slide. But then again, letting things slide wasn’t really her forte.

“I honestly didn’t mean it, Theresa. You just caught me at a bad time. You see, I was just talking to my cat and… You know what? Never mind. Fresh beginning. Hello, Theresa, what can I do for you?”

Theresa sucked in her cheeks in a manner that made me think of the fish I had had for dinner the night before. “I came because I’m trying to be a good neighbor. Not that you make that an easy task. Nonetheless, I feel it’s my duty to inform you that while looking for parking I saw your car, and it seems someone has broken into it.”

“Oh, God damn it!” This was the second time someone had broken into my car. “Did they break the window?”

Theresa smiled. “Driver’s side.”

“Damn it!”

“Well, I just thought I should tell you. And say hi to your cat for me.” Theresa left in a considerably better mood than she had arrived in.

I slammed the door and turned to see Mr. Katz looking at me questioningly. “I don’t have time for this. I have a date in—” I checked my watch “—twenty minutes.”

Mr. Katz swished his tail and headed back to the bedroom to see if he could do more damage to my sweater collection.

“Argh!” I grabbed my keys from the small table in the entryway. Something was missing. When I came home I always put the face to my CD player on the table next to the keys. Except when I forgot it in the car. If I tried a little harder, could I be a bigger idiot? Defeated, I went out to inspect the damage.

I had parked a little more than three blocks uphill from my apartment, somewhere around five o’clock the day before. I really needed to get an alarm system—although what were the chances I would hear it when I was parked ten miles away? Thanks to an inordinate number of SUVs blocking my line of sight, I wasn’t able to spot my car until I was less than ten yards from it.

I stopped breathing for a second. It was unlike Theresa to understate things, but even from a slight distance it was clear that my Acura hadn’t just been broken into, it had been vandalized. The hood and the trunk had been popped and remained open. When I got closer, I could see that the driver’s side window had indeed been broken, but the biggest damage was to the interior. Not only had they dumped everything out of the glove compartment, but they had also slashed up the interior of both the front and back seats and pulled the stuffing out in several places. There were slashes all over the floor, as well. Hesitant, I looked in the trunk and found that they had also slashed the carpeting in there, along with the spare tire. My hands started trembling and I gripped the top of the trunk to steady them. Who would do this? I pressed my lips together and went to the front of the car to see what else had been destroyed or taken. I forced myself to peek under the hood. The engine was intact.

Why was that? If the object was to cause as much damage as possible, shouldn’t they at least have cut a few wires or something? I peered through the broken glass to get a second look at the mess inside. My CD player was still there. Last I had checked, the main reason people broke into cars was to steal their stereos. My stereo wasn’t state-of-the-art but I was pretty sure it was theft-worthy.

“I thought I was supposed to meet you at your place.”

I jumped at the sound of Anatoly’s voice. He was standing in the doorway of an apartment complex parallel to my car. His eyes traveled behind me to the Acura. “Looks like somebody made an enemy. You know the owner?”

“What are you doing here, Anatoly?”

“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?’ I live here.”

“In that building right there?”

“The one I just walked out of. Your powers of deduction are staggering.”

“And you didn’t hear anything when some lunatic was ripping apart my car?”

“Your car?” Anatoly’s eyebrows shot up. He walked closer for a better look. “I don’t understand, are you a drug dealer or something?”

“Excuse me? Someone messes with my car and you want to know if I’m a drug dealer?”

“Look at the car, Sophie. Whoever did this was looking for something, and when they didn’t find it in the glove compartment or the trunk they assumed it was valuable enough for you to hide it inside the seats.”

“Well, if they were looking for drugs they got the wrong car.”

Anatoly was examining the trunk now. “Well, they were looking for something.”