‘Does it actually show them arriving on scene? By GPS?’

‘Yeah, the time was logged.’

Striker frowned. That was the second CAD call created by the mental health car for Larisa Logan. And in just two days. It bothered him, mainly because Bernard Hamilton was not that dedicated a man. If he had attended Larisa’s place twice in two days – and at such an early time this morning – there was a good reason for it.

He considered just calling Bernard and asking him outright, but the man could be a snake. Striker wanted to do some of his own digging first, and he wanted to speak to the man in person, not over the phone. Face-to-face meetings always told cops more.

So much communication was non-verbal.

‘Where to?’ Felicia asked.

Striker cranked the wheel and hit the gas. ‘Burnaby,’ he said. ‘We’re going back to Larisa’s house. I have a feeling we’ve missed something.’

Thirty-Three

‘I’m liking Bernard Hamilton less and less,’ Striker said as he drove across the Boundary Road perimeter and entered the City of Burnaby. ‘And I never liked him in the first place, so that says a lot.’

‘Maybe he’s just respecting Larisa’s privacy,’ Felicia suggested.

Striker cast her a hard glance. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Feleesh. Bernard Hamilton does nothing that doesn’t serve his own purpose. We’re out here trying to save this woman, and he knows that. Yet he’s done nothing to help us. If anything, he made things harder.’

He drove up Willingdon, turned east on Parker Street, and made his way down to Larisa’s rancher. Seeing it felt odd. The last time he’d been here, it had been night, deep and dark. Now, in the soft hue of the nine o’clock morning light, with pale blue sky backing the lot, the entire place looked different. The vinyl siding was actually painted a dark blue colour, not grey, and the slab of stucco above the vinyl was an off-cream colour, dirtied and worn from time. Inside the front room, the window drapes were pulled shut.

Striker looked at this and frowned.

‘Did Car 87 make entry?’ he asked.

Felicia skimmed the computer. ‘The call says no.’

‘Then she’s been home.’

He climbed out of the car and felt his shoes slip on the frosted asphalt. When he reached the sidewalk, Felicia got out, too. They hiked up the cement walkway to the front alcove, where Striker hesitated.

The door wasn’t closed, like he’d originally thought; it was open a crack. Before leaving last night, he had made sure the door was closed and the entire place locked.

‘Be ready,’ he told Felicia.

When she nodded and took her position on the left, Striker knocked on the door. Three solid knocks.

‘Larisa!’ he called out. ‘It’s Detective Striker from the Vancouver Police Department. It’s Jacob. Are you home?’

When no one answered, he pushed the door open and looked inside. The moment he did, the winter wind picked up and pushed the door all the way open. What he saw surprised him.

The place had been torn apart. Looked damn near ransacked. All the coats had been removed from the closet and were lying on the floor, pockets pulled open. All the drawers to the hutch had been pulled out, with the contents of each one dumped on the kitchen floor. And in the living room, all the cushions from the sofa had been torn off and the underside felt cut away.

‘Someone made entry here,’ Striker said. He drew his pistol and stepped inside the foyer; Felicia did the same. Three steps later, he stopped.

‘Take the rear,’ he said.

‘Outside?’

‘Yeah. If someone’s in here, they’re going to fly.’

An uncertain expression formed on Felicia’s face. ‘We should get another unit here, Jacob. A dog, maybe.’

‘There’s no time.’

‘But—’

‘I can clear the place, Feleesh, just take the rear.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You need two people. It’s not safe.’

Striker said nothing for a moment, he just met her stare, saw that her mind was made up, and he nodded.

‘Okay, together then, but now.’

She nodded.

They moved throughout the house, calling out police presence as they went. What they found in the kitchen and bedroom was no different to what they’d found in the living room. It had been torn apart – drawers opened, cupboards searched, and everything dumped on the floor. Left on the ground was everything from money and jewellery to papers and underwear.

In the office, the filing cabinet had been emptied. Everything had been rifled through, yet nothing had been damaged.

It was a search, not a mischief.

Striker made a mental note of what they saw, room by room.

They cleared the entire place. Made sure no one was still there, hiding in one of the closets, or in the crawl space. They even checked the attic. Then, when they were certain no one was left in the house, Felicia called Dispatch and had a call created for a Break and Enter.

She hung up and looked around at the mess of the living room. ‘It doesn’t look like anything’s been taken,’ she noted. ‘You know, this might not be a Break and Enter. This might be more of Larisa’s mental breakdown.’

Striker met her stare. ‘You think Larisa did all this?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe. Who knows what her state of mind is right now? The house was a pigsty when we got here yesterday. Cupboards were open then. Papers left lying about. Clothes everywhere. Today is the same, only worse.’

Striker shook his head. ‘Not this. This is different.’

Felicia just looked around and studied the room. ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate here. But you’ve got to admit, she’s been doing a lot of weird stuff lately.’

‘Someone else was here, Feleesh. And whoever they were, they were looking for something important.’ He moved through the living room and studied the contents dumped out of the drawers. On the carpet, in the middle of the floor, was an open DVD case. It caught his attention.

It was empty.

He looked around, saw no disc, then moved back to the office. On the floor in the office were more empty cases. He looked all around the room and again could not find the missing discs.

‘He took the DVDs,’ he said. ‘The DVDs are the only thing I can see missing.’

Felicia looked around the place, then frowned. ‘Lots of things don’t add up here, Jacob.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like Larisa running, for one. I mean, I can see her running from a home invader, or even the psychiatric ward, but not from us. Think about it. You’re her friend; she was calling you. Asking for your help. So why not just come forward to the police if she knows something? Why run?’

Striker put his pistol back into its holster as he thought this over. Larisa running. Bernard acting all strange. Coming to her place. Twice, in fact.

A sinking feeling hit him in the chest.

‘I got an idea why,’ he finally said.

Thirty-Four

Despite the bad traffic and icy road conditions, they made the drive from Larisa’s house in Burnaby all the way down to the Main Street headquarters in less than twenty minutes. Once on scene, they parked out back in the east lane – only rookies parked out front; that was where every complainant waited for the next poor patrol guy to appear.

They walked past the annexe and into the main building, then took the stairs up to the third floor. The concrete walls were painted a God-awful yellow colour. It was supposed to make the building brighter, more cheery, but there was no colouring up this place. It was one huge, depressing slab, and the paint looked like piss.