Read Online In Plain Sight by Fern Michaels - Free Book Online Page A

their own distinct smell. Nikki’s kitchen always smelled like pumpkin-pie spice. The kitchen at Pinewood smelled like vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes garlic. This kitchen smelled like apple pie.
    Jack stood perfectly still as he tried to get a fix on the room and the two women who had lived here for some time. Even with the few personal touches, like the fern hanging in the dinette window, red crockery on the kitchen counter, and red-and-green tartan-plaid place mats, there was no sense of permanence. At least he wasn’t feeling any. The words temporary and stopover came to mind.
    The square table was set into a breakfast nook that overlooked the backyard and a tiny porch. Thrift-store furniture, he decided. Not ugly, not pretty. Serviceable. The cushions on the chairs matched the place mats. A small bowl with green plants sat in the middle of the table. The soil was just starting to dry out around the edges, an indication the women hadn’t been gone that long. Jack took a cup from the hook under the cabinet and watered the plant. He dried off the cup and replaced it.
    The floor was covered in what looked like new linoleum, which was clean and waxed. Braided rugs that looked to be handmade were by the sink and stove. The cabinets were painted white, with bright red knobs. So in a way the women had tried to personalize at least the kitchen to some extent. Nikki would have picked up on that right away.
    A small ten-inch television sat on the counter next to a toaster oven. In the corner, there was a red bowl with a green plant. It looked to be thriving with the light from under the counter. He poked his finger into the soil. It was nice and moist. Nikki would know about that, too. He made a mental note. The only other thing on the counter was a small red dish with two sets of keys.
    Forty minutes later, Jack pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. He’d gone through the contents of all the cabinets, even dumping out the cereal boxes, flour, and sugar cans. He found nothing. There was food in the refrigerator—yogurt, eggs, milk, a loaf of bread, some apples, two lemons and two limes, and two cucumbers. There were two bottles of unopened wine on the refrigerator door along with six bottles of Corona beer and a six-pack of bottled water. The freezer contained two packages of frozen chopped meat, a whole chicken, and one package of pork chops along with a frozen strawberry-rhubarb pie.
    The tiny laundry room boasted a stackable washer and dryer and held nothing but a load of towels waiting to be folded. He had the crazy urge to fold them, but he ignored the urge. The overhead cabinet contained two bottles of detergent, some dryer sheets, and a gallon of Clorox, along with six one-hundred-watt lightbulbs, the old kind.
    Jack looked up to see Harry standing in the doorway. “This was a bust. I didn’t find a thing. How about you?”
    “Just these phones. They were on the dresser. It’s just one big room up there, like a loft. Twin beds, twin dressers. Not a lot of clothes, just enough. Same with the shoes. Some boots, and yes, I checked inside them all. Nothing. No excess of anything. One change of bedding. Six towels in the linen closet. Tissue, bathroom stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing under the sink. No tub, just a shower. I’d say the two women are very frugal. No sign of jewelry or anything fancy. I can almost guarantee, Jack, that no one but us has been here. If there was someone before us, then it was a woman who knew how to put everything back exactly like she found it. That’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth.”
    “Same here,” Jack groused. “At least you found the phones. The car keys are here on the counter. I guess we should check the cars before we leave and take the keys with us.”
    “This is a nice kitchen. Yoko would like it. She likes the color red. Do you think we should water the fern hanging in the window?”
    “Why?” Jack asked. “I already watered the plant on the