Tainted Pictures by Sarah Robinson Page A

 He was eager to hear any good news about the case.  Derrick knew that he had failed Kate, and not just a small fail but an epic level of failure, betrayal, and abandonment.  The guilt plagued him every moment of the last two weeks and even though Kate had finally forgiven him, Derrick was nowhere near forgiving himself.
               Derrick got out of bed, pulling his boxers on from where they had been tossed off the bed and onto the floor.  He grabbed a t-shirt that was over the back of a chair and yanked it on, barely covering up his intense six-pack abs that still held their sculpted look even through the fabric.  He looked towards the bathroom door and considered if Kate would be okay with him just giving out her location to the detective.  He was pretty sure that she wanted the case solved as much as he did, so he hoped she wouldn’t be upset about it.
               He needed some fresh air and was lucky enough that his apartment had a nice balcony where he had some lounge chairs set up.  He grabbed himself some coffee out of the kitchen that had been set to automatically brew for the morning.  The weather was a bit warm as he stepped outside onto the concrete balcony and looked around him.  He loved his balcony, his own space outdoors, but the view was dismal.  If he looked to his right, there was his bedroom window and if he looked to his left, there was the kitchen window.  
               Straight ahead of him was the balcony jutting off the building across the alley from him.  No one had lived in that apartment for a while which he was glad about because they could practically reach across and touch his railing if they really wanted to, not to mention the front row view into his windows.  The last tenant who had lived there was a bunch of frat boys who were always smoking on the balcony and playing loud music into the night.  He had been really glad to get rid of that noise and that smell when they moved out a few months ago.
               Derrick sniffed the air and crunched up his eyebrows.  He smelled cigarette smoke but was wondering if he was imagining it since he had just been thinking of the previous tenants.  Derrick walked to the edge of his balcony and looked across.  The empty balcony across from him was no longer entirely empty.  In one corner was a Styrofoam cup that was overflowing with cigarettes being snuffed out in the black, tobacco water filling the cup.  One of the cigarettes on top that had clearly just been put there was still smoking, a telling thin line of gray smoke wafting up above it towards the sky.  
               Derrick squinted to look into the apartment and saw that it was still void of any furniture or signs of life.  Yet, here was freshly smoked cigarettes out on the balcony.  Derrick suddenly sucked in his breath as he flashed back to a memory from a few days ago.  He had been at Kate’s apartment and woken up, startled, with the feeling that someone was in her apartment.  When he had gotten up to investigate, he found no one but he did find a lit cigarette on the fire escape railing.  The bright orange glow in the black night warning him that his instinct had been right, someone had been outside Kate’s apartment in the middle of the night.  Is it possible that someone had done the same thing here?  
               Derrick quickly turned around and went inside, bolting the balcony door behind him and wedging a wooden stick into the side of it as well for extra security.  He felt chills running up and down his spine and he hurried back into the bedroom to find Kate.  He rushed into the bedroom and almost collided with Kate, wrapped in a towel and brushing her hair.  She looked at him, surprised.
               “Are you okay?”  She asked him, sensing something was wrong from the twisted look on his face.
               “Uh, Kate, I think...” Derrick started to say and then