Thicker Than Water by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

getting too goddamn far ahead of him. Nor did he relish the thought of being caught there in plain sight should the irate neighbor Jones had bothered with the buzzer decide to call the cops after all.
    He looked around, found the stair door and took that way up. Five flights. He hurried, because he didn’t want Jones out of his sight long enough to do anything he would regret not seeing. He figured it took him a minute or so before he made it to the sixth floor landing, opened the stair door and stepped quietly into the hall. Or as quietly as he could manage while panting for breath. His heart was pounding hard enough to wake the residents of the entire floor, and he told himself he was too old for this kind of cloak-and-dagger bullshit.
    Then he shook his head. Getting too old, maybe. But he wasn’t there yet—he’d managed to catch up to her. Jones was walking down the hall, peering at the numbers on the doors of the condos on this floor. He walked forward, stepping just as softly as he could manage. She was wearing jeans now. Her hair was a mess, and her sweatshirt was baggy. This was not a Julie Jones too many people would recognize.
    Then she stopped suddenly and just stood there, staring at one of the doors. And when he got a little closer, Sean realized why. It was Harry’s apartment door, and it was standing wide-open.
    Someone had been there first, and even as he wondered whether they might still be around, Julie Jones walked inside.
    Swearing under his breath, Sean rushed ahead and paused momentarily outside the door to look in at Jones as she tiptoed through the apartment like some kind of goddamn cat burglar. He knew it was freaking insane, but he had to find out what she was up to. My God, he didn’t have dreams thisgood. Oh, he’d fantasized lots of scenarios involving Julie Jones over the years, getting the best of her being his second favorite. But this was better than anything he could have made up. So he crept in after her.
    Harry’s living room looked like some dated idea of a playboy’s love nest. Black leather furniture, white shag carpet, wall-size stereo system, wet bar. Jones moved through it into a hallway and went through a door about halfway down. God, he hoped she wasn’t heading for the bedroom. He could only imagine what that would look like.
    She wasn’t. He moved quietly to the door she’d entered. She’d left it open, so he could look inside. It was a study or library. Desk, chair, file cabinet and a big-screen TV that would have seemed out of place if not for the wall of videos.
    He thought they were books at first, in the muted light. But no. VHS tapes. One entire wall housed a built-in cabinet that must have been full of them. Right now, its doors were flung open wide, and video cassettes lay toppled on the shelves and strewn over the floor. The file cabinet nearby was open wide, too. File folders and papers were thrown everywhere.
    Jones stood there, looking at the mess, shaking her head from side to side as if the sight rendered her unable to move or speak. She pressed her hands to either side of her head, fingers digging in her own hair. “Oh, Jesus, look at all this,” she whispered.
    â€œJones.”
    She whirled when Sean said her name, one hand clenched in a fist and the other pressing to her chest as if to keep her heart from busting out.
    â€œEasy, easy, it’s just me.”
    â€œMacKenzie. What the hell are you doing here? Are you following me?”
    â€œHell, no. I was getting some background for my story.”
    She tipped her head to one side and lowered the fist. “How?”
    He opened his mouth, closed it again.
    â€œWell, you sure as hell couldn’t be interviewing neighbors at this hour. What were you doing, digging through the trash?”
    It was supposed to be a sarcastic little barb, and he would be damned before he admitted that it was dead-on target. There was nothing wrong with digging