Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“I…” Kourtney shakes her head and looks at me. “Did you lock the door when you left?”
“Yes, when I left to come over here to Bax’s, I made sure to lock it, and then I double-checked it since you would be home alone.”
“What about the back door?” Officer Heart asks, and my stomach sinks.
“I don’t know. I… I didn’t even think about checking the back door. I never go into the backyard.”
“What about your friend?” Kourtney asks, and I chew the inside of my cheek.
“Again, I don’t know, but I guess she could have gone out there at some point.”
Shifting her attention off me, she focuses on the officers. “I’ve been out of town, and Olivia had a friend visiting when I got home this evening. Maybe she left the back door open, and that’s how someone got into the house.”
“Perhaps,” Officer Heart says, and I wrap my hands more tightly around the mug I’m holding.
“Do you two mind coming next door with us and just checking out the rooms to see if you can tell if anything is missing?” Cobi asks, and I shake my head, placing my mug down as Kourtney gets up off the couch.
As we all file out the front door, Bax waits for me and captures my hand. I can feel the tension coming off him in waves, and I get the feeling that if he could stop me from going into Kourtney’s house, he would.
As we walk through the door, everything looks exactly like it did when I left last night. Or… it does until we get down the hallway. Stopping outside of the office with Bax, I watch Cobi, Officer Heart, and Kourtney go into the room that is an absolute mess, with papers and things tossed around, and drawers open.
But like Cobi said, the big things that someone could take and sell are still right where they were yesterday. Kourtney’s brand-new computer is still plugged in, along with the printer, and there is a large jar of coins on the desk in plain sight that hasn’t been moved.
As Kourtney is looking around, I attempt to release Bax’s hand but end up dragging him with me to my room. My heart sinks when I see that all of my clothes have been pulled out of my closet and dresser and tossed around the room without care. The mess is bad enough, but when I step over the threshold, actually enter my bedroom, and pick a small piece of lace up from the floor to figure out what it is, it becomes obvious that whoever was in the house has a personal issue with me.
Scattered among the clothes everywhere are cut-up pieces of my underwear and bras.
Looking around, I quickly scan the top of my dresser. The cash I had in my pocket the other night and left there is all gone. But my laptop is still sitting on the side table next to my bed, with my iPad charging on top of it. As I look around, a shiver slides down my spine, and I feel violated in one of the worst ways.
“Do you notice anything missing?” Bax asks me softly, and I shake my head.
“I had some money on the dresser, but nothing else that I notice.” I pick up a strap from one of my bras that is hanging off the side of my bed. “Who would do this?”
“Someone who’s sick,” he answers quietly.
He’s right. Whoever did this is sick.
“Kourtney doesn’t think anything is missing from the office,” Cobi says, stepping into my bedroom through the bathroom that connects my room and the office. “Do you recognize anything that is missing in here?”
“Some cash.”
“How much?” Cobi asks.
“I think about fifty dollars.” I shake my head, letting the material in my hand fall to the floor.
“Anything else?”
“Not that I notice.”
“Alright, we’re going to dust for prints and see if we get anything,” he says, then looks over at Kourtney. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“Can’t I stay here?” she asks, looking around the room. “I doubt whoever did this will be back tonight.”
“You’re not staying here,” I whisper, horrified by the idea and shocked because there is no way I’d even think about staying here after knowing someone was in the house with me while I was asleep.
“I don’t have a lot of options unless I get a hotel,” she says quietly, hugging herself, and that guilt I’ve felt since she brought up Rebecca, possibly leaving the back door open, wraps tighter around my insides.
When we were in middle school, Kourtney’s younger sister, Beth, died in a freak accident, and that loss changed her. She started avoiding connecting with people and stopped being the funny and fun outgoing girl she once was. The only reason she didn’t push me away is because I never let her. She doesn’t have any close friends besides me, and her parents both moved away years ago, trading the seasonal summer heat of Tennessee for the year-round warmth of Florida.