Саманта Сильвер: Busy As A Beaver

“Why is he here, anyway?” Bee asked.

“Buster and Gloria were injured in a home invasion,” I replied. “Gloria is spending the night in the hospital, which means that Buster’s staying here.”

“Oooh,” Bee said as I let Buster out. “We’re going to have the most epic sleepover ever!”

“Alright, well, Buster is supposed to limit his movements, so don’t do anything too ridiculous,” I called after them as the two cats ran off together goodness knew where. If there was one thing Bee and Buster were good at, it was getting into trouble. “Buster, stay off that broken leg!”

“Gloria was the victim of a home invasion?” Charlotte asked as I made my way into the kitchen. “Did I hear that right?”

I nodded as I watched her cook up an omelet in the frying pan, with Jason, my boyfriend who lived with us now, sitting at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle. He perked up as soon as I came into the room.

“Home invasion? Here in Willow Bay?”

“Nice to see you too, honey,” I teased as I grabbed a seat, inhaling the aromas of the red peppers and onion sautéing away on the stove.

“Hey, the more big scoops I get, the better,” Jason replied with a grin.

“Anyway, yeah, Gloria came home from getting groceries this afternoon to find a stranger in her house. He pistol-whipped her, asked for money, and then when Buster attacked him Gloria took the opportunity to run. She and Buster are both going to be fine, but he has a hairline fracture in his ulna and a large cut on his side, and Gloria is spending the night in hospital just in case.”

“Wow, that’s terrifying,” Charlotte said, shaking her head. “I’m glad they’re both going to be ok.”

“Me too,” I nodded. “I can’t remember the last time that sort of thing happened here. I mean, burglaries, sure. But they’re almost always when the owner of the house isn’t home, or in the middle of the night, that sort of thing. For Gloria to actually be hurt in the middle of it is awful.”

“Absolutely,” Jason nodded. “It’s strange, too. I wonder why someone targeted her in particular?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, thinking over Jason’s words. “Sophie and I are looking into it, though.”

Charlotte gave me an incredulous look. “Seriously? Can the two of you just let the police do their job for once in your lives?”

“Well, I was going to, but then Gloria asked us to look into it. And we couldn’t just say no to her, lying in that hospital bed like that.”

“Oh, so now because someone asked you nicely, you’re going to start hunting an armed robber, is that it?”

“Hey, it’s better than the murderers she usually goes after, isn’t it, honey?” Jason asked me with a wink.

“That’s right,” I replied. “Besides, it’s not just Gloria. It’s Buster. Buster is basically family at this point, and this person broke his leg. He probably wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed him.”

“That still doesn’t make you the right person to try and hunt him down,” Charlotte pointed out. “You really should just leave this to the authorities.”

“I made a promise to Gloria, and I have no intention of breaking it. If Sophie and I discover anything, we’re going to go to Chief Gary and let him know about it. We’re going to be safe, don’t worry about us.”

“Sure, like all those other times you were ‘safe’ and almost ended up killed.”

“ Almost being the key word there.”

“No, killed was definitely the key,” Charlotte replied, giving me a stare that had ‘are you freaking serious right now’ written all over it.

“Well, anyway, I’m doing this,” I said.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation at the office for getting exclusives,” Jason said with a grin.

“Exclusives that are more interesting than the fact that the local gym is getting a new set of spin bikes?” I teased. The Willow Bay Whistler was a great paper, but to be totally honest, it was somewhat rare for anything remotely interesting to happen here. Sure, there had been a handful of murders over the last year or so—a lot more than was normal for the town—but it was still overall a quiet, small town in every single way. Exhibit A was the front-page headline on the previous week’s paper: a deer had eaten all of a local resident’s birdseed when they hadn’t locked their shed properly.

Charlotte slid a plate of omelet in front of me and I happily dug in to the dinner, my worries about who had done this to Gloria and Buster temporarily forgotten.

I tossed and turned in bed for a while that night, completely unable to get to sleep. I couldn’t help but wonder how Gloria was doing. Buster seemed ok—I had checked on him and Bee after dinner to make sure they weren’t doing anything too active, and I found Buster telling Bee everything that had happened that day.

I turned over in my mind everything I had heard Gloria and Bee tell me about what had happened.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about the whole thing felt off. Why had the thief waited for Gloria to come home? After all, wouldn’t it have been easier for the thief to search the house when no one was home?

Why would he search Gloria’s home for money? I mean, Gloria certainly wasn’t poor, but she also wasn’t rich. She had been a teacher up in Portland, and most of her income came from her pension, rather than from any sort of actual assets. I had been in Gloria’s home a few times, and there was absolutely no reason why someone should have thought she had a ton of money stashed away somewhere. After all, the woman still had one of those huge CRT televisions. That didn’t exactly scream ‘there’s money here’.

On top of that, Willow Bay might not have been Beverly Hills, but it remained a tourist destination all the same. There were a few houses that belonged to rich investors who kept them empty most of the year, except for when they came by for a couple weeks in the summer, as well as others that belonged to the small number of local businessmen who had done quite well for themselves. Surely, those would have made better targets for a home invasion than the simple home of a former teacher. Right?

No, none of this made any sense. There was something wrong here, and I had to find out what.

Grabbing my jacket—Halloween was only a couple weeks away—I slipped out the front door as quietly as possible so as to not wake anyone else in the house. I breathed in the crisp, cool night air as I stepped outside, listening to the breeze wisp between the leaves of the trees.

One of the things I loved about Willow Bay was how safe it was—even though my phone told me it was just after three in the morning, I had absolutely no qualms about walking through the streets at night. Besides, if anything did happen, I had my magic to protect me.

As I passed by row after row of houses, their exteriors dimly illuminated by the faint glow of the streetlights, I eventually made my way to Gloria’s house without seeing another soul. Yellow police tape was wrapped across the front door of the house, which had now been closed. I took a good look at the lock with the light from my phone: there was no sign of forced entry at all. If the person who had attacked Gloria had come in through the front door, they had been subtle about it.

Before entering the house, I crept along the side, making my way to the back door. I wanted to know how the attacker had gotten in. If they hadn’t used the front door, maybe they’d gone in through a window or the back.

I crept up to the back window and shone my light on the lock. There were a few scuff marks next to the lock—some awkwardness on Gloria’s part, or a sign that someone had come in that way?