Carol J. Post - Shattered Haven

“Ready to tackle the upstairs?”

The question came from Hunter.

Blake gave a mock salute. “Ready when you are. You’re the boss.”

Allison followed them. The guest room wouldn’t be bad. There wasn’t much in there. Her bedroom...that was another story. She dreaded the sight—everything dragged out of her closet, drawers emptied onto the floor. Unmentionables strewn about the room.

And Blake walking through everything.

No. That was where she was drawing the line.

As Hunter entered the room, she stepped in front of Blake and planted her palm against his muscled chest.

“Stop right there.”

He looked at her with raised brows but didn’t respond.

“You’re not going into my bedroom.”

“Why not?” The corner of his mouth quirked, as if he was trying to stifle a grin.

“Because I said so.” She made a shooing motion with both hands. “Go investigate the guest room or something.”

He didn’t bother to hide his mirth now. He threw back his head and laughed, a hearty belly laugh, then gave another mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

She watched him disappear into the bedroom at the end of the hall, then steeled herself for what she would find in hers.

It was every bit as bad as she had expected. She circled through the room, stepping around the items scattered about. The mattress had apparently been picked up and dropped back down. It was hanging over one side of the box spring by six inches. Her closet was cleared out, her dresser drawers empty except for Tom’s Glock.

She moved to the dresser and opened the antique jewelry box. Nothing appeared disturbed. A small sense of relief filtered through the dread, a sliver of light in the darkness.

She turned to find Hunter watching her. “Is it all there?”

“Looks like it.”

He frowned. “He left your jewelry and the Glock. This isn’t the work of an ordinary burglar.”

No, it wasn’t. Her intruder was interested in only one thing. And she needed to tell someone.

Her gaze locked with Hunter’s, and in that moment, she made her decision. Regardless of what they might find, Hunter wouldn’t hold it against her. And he wouldn’t tell anyone. In the two years she had known him, he had done nothing but gain her respect. He was honest, hardworking and compassionate. He was even active in church—taught a middle-school boys’ Sunday School class.

Her cautious trust didn’t extend to Blake. He seemed all right. More than all right. But she had thought Tom was all right, too.

“I think I know what they were looking for.” She spoke the words in a whisper. “I’m giving you something, but I don’t want Blake to see it. I don’t want anyone to know but you and Chief Sandlin.”

His gaze was filled with unspoken questions. “O-kay.”

“I guess the other Cedar Key officers are okay, too.” But the fewer people that knew, the better. At least until she deciphered the clues. She pulled the paper from her purse and handed it to him. She didn’t need to copy the information down. She had read it so many times she had it memorized. “I found this rolled up with the house plans in the newel post.”

“R45 87, G45 165, R2.55 282.” His gaze met hers. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I think my grandparents hid something. And until I know what it is, I don’t want word of this getting out.”

He gave a brusque nod. “Agreed.”

As he refolded the sheet and slid it into his shirt pocket, relief washed through her. Whatever was significant about that information, the intruder was determined to get his hands on it. Since he had failed again, she probably hadn’t seen the last of him. As long as she held on to that paper, she wasn’t safe.

When she walked the two men out twenty minutes later, Hunter left, but Blake hung back. He leaned against one of the posts supporting her porch roof. “Are you going to be okay? I’ll be happy to change some window latches if you tell me where I can get them.”

Her eyes met his. The concern she saw there threatened to turn her into a puddle of mush on the newly painted porch floor.

She shook off the effect and squared her shoulders. “I’ll be fine. I’ll have Terrance do it. Or I might get a wild hair and do it myself.”

He nodded. “And the clean-up, if you don’t want to face all that alone, you know where to find me.”

She gave him a shaky smile. It was nice of him to offer, but having him help her put all her personal belongings away seemed too intimate.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Two break-ins in one week seems a little excessive.” The words weren’t phrased as a question. But it was there all the same. He was interrogating her with his eyes.

She shrugged off his penetrating gaze. She didn’t owe him any explanations. “I guess there isn’t anywhere exempt from crime, even Cedar Key.”

“That’s true. But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill burglar. Any idea what he’s looking for?”

It was the same question Hunter had asked. But something in Blake’s tone raised her hackles. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but I’m not into anything illegal.”

He didn’t respond, but continued to study her. She knew that look. She had seen it often enough—narrowed gaze, head angled slightly away, mouth set in a barely perceptible frown. Suspicion. Disapproval.

A dark cloud settled over her. She had escaped all that when she boarded her sailboat and fled Providence—the suspicious glances, the relentless questioning by police. It didn’t matter that she was innocent, that she had gone about her pampered life, blissfully ignorant of her husband’s activities. She was guilty by association.

Would it be the same in Cedar Key? If the clues led to something illegal, some kind of contraband or dirty family secret, would she once again find herself an outcast, shunned by society?

Maybe her intruder knew that. Maybe he planned to blackmail her with the information. Or worse yet, pin something incriminating on her.

With all she had been through, nothing was out of the realm of possibility.

* * *

Blake stared at the fiberglass ceiling two and a half feet above where he lay. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a deep-toned backdrop to the lapping of water against the hull. A muted flickering filled the eastern sky.

But it wasn’t the approaching storm keeping him awake. It was thoughts of Allison. He was having a hard time figuring her out. She had a sweet air of innocence about her, a wholesome, girl-next-door quality.

But she was holding back. She knew what the intruder was after. And for some reason, she didn’t want to tell anyone. Although Hunter didn’t press, he did. And she instantly bristled. He wished he had gone about it differently. Because now there seemed to be an invisible wall between them, the tentative camaraderie they had built over the past two days strained.

What had she gotten involved in, and why wouldn’t she talk to him? Had she taken something, and someone was determined to get it back? No, whatever Allison was, she wasn’t a thief.

Maybe she was holding on to something with blackmail in mind. But that didn’t sound like Allison, either. There was nothing cunning or deceitful about her. Whatever trouble she had found, she probably hadn’t been looking for it. And now she was in over her head.

And she was scared. No matter how she tried to hide it, fear glistened in those clear blue eyes, along with an underlying vulnerability that just about made him come undone.

He heaved a sigh and turned on his left side to massage his right leg and knee. The berth was fairly comfortable. But bad weather made everything ache. That was something he had learned to live with. He refused to feel sorry for himself. The dull ache brought on by changes in barometric pressure was nothing compared to the agony he’d endured during the weeks following his injury—the multiple surgeries, the powerful antibiotic injections when infection set in and he almost lost his leg, and the weeks of intensive physical therapy once he was on the mend.