The Quilt - Leann Sweeney

Just as I got out of the car, a Mercy patrol car pulled up behind me. Candace and Morris. I’d called Candace’s cell on my way home, hoping she was the one who would respond to the alarm. When she’d told me she was on her way, I felt a small bit of relief. Not bothering to close my car door, I started for the house. “There’s a lamp knocked over. Something’s happened again.”

Morris’s hoarse whisper stopped me from taking another step. “You stay right here while we investigate.”

Why wasn’t I hearing the alarm? I couldn’t remember if Tom told me the noise cut off on its own after the system called the police station. And how did this new thing send the alert anyway? A phone call? A buzzer? What? Why couldn’t I remember?

Candace motioned she wanted to go around to the back of the house, so I walked ahead and pointed out the gate. As she ran by me, I saw no one racing away down the slope toward the lake and heard no sounds coming from the house.

Morris reappeared and whispered, “Your key?”

I gave it to him, thinking that at least that meant the lock wasn’t broken.

Then I stood impatiently in the cold, trembling more from fear than from the weather. Were my cats all right?

After what seemed to be hours, Morris and Candace came out the front door, guns holstered, expressions relaxed.

Morris said, “I don’t see any problem ’cept for a broken lamp. Bet that big old cat knocked it over.”

“You saw my cats?” I said.

“Both of them,” Candace said.

“And the alarm went off, right?” I looked at Candace. “That’s why you said you were on your way when I called you from the quilt shop?”

“What alarm?” Candace said.

“You didn’t get an alert at the station about a break-in at my house?”

“Um, no. I sorta always say we’re on our way when upset folks call me.” She looked embarrassed. “That’s how I calm them down. You said you’d seen evidence on this cell phone doodad that someone was in your house, but you never mentioned an alarm.”

“There’s an alarm?” Morris said. “We didn’t get no notice from Tom that you had a phone hookup to the station,” Morris said. “Did he fiddle with your telephone line when he put in the system?”

“I—I don’t know.” Gosh, did I feel stupid.

“Then you’re not hooked up straight to us yet,” Morris said. “Sometimes Tom calls us right when he finishes the work, but sometimes it takes a day or two.”

“Wish he would have told me that important piece of information, but if my cats are okay, then so am I. Can I go in?”

“Sure. You’re spooked after that broken window the other day, is all,” Morris said. “Bet everything is fine.”

“Um, maybe not,” Candace said. “Like I told you, Morris, the back door wasn’t locked.” She looked at me. “Did you have your new system turned on?”

“Of course. I locked every window and door. If you found the back door open, someone must have broken in after all.” Now I wanted to see my cats more than ever. I retrieved my keys from Morris on the way to my front door.

Then I heard Candace’s footsteps behind me. “Where’s the control box for your alarm?” she asked.

I opened the door and stepped inside, calling for Merlot and Chablis before I answered her. “Inside the pantry by the back door.”

“I only checked to make sure no one was hiding in here. But if you locked your door, something’s not right.” She took off in the direction of the kitchen while I crouched to greet Chablis and Merlot as they came into the foyer. Both of them were wide-eyed, their coats puffed out in fear again. Was that because there’d been another break-in? Or just because Morris and Candace had been inside looking around?

I took Chablis in one arm and drew Merlot close with the other. “What has been going on here, you two?”

Merlot was quickly done with cuddling and went off in the direction Candace had gone, watch-cat that he is. I soothed Chablis for a few more seconds, then picked her up and closed the front door with my foot. I wasn’t surprised that Morris had gone back to his squad car.

I found Candace staring at the new control box. Or what used to be a control box—and now was a mangled mess.

Candace looked pretty disgusted.

As for me, I was stunned. The alarm must have gone off and made someone very angry to do this much damage.

“I’ll need my fingerprint kit,” Candace said. “I’m guessing someone took a hammer to this after they picked your back door lock.”

“How can you pick a lock that has a dead bolt?” I said.

“All you need is a thin, strong piece of metal and a pin tool for a basic dead bolt like yours. Happens all the time.”

“I need to start researching criminal behavior rather than cat trivia,” I said. And make sure I was hooked up to both the police and Tom Stewart’s security service. Doubly safe was obviously the way to go.

Chablis jumped out of my arms, but didn’t run off. She leaped onto the kitchen counter, her blue-eyed gaze switching from me to Candace and back to me as if to say, “What are you two planning to do about this situation?”

But I had no answer. I was bewildered. “Why would this person break a window one time and then enter through the back door the next?”

“You’re assuming the same person did this. Never assume.” She might as well have added, “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

“Oh,” was all I could manage.

“Course the perp could have seen all your brand-spanking-new cameras and thought they could hide their identity better coming through the back door. Breaking a window is a whole lot quicker than picking a dead bolt, but bad guys adjust to the circumstances.”

The microphone attached to Candace’s uniformed shoulder spewed static, and then I heard a female voice say, “We got a house fire at 808 Westwood Drive. Children in the home. All units respond. All units respond.”

“Sorry.” Candace whirled and sped out the back door, yelling, “I checked and there’s no intruder here now, so you’re fine. Just try not to touch anything that might be evidence. I’ll call you.” She disappeared.

I was alone with my cats again. Alone and worried about human children who needed help in a burning house. Plus I was a little frustrated. I understood why Tom couldn’t get me hooked up to the police station when he finished the job at one a.m., but I sure wished he’d been able to do so this morning. He probably felt entitled to sleep late after working into the wee hours. Just my luck.

I took a calming breath and then remembered the cameras. They weren’t connected to the alarm box. And unless this malicious person had smashed all my cameras, too, I might find something important on my computer. Yup. My cell phone feed was limited, but the computer kept the recordings of everything.

I hurried to my office. Merlot loped ahead and beat me there, with Chablis not far behind. Whatever had gone on apparently hadn’t upset them as much as last time, and I was thankful for that.

Both cats jumped on the double-stacked barrister-style bookcases to get a good view as I sat at my desk. It was set catty-corner to the case—and it needed to be catty-corner so the kitties would have a place to watch me. Otherwise they’d plant themselves on top of the hard-drive tower or the other tall bookshelf. But Merlot wasn’t happy sharing space and swatted poor Chablis on the nose. She jumped from the table onto the keyboard. I’d just started booting up, and her landing did strange things to the start-up screen.

I was forced to turn off the computer, put Chablis in my lap, start the whole procedure over and still try to stay composed enough to remember all the steps to bring up the camera feeds.