Page 97 of Downpour

I turned around and rushed up the ramp like my wheels were on fire. Mom’s footsteps thumped up the wooden slats behind me. As soon as I rolled over the threshold, I stopped and looked around.

Brooke stood frozen in the kitchen. My house was in shambles.

Cabinets were open. Couch cushions were askew. Every bedroom and closet door was wide open. Dresser drawers were pulled out.

The strange thing was that my TV was still mounted to the wall and my laptop was sitting on the coffee table, right out in the open.

There were no signs of forced entry. Then again, I couldn’t remember if I had locked the door.

I had stopped locking up when people stopped dropping by unannounced, thanks to Brooke. Frankly, nobody on the ranch bothered to lock anything. Not houses. Not vehicles. Not sheds or warehouses.

But we were entering a different era. It wasn’t just our family and ranch hands on this land anymore. There were droves of people coming in and out of the gates every day to work on the revitalization projects.

If it wasn’t construction crews, it was the renewable energy company or cell company leasing part of the land. If it wasn’t them, it was investors, inspectors, and nosy folks.

We had fences surrounding the property, but they were meant to keep cattle in, not to keep people out.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said as I came up behind her, taking the banana bread out of Brooke’s hands and setting it on the kitchen counter. “Come on.”

Our overnight bags landed with a thump.

“I’m calling the police,” Mom said from the door.

I steered with one hand, keeping the other on the small of Brooke’s back, leading her out to the deck.

“Breathe,” I said to Brooke while half-listening to my mom on her cell phone.

Brooke nodded, but she was still shaken.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her down onto my lap. “You’re okay. I’m okay. It’s creepy as fuck, but we’re fine. It’s probably good that we were gone.”

Brooke swallowed and stammered until she finally found her words. “You brought your pill organizer to the motel, not the prescription bottles, right?”

I cocked my head. “Right…”

She let out a shaken breath. “The prescription bottles you keep on the kitchen counter are gone.”

I froze. “What?”

Brooke nodded. “All of them.”

Some of the pills I kept on hand wouldn’t be worth much, but there were a few narcotics that would probably fetch a good price on the street. And those had just been refilled.

“Okay.”

“It-it’s not,” she whimpered.

I cupped her cheeks. “Baby, breathe for me. It’s fine. I’ll call the doc and get him to send in new prescriptions. The cops willcome out and check it out and write up a report. We’ll start locking up, and I’ll order one of those doorbell cameras. It’s going to be okay.”

“Drugs going missing… I could lose my job,” she whispered.

“They didn’t go missing. They were stolen. A police report will prove that. Besides, you were with me the whole time, and there’s a lot of witnesses who can place you at the bar?—“

“—Yeah, riding a fucking bull with my tits out in front of my boss before we went back to a motel and fucked like rabbits,” she hissed.

I grinned. “It was a pretty great night.”

Brooke was grinding her teeth down to nothing, so I wrapped my arms around her and let her tuck her head into my shoulder.

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