Page 67 of Deadly Revenge

“Why don’t we look around to see if he left any evidence of being here,” he said.

Instead of making her feel better, his words irritated her. He was placating her, like a father soothing a frightened child. She fisted her hands on her hips. “I know what you think. You think I’m unstable ... just like my old boss in Chattanooga.”

“That’s not what I think at all, but sometimes our eyes do play tricks on us. Why don’t we dust for prints before we eat our barbecue, and you can check to see if anything has been disturbed.”

They cleared the house together, dusting for prints in each room. In her bedroom, she stared at the remote on her dresser. Had she put it there? If she had, it would’ve been yesterday because she hadn’t turned the TV on this morning. No matter, she simply couldn’t remember. Same thing with items in her living room. The photos on her mantel didn’t look quite right, but she couldn’t be sure. The frames were all identical. Had her grandmother’s photo been on the end or the middle? Same thing for the photos on the other end. Everything looked suspicious once she questioned her memory. At least the tape across the fake receptacle hadn’t been disturbed—but that was no guarantee. The tape on the doors hadn’t been disturbed either.

An hour later, they found several prints overlaid with smudges, which was what they’d get if the intruder wore latex gloves. Except for a few prints that matched Max’s fingerprints, the ones they found all looked the same. She assumed they were hers since she couldn’t remember the last time anyone else was in her house but Max and Alex, but her boss hadn’t touched anything.

“Have you checked to see if any of your jewelry is missing?” Max asked.

“I’ll do it now.” In her bedroom, she sorted through what jewelry she had, which wasn’t much. Everything seemed to be there, except ... where was her necklace?

Max stuck his head in the doorway. “Anything missing?”

“I can’t find my gold necklace with a cross.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

She tried to remember. “Maybe a couple of weeks ago? I don’t wear jewelry often.”

“So it could be misplaced rather than missing?”

Jenna shrugged. “That makes more sense than thinking someone stole it and left behind a three-thousand-dollar laptop sitting in plain sight.”

“I agree.”

In the kitchen, she set plates down for the barbecue along with real knives and forks. “I’m not eating out of a Styrofoam box or using plastic utensils.”

But when Jenna sat down, she wasn’t hungry and picked at the food.

“You need to eat,” Max said.

“I know ... but I don’t have any appetite.”

Jenna managed to eat half of her plate, but her thoughts kept returning to the intruder. If someone was here, why didn’t they take her laptop in plain view in her office? What if she had imagined the man?

She’d thought the man who attacked Max could’ve been Sebastian. What if that had planted a subconscious thought that the gang leader was in Russell County? It wasn’t a far stretch to believe he could’ve broken into her house.

Could she really be suffering from PTSD? Right after the shooting, any loud noise could put her in the middle of the battle in Chattanooga, and blood, even just a drop of it, made her faint.Had her PTSD returned in a different form? She looked up as Max picked up her plate.

“I think we’re done for the night,” he said. “As soon as I do the dishes, let’s ride into town to the hotel so I can get my things. Tomorrow we’ll go see your grandmother first thing.”

“I’ll do the dishes.” She ignored his reference to the hotel. “And I think we have a briefing first thing.”

“After that, then.”

Jenna raised her brows. “Uh, don’t be surprised if Granna starts her matchmaking. I, uh, talked quite a bit about you when we worked together.” Her heart stuttered as he caught her gaze and held it.

“Would her matchmaking be such a bad thing?”

She hadn’t been wrong earlier, thinking he’d wanted to kiss her. Jenna wasn’t sure she could handle this version of Max. Sure, she’d fantasized about him right after his fiancée dumped him and before things got serious with Phillip, but Max never indicated he had the same feelings ... except for that one kiss...

What had changed? Before she got up the courage to ask, her cell phone rang. Alex. Jenna answered and put the call on speaker, dreading any more bad news.

“Dylan and Taylor finished processing Joe Slater’s house. You want them to come by and dust for prints?”

Jenna released the breath she’d been holding. “Thanks, but Max helped me. We found a few smudges, but nothing else.”

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