Page 19 of Play Book

“Saylor? What happened?” I chase after her and find her in her bedroom, yanking clothes out of the closet.

“Someone broke into my gallery,” she says, pulling on jeans and a hoodie. “The police were called—I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

“You don’t have your car,” I remind her gently, “but I can drive you.”

“Oh.” She momentarily falters. “Shit. I forgot about my car, so I appreciate you driving me. I’m so sorry to have to involve you.” She pulls on socks and slides her feet into sneakers before we go back to the kitchen.

I pick my shirt up from where I’d tossed it and pull it back on.

“Tell me what they said,” I ask as she picks up her purse and locks the door behind us.

“Rage didn’t give me many details. Basically, the alarm at the gallery went off and alerted them of a problem, and they immediately called the police, which is protocol. But whoever it was had a few minutes to cause some damage before they ran. Someone from my security firm is on their way to meet the police there. Right now, that’s all we know.”

“Jesus.” I open the passenger side door and make sure she’s in before jogging around to the other side. I fire up the engine, pull out of the driveway, probably going a little faster than I should, but I can see how stressed she is. Frankly, my heart rate has kicked up a notch as well. I hate that we’d been interrupted, but I hate this for her even more. Her gallery is important, and I can only hope the damage or theft isn’t too bad.

“I’m sorry I ruined our evening,” she says, resting the back of her head against the seat.

“Don’t worry about that,” I say quickly, reaching across the center console for her hand. “Let’s just focus on getting to the gallery and finding out what happened before we panic.”

“Thank you.” She takes a deep but shaky breath. “It seems like I’ve had a lot of bad luck lately. Food poisoning last week. Flat tire the other day. Now my gallery… It’s like the universe is trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what it is.”

“The universe isn’t telling you shit,” I mutter, squeezing her hand. “Sometimes bad things happen. That’s all. There are shitty people in the world, people who do shitty things, and sometimes food poisoning is just food poisoning. It happens. It happened to me on a road trip last season.”

“I know. But it feels like?—”

I cut her off, hoping to distract her. “Bad things happen in three’s, right? And this is number three. So, you’re good now.”

I can’t be sure, since I have to focus on the road in front of me, but she may have smiled.

There are several police cars out front when we arrive, and Saylor practically flies out of the car. It takes me a minute to park, lock up, and follow after her, but from what I can see, there doesn’t appear to be much damage.

“...it looks like someone hit the back door with some kind of axe,” one of the cops is saying.

“What about the cameras? Can we see who it was?” Saylor is asking a guy who isn’t wearing a uniform and is built like the side of a mountain. It has to be the guy from her security company, the one she’d called Rage.

“Whoever it was knew where the cameras were. He wore a hoodie and kept his head down. No way to see his face. It looks like a man, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”

“Did they take anything?”

“Not that we could see,” the cop interjects. “Obviously, you’ll need to do an inventory but…” His voice trails, and he looks to Rage.

“But?” Saylor asks, frowning. “But what? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I guess you need to see it,” Rage says in a no-nonsense voice. “Let’s go to the back.”

For some reason, I feel protective of her and reach for her hand as we walk through the gallery.

“Canyon, this is Elliott Rageis. He works for my security company.”

“Nice to meet you. My friends call me Rage.” The guy is truly built like a house, well over six feet tall with tree trunks for arms.

We walk to the back of the gallery, and I can’t be sure which of us sees the graffiti first, but Saylor stumbles, and I manage to hold on to her arm so she doesn’t fall.

“Fuck.” I stare at the spray-painted word in horror.

WHORE.

Big red block letters across the back wall of the gallery.

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