Page 16 of Clara's Secure Hideaway

“He was here. I can feel it.” She crossed the living room to where a photo of her with her arms around Avery and Davey hung on the wall. She straightened it, staring hard at the usually clean glass. A smudge covered her face. “He moved things, touched them.”

“Before yesterday, when was the last time he was allowed in the house?”

Snippets of the night he’d been arrested flashed in her mind. “At least six months. Since the night he went to jail.”

“Then we can dust for fingerprints.” He dug out a pair of gloves from his pockets and secured them over his hands. “You need to look around the house not only for things that may have been taken or tampered with, but even touched. I’ll call people in to dust for prints in all the usual places, but the more evidence we have the better.”

“That picture,” she said, pointing to the wall. “There’s a print on my face. That wasn’t there before.”

He plucked the frame off the wall and set it aside. “What else?”

Steeling her nerves, she walked into the adjoining kitchen. When nothing seemed amiss, she retraced her path through the living room and down the hall. She dipped into the bathroom then made her way to her room.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Her pulse pounded against her temples. Something in the air made her uneasy. She whirled around and found herself face-to face with Heath. “I swear I can smell him. I can feel him. But I don’t understand. This,” she flung her arm to the bedroom. “This isn’t like him. This is controlled. Cool-headed. Planned. It’s like a whole new level of mind games and I don’t know how to play.” Panic tightened her chest, choking off her breath.

“Hey. It’s okay.” Heath set a gentle hand on her forearm and took a step closer. “Just take a minute. This is a lot and there’s no right way to handle it. You’re doing great.”

The scent of his cologne—cedar mixed with a hint of lemon—beat back the lingering smell Mitch had left behind. The touch of his hand calmed her, centered her. She stared into his kind brown eyes and felt safe. Protected.

“I hate that he was in here.”

He gave her arm a little squeeze before removing his hand and letting it hang at his side. “Then make him pay. We’re almost done. Look and see if anything in here is missing then we have one more room.”

She nodded, hating how cold her skin felt without the feel of his palm on her arm. Shoving aside her nonsensical emotions that didn’t matter, she crossed over to the second-hand dresser pushed against the far wall. All the knickknacks and little treasures the kids gave her were in their place. She lifted the lid to her jewelry box, and her gaze landed on the empty space where her wedding ring was supposed to be.

Her throat went dry, and the spot on her empty left finger where that ring had sat for years started to burn. “My ring.”

Heath appeared at her side. “What do you mean?”

“My ring,” she repeated, pointing at the box. “My wedding ring is missing.”

“You sure that’s where you put it last?”

“Yes. The day I came back from the hospital, when he was in jail and I filed for divorce, I put the ring right there and never touched it again. I thought about selling it, or burning it, or just tossing it in the river but something always stopped me. So I kept it there. Locked away in that box. Why would he want it?”

“People do weird and crazy things all the time. Mitch has done more than one horrible and crazy thing. Honestly, stealing your wedding ring is low on his list of offenses. But by taking it, now we can add burglary to breaking and entering.”

She let his logic sink in. He was right. Standing around and trying to figure out the motives of a psychopath would do her no good. Best to just gain the facts, file away his misdeeds, then put it all behind her.

With that in mind, she finished her search of her room, relieved to find no other surprises. “The kids’ room is right across the hall.”

He fell into step behind her. “I hate to ask, but you’re certain you didn’t pack Davey’s blanket last night?”

She chuckled, shooting a smirk over her shoulder. “Oh, trust me. We got out of here as fast as we could last night, leaving behind his blanket was the worst mistake. It took him forever to sleep. I’m sure he kept everyone at the shelter up until he finally calmed down and fell asleep.”

She sighed, thinking about the ruined blanky her son had slept with every night since birth. Mitch had a way of finding the cruelest way to punish her. “Now I’ll have to find something else to comfort him at night.”

“I’m sure you’ll find the perfect replacement.”

Mentally, she sorted through some of Davey’s treasured items. He didn’t have much, but there were a few stuffed animals he loved that might do the trick. Her mind continued to work through the problem as she stepped over the threshold.

“Oh, my God.” Her hand flew to cover her mouth, and she took a step backward.

Heath sidestepped her and rushed into the bedroom. “Sick son of a bitch. Is that a stuffed dog?”

A velvety purple dog laid on the double bed. Its head laid beside the body, white cottony stuffing scattered around the dismembered toy like snow.

Tears filled Clara’s eyes, but this time they came from a place of hard, cold anger. She pushed past Heath and grabbed the body. “Who does this to a little girl’s toy? What kind of a monster did I marry?” She shook the toy with each word until something small and hard flew out of it.

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