Page 39 of The Witch's Orchard
Pushing into the kitchen, slowly, head on a swivel, I see that the drawers and cabinets have all been interfered with, but nothing seems obviously missing. The bedroom is next, and my duffels have been emptied of my clothes, which lay in heaps on the floor. The nightstand sits open and the case for my gun is gone. I push into the bathroom, swish back the shower curtain, throw open the tiny linen closet. Nothing.
I pull out my phone and call AJ’s number.
It’s about fifteen minutes before his car rolls up and, as it does, I go out on the porch only to see Shiloh and Max approaching as well. For a moment, I’m surprised I don’t see Lucy with them, and then I realize Shiloh must have left the little girl with her family. How painful would it be for Max to see the child right now, I think.
“What’s going on?” Shiloh asks.
“The cabin was raided while I was at the station,” I say to her. I come down the steps and face Max, finally, and for the first time since I’d discovered Molly. “Max, I am so, so sorry.”
He looks at me, eyes glistening. No longer could he tell himself that maybe Molly was safe. No longer could he hope for her return. All of that was gone now. And heaped on top of it was the ugly reminder that not even his own land was safe.
“What did they take?” he asks, barely audible.
AJ parks and gets out of his cruiser and approaches us.
“I’ve got Flora on her way with the fingerprint kit,” he says. “You sure they’re gone?”
“Yeah, it’s clear. They were long gone when I got here.”
“What’d they take?”
I tell him about my laptop, my gun case.
“The case?”
“It’s a really nice case,” I explain. “And it was shut when I left. It locks automatically, so I’m guessing whoever it was thought there would be something valuable inside.”
“Anything else?” he asks. He walks past me and into the cabin and I follow, with Max and Shiloh in my wake. We all look around at the turned-over living room, my clothes on the floor.
“The TV,” Max says. “The TV’s gone.”
I see now that the little flat-screen that had sat in the corner on a wooden end table is gone, and then I groan inwardly as I realize the other thing that is missing.
“Damn it,” I hiss.
I meet his eyes.
“Max, they took your casebook,” I say.
I watch as all the tension, the raw energy of fresh grief holding him together, drains out. He sinks down into the chair beside the front door and puts his head in his hands. Shiloh sits on the arm of the chair next to him and lays her hand on his shoulder. AJ, Shiloh, and I all stand there for a while, looking at each other and at the cabin and at the things that aren’t there and at the boy who brought me here. He breathes heavily through his hands.
“Max, I—”
“I want you to find them,” he says.
Max looks up at me now. His eyes are red-rimmed, and it seems as though he’s aged a decade since this morning.
“Max—”
He holds up a hand, and I stop. His voice is stony when he speaks. “I hired you to find Molly, and you did. Now, I want you to find who killed her. I want you to find out where she was. I want you to make sure thisneverhappens again.”
“I—”
“Will you do that?” he asks. His teeth are gritted, and they gleam.
The bewildered boy is gone, and in his place is a man pushed to his limit by grief and anger.
“Yes,” I answer. “Yes. I will try.”
