Page 92 of Guilty as Sin
She needed to stand here a moment longer. Just a moment. “Lily didn’t tell me much. I couldn’t tell if you’d been here when it happened, even. Let me guess. You didn’t want to scare her.”
“Could be.” He kissed her cheek again. “Or could be I didn’t want her to call you. I told her not to. Pity neither of you listen.”
“Yeah, right. Like she’s not going to call me.” Then she looked through the open door and forgot that. Her heart rate picked up again, too. It wasn’t her first crime scene, or her fiftieth. Clearly, though, it was different when you didn’t have any professional distance. She breathed some more, then said, “Well, that’s horrible.”
“Yeah. Crowbar, I’d say.”
She went inside with him and took a look. The pine table was gouged down the middle. How much force had that taken? The thought of that iron bar slamming down like a wrecking ball… it wasn’t doing her one bit of good. One chair stood where three had been, and the couch was missing all of its cushions. “What did they do to the couch?” she asked.
“Had to be a knife.” He still sounded perfectly calm. “A big one. Not an axe, because it was more stabbing than slashing. Killed the cushions, that’s all. They got my laptop, that’s the worst of it, with the crowbar. A laptop can smash into a surprising number of pieces, I discovered.”
Her gaze sharpened on him. “Pieces? How many times were other things smashed?”
“Ah.” He considered her. “More like once each.”
“Personal message. Hitting you where you live.”
“I reckon. I had it backed up online, of course, so no worries. The kitchen was a bit of a mess, though it was more superficial. Nothing like sugar and flour scattered all over the shop.”
“Upstairs?” she asked.
“Come see.”
She did. The bed was devoid of pillows and bedding, and the mattress bore five or six deep gashes, as if somebody had knelt on it and plunged a butcher knife into it over and over again.
Overkill.
“This is the bashing in the head,” she told Jace, working on keeping her heart rate where it ought to be, “not opening the door to the chicken coop. This is like the laptop. It’s rage, and it’s personal. Remember that neat writing on the brick that came through my window? This isn’t the same person. If it’s about my place, and they came after you because they couldn’t get to me, it’s a group effort. Person A and Person B. People like this, though? They don’t play well with others. I don’t think that’s it. Was there a note?”
“No,” Jace said. “Actions speak louder than words, I reckon. I have a law-enforcement question for you. How long did this take? They’d dumped out the drawers as well. Up here, in the bath, in the kitchen. A bit of a mess in every room. And then the crowbar and the knife.”
Her mind was still on that knife being plunged into Jace’s pillow, into the mattress. Into his heart. He waited a second, then said, when she didn’t answer, “I wouldn’t have been lying there. I’m not a heavy sleeper.”
“You were when you were with me.”
“Ah.” He smiled a little. “Call that trust. Odd, isn’t it, as I knew you weren’t who you were pretending to be? Some things, though, your body knows better than your mind. My body would’ve woken me this time, even if they hadn’t smashed my window. On the other hand—surely they would’ve known I’d have woken up. This happened after the meeting, because the cabin was all good when we came by afterwards for my things. If they didn’t know before then that I’d wake up, they had to know after those photos.”
“It wasn’t so much the photos they were focusing on, though,” she said. “It was the speech. Somebody was there. Somebody didn’t like it. A lot. I’m guessing it was the ‘I’m sleeping with her’ part they objected to. To answer your question—it wouldn’t have taken them nearly as long as you’d think. People who are burglarized assume the burglar was there half an hour to make that mess. In reality? Five minutes. In this case, call it a max of ten, because they’re not just dumping everything out looking for the valuables, smash, grab, go. They’re taking the time to wreck the place and leave a more personal message. Still, though—they moved fast. In a rage. There are only a few rooms.”
“Four. Main level, kitchen, bedroom, bath.”
“No garage?”
“No. Which is interesting, as they knew about the garage. They took the ladder when they were here before. They’ve scouted the place.”
“They were afraid you’d come back. Possibly. I’m not sure. A destructive rage like this—I’m not sure how much self-preservation the person was feeling.”
“If they wanted to damage me,” he said, “the garage would’ve been the place. I’ve got heaps of expensive equipment out there. Tools. Riding mower. Probably three times the value of what they wrecked in the house. How much did those chairs of mine cost? A mattress? A laptop? Barely more than my table saw, and nowhere close to that mower.”
“Personal again. Your laptop is your livelihood, and your writing is about as personal as it gets. Your mattress is your life.” The thought was trying to make her shiver. It was a relief to be logical.
“I agree. Next question. Is this still a woman? I haven’t actually served with women, like I said. I know they can shoot, though. I don’t know about a crowbar. It isn’t that heavy. But using this much force?”
She considered that. “It probably wouldn’t be, say, Hailey. She’d get tired. It could be any woman in good shape, though. And adrenaline gives you strength. As you know. What we need to ask is—who was at that meeting last night who could be your stalker? That’s who this is. I need to make some calls, to get some ideas about a profile. But I know enough to say that it’s somebody who’s had contact with you. She’ssought outcontact. Where do you go most?”
“The Red Rooster,” he said, “but my waitress there—Hailey’s daughter—wasn’t at the meeting last night. And she hasn’t changed much over the time I’ve been here. She’s a mum, which doesn’t mean anything, but she talks about her kids to the other waitresses from time to time.”
“She cares enough to know that you’re a writer,” Paige felt obliged to point out.
