Page 25 of Delta
I start in the living room where a box is sitting open. Leaning to peer inside, I feel the dagger slicing through my chest all over again. Pictures of us when we were kids. Teens so in love they never thought it would end.
I lift the top image, staring at the man with my face. He looks just like me, his eyes the same color, but there’s no darkness in his expression. No shadow overcasting his soul. Dropping the photo, I peer into the trash can. It’s nearly empty, a photograph upside down on top. I reach in and withdraw the image of us from the summer before I left for the military.
I’d playfully bumped her ice cream cone and smeared vanilla all over her face, and Tucker had snapped the photo.
My stomach churns, and I set the image back into the box instead of throwing it away. She can do that later, but I can’t.
Beneath it is the corsage I gifted her for her senior prom. We’d gone together and spent the night laughing and dancing. I never wanted it to end.
I place it in the box, right on top of the picture.
Was she looking at this when he came for her? Was her broken heart the last thing she thought of?
Stay focused, Dylan.
Taking a deep breath, I leave the living room and move into the kitchen. Glass crunches beneath my boots as I walk around the island. Kneeling, I lift a piece of broken glass, along with a floral stem that fell from the bouquet of daisies on the counter.
Is this how he got her to open the door? He offered her flowers for her birthday?
My stomach twists, and bile rises in the back of my throat. Straightening, I set the bloom back on the countertop and survey the rest of the kitchen. Nothing else seems out of place. Aside from the broken glass and the flowers, I don’t see any signs of a struggle.
My gaze lands on the hall leading to her bedroom.
Heart racing a million miles a minute, I start in that direction. Gibson didn’t say anything about there being signs of a sexual assault, but he didn’t say anything against it, either. And if she was taken prior to seven thirty, her bed should be made.
The door is partially closed, and I pause outside of her room for a moment. Please let everything be in order. Placing my hand gently on the door, I push it open and breathe a sigh of relief when I see her pristinely made bed.
It doesn’t rule it out, but it’s a bit of hope.
The delicate scent of her jasmine perfume fills my lungs as I step through the threshold of her room. She surrounds me, almost as though she could step out of the adjoining bathroom at any moment and demand to know why I’m standing in her bedroom.
I gently lift the book on her bedside table and run my fingers over the cover.
Will she ever get the chance to finish it?
Something brushes against my leg, so I take a step back and find myself staring down at a pair of wide blue eyes.
“Who are you?” I ask as though the cat could answer me himself.
It meows and rubs against my legs, so I kneel down and touch its head.
“Are you hungry? Did anyone feed you last night?” Gibson didn’t mention a cat, did he? What if he didn’t know he was here?
“Come on, let’s go find you some food.” Straightening, I take one last look around the bedroom before heading back out into the hall and making my way into the kitchen. Since I keep Delta’s food in the pantry, it’s the first place I look. I’m grateful when I see the cans of wet cat food lined up neatly on the shelf.
After retrieving the animal’s bowl, I dump the food into it, then toss the empty can into the trash bin, and place the bowl onto the floor. The cat eats happily, fluffy gray tail swishing as he does.
How did he get her out of here without a fight?
Emma’s no soldier, but she’s extremely competent with self-defense. She and Lani took classes together when they were juniors in high school. She excelled too. Even taught a few classes up until I left for the service.
Given there’s no blood on the floor or any signs of a struggle anywhere but the kitchen—she must not have been able to fight. The lack of blood doesn’t mean she left alive though. I know all too well that you can kill without spilling a single drop.
But the fact that he moved her is a sign that maybe he took her alive. Somehow.
My gaze lands on the flowers.
Those had to be his way in.
