Page 7 of Meant for Two

Charlene gave him a weak smile. “I will.”

Jeff’s mind raced with thoughts of potential explanations for this baffling situation. When Jeff and Zane left the monitoring office, his muscles bunched as they headed outside. The need to get to the bottom of this mystery was driving him hard.

“Let's take my truck,” Jeff offered.

At this hour, there was no traffic, and they arrived within six minutes. When they reached the guardhouse, they were waved in.

Zane glanced over at Jeff. "Do you think Rich has any additional information?"

Jeff raised an eyebrow. “His shift didn’t start until a few minutes ago. We’ll speak with him later if need be. We should ask Oscar what happened on his shift.”

Zane nodded in agreement. “Your uncle's probably already on top of this."

Jeff half-smiled. "Let's hope so.”

He parked his truck behind the two cruisers and got out. The exterior of the home appeared deceptively normal.

“Let's see what's going on," Zane said.

In front of the house, the sheriff was speaking with one of his officers. Their footsteps were silent as they drew closer, but Jeff was certain his uncle knew they were there.

"Uncle Adam," Jeff greeted him.

His uncle turned to face them. "I'm glad you two are here."

"What's the situation?" Zane asked with respect.

"The homeowners were away for the weekend. They just returned and discovered their jewelry and some cash were missing."

Zane's brow furrowed. “Was there any damage?”

Adam shook his head. "Nothing other than the broken back window where the thief entered. The alarm sounded around 4:37 AM, and I got there as quickly as I could. Noah showed up shortly thereafter. We went inside, but nothing was disturbed. It wasn’t as if we spotted thieves running away."

“What about the TV and other electronic devices?” Jeff asked. “Were they taken?”

“Nope. As far as the owners could tell, only jewelry and cash were stolen. Mrs. Hensley said that everything is insured, but the violation is very upsetting to her,” his uncle said.

“I imagine it would be. At least our monitoring system relayed the break-in to your office.”

His uncle held up a hand. “True. Mr. Hensley had left the code as well as permission to go inside should anything occur. To be honest, I wasn’t able to tell that anyone had even been inside. No muddy prints or anything. We had no way of knowing if anything had been taken until the Hensleys returned.”

“The thieves had to have known the Hensleys were going to be out of town,” Jeff said.

“I thought the same thing,” Uncle Adam said. “Since the alarm was silent, the thieves couldn’t have known they’d only have a few minutes before I arrived. I’m praying this is an isolated event, but I have a feeling it won’t be.”

“Why do you say that?” Zane asked.

“It was too clean. If this is a group of professionals, they might return.”

“What did the guard say about who had entered?” Zane asked.

“That’s the problem. Oscar said I was the first one to come in since he started his shift.”

Jeff searched his mind for how anyone could have entered the complex undetected. “If they didn’t drive in, how did they get in? The woods and surrounding mountains are steep and dense.”

“That’s something we need to figure out.” His uncle stepped closer. “I don’t want to blame our kind, but a wolf could traverse the area.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Zane said.

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