Page 119 of Blindside Sinner

I look over her head at the closest policeman. “What the hell happened here?”

He looks at me and recognition dawns. His throat bobs as he swallows hard. “Mr. Daniels, sir, early this evening, we were dispatched to deal with a report of a break-in at this address. The young lady led us out here and we made entry.” He nods to the apartment. “When we arrived, Ms. Reeves was standing outside. We’ve cleared the apartment, but at this time, we haven’t been able to restore the power.”

“‘Restore the power’? Since when did it get unrestored?”

I don’t know what happened here, but Sloan is shivering against me and her heartbeat is about five times the normal rate.

“The line from the transformer to the house has been cut. Garden shears, by the look of it. Someone came prepared.” He points to the back of the property, where I see a severed power line dangling over the fence. “We’ve called the power company.”

I should be asking questions, demanding answers, but all I can do is hold Sloan, who’s still too distraught to speak a word. I dare anyone to even try looking at her wrong. I’ll rip them limb from limb.

My thoughts are racing, though.What if she’d been in the apartment? What if they’d come for her and settled for her stuff instead? And who the fuck were ‘they’?

I need answers. I want them right fucking now, not whenever these moronic Keystone cops get around to figuring shit out.

I also want a drink. Or something stronger. Something to take the edge off the anger and fury bubbling in my gut, waiting to erupt.

But I can’t let the rage win. Not right now. Not when she needs me. So I tamp it down and stroke my hand down her back to try to calm her tremors.

Sloan looks up at me and swipes away the tears on her cheek. “They trashed my stuff. All of it. My clothes, my books, all of it.” She holds up a photograph of her and Cassie from their eighth grade graduation.

The faces have been slashed out.

“I’ll get you new stuff.” I hold her a little bit tighter. “And I promise, no one is ever going to get near you again. No matter what I have to do.”

“Did they go in the main house at all?” She looks toward the back door and I take a quick look with her.

I almost wish they had gone into the house. Then the attack wouldn’t seem so focused on her.

I don’t know what ugliness in her past has reared its head. I just know I’m going to find it and destroy it.

“I don’t think so.” I didn’t notice anything amiss when I raced through looking for her.

“Ms. Reeves.” One of the officers has his little writing pad flipped open. “Do you have any idea why anyone would want to break into your place?”

She shakes her head. “Do you think this was a targeted break-in?”

“Possibly.” The cop shrugs. “The main house wasn’t affected and there are no obvious signs of forced entry. Obviously, thosethings seem to be the case with your guesthouse. Plus, there’s the writing on the bedroom wall.”

“Writing? What writing?”

Sloan looks up at me in alarm and I glare at the cop. He could’ve taken me aside, not spoken in front of a visibly distressed Sloan.

The cop nods. “Yeah. Graffiti on the wall. It says…” He flips to a previous page and reads off what he wrote there. “‘We said we’d find you, bitch.’” Folding the booklet shut again, he sniffles and straightens up. “Apologies for the crude language.”

Sloan takes a half-step toward the ruined guesthouse, but I don’t let her go. “Don’t worry about it,” I murmur. “It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.”

ButI’mworried about it. This is personal. She’s on my property where I should be able to protect her.

I hear a minor commotion, so I glance over my shoulder and see a small crew of onlookers gathering at the mouth of my driveway. One of the cops is haplessly trying to herd them off the property, but they’re in no hurry to go anywhere. I see camera phones flashing as they snap pictures.

Technically, it’s Sloan’s job to deal with this kind of thing. But she’s in no fit state to do that, so I call in the big guns.

Vivian answers immediately. “To what do I owe the?—”

“Shut up and listen.” I explain in a few terse sentences what happened. Vivian, to her credit, doesn’t interrupt until I’m done. “Sloan will be taking a few days off,” I conclude.

“Beck, you can’t just?—”

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