Page 80 of Out for Blood
“Someone breached the security system,” Vigo said as I got out of the car. “Wiped the cameras.”
“Were they still in there?”
He shook his head, then looked around, like he didn’t trust that someone wasn’t about to jump out of the trees surrounding the house. “Let’s get inside.”
I got out of the car and realized he was covering me, shielding my body with his as we made our way up the steps of the porch and into the house.
I didn’t get more than a couple feet inside before I stopped cold.
The foyer had been torn apart, the console table where we kept our mail and keys turned over and splintered into pieces.
The pegs that hung on the wall for coats had been torn out, the drywall exploding around the anchors.
“It gets worse,” he said when I finally started moving again.
And he wasn’t kidding.
The living room was destroyed, the TV and gaming systems smashed. Stuffing spilled out of the sofa from deep slashes across the leather upholstery, and there were deep gouges in the once pristine wood floors.
My mouth hung open. “What were they looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Vigo said. “Maybe nothing.”
I turned to stare at him. “Maybe nothing? They tore the place apart.”
“You’ll see what I mean in a minute,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We left the living room behind and continued deeper into the house. Everywhere I looked it was the same: furniture destroyed, holes in the drywall, gouges in the floors.
My shoes crunched over broken glass and my mouth dropped open when I got to the kitchen.
The refrigerator door was open, a gallon jug tipped over on the top shelf, milk dripping onto the floor, covered with food.
The glass doors leading to the patio were shattered, shards of glass littering the floor like fallen stars.
Hawk and Jagger returned to the room.
“Upstairs?” I couldn’t formulate more than the one word.
“They left it.” Jagger hesitated. “Except for this.”
He held out a picture, the old fashioned kind, big and glossy.
I took it from him and stared down at the image.
The picture had been taken through the front window of the coffee shop. It was late afternoon, the evening lights on in the shop, Daisy and Sarai standing at the counter.
But Daisy and Sarai, slightly blurry, weren’t the focus of the picture.
I was.
Clearly visible between Daisy and Sarai, I stood behind the counter, and I knew immediately the picture had been taken ten days earlier, on the day I’d told my two best friends about PrincessA and the phone.
But I only knew it was me from the clothes I was wearing and the apron tied around my waist, the fact that I was behind the counter instead of in front of it.
Because someone had sliced a violent X over my face.
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