Page 41 of Shielding Serena

It was like she’d summoned him.

“That was fast,” she said as she turned. And froze.

It wasn’t Walker who stood there. It was Mr. Higgins, and he was holding a huge handgun.

“What…” she asked, all of her cylinders not even close to firing.

“What did you do with it, you bitch?” he snarled, looking absolutely nothing like the meek, mild-mannered man who had been dogging her every step for the last week and a half.

She still couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening. “I don’t understand.”

“The key,” he snarled. “Where’s the fucking key? It obviously fell out of the statue.”

“Key? I don’t understand. I gave you what you came for.”

“No, you gave it to that nurse. He had already opened it by the time I got to him.”

Oh God, Adam. Had the boxes gotten mixed up? And what difference did it make? It sounded like he’d still gotten his precious statuette. And she had no clue what the hell he was talking about when it came to a key.

Then it hit her. The missing jar behind the register. Taken after the initial break in. He’d never been looking for the figurine, he’d been searching for a key.

Anger began to surge through her as much as fear.

“Did you hurt Adam?”

Higgins gave a grunt. “Not as much as I’m gonna hurt you if you don’t hand over my property.”

She popped her hands on her hips, her anger from earlier powering her words. “Listen, whoever you are, I have no clue what you’re talking about. Can you please put down the gun, and we’ll figure this out?”

He laughed humorlessly. “Without that key, I’m a dead man. I don’t mind taking you with me.” There was absolute finality and surety in his words.

She had no doubt he meant exactly what he said. And for the first time, it struck her that she truly was in danger. Her throat tightened, making it difficult to swallow. She didn’t have his key. What was she going to do?

CHAPTER 17

Walker bolted through the bullpen for the front door. Quentin was into the storage unit camera feed, but it didn’t show anything but the front door of Serena’s unit, so there were no eyes directly on her.

Gladys held up a hand, holding Walker in place for precious seconds.

“EMS is enroute,” she said in her calm, efficient voice. “What else do you need me to do?”

She paused a moment, listening to a reply, then continued. “Walker just came out. Yeah, I’ll brief him. Hold on.”

“Someone broke into Adam Parsons’s place a little while ago and Tased him.”

That set Walker back a step. Crimes like that were unheard of in Cottonwood, but there sure as hell seemed to be a crime spree right now. “Thanks for the update but I’ve gotta go, Serena’s by herself. But is Adam okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know how it is with Tasers. He came out of it pretty quickly, but he’s going to be sore as hell.”

That tracked, and he remembered what it felt like, even now. Young military guys did all kinds of stupid things, like Tasing each other. “Why would someone go after him?” Walker asked, because he couldn’t imagine anyone hurting Adam, and now he was curious, even with thoughts of Serena crowding his mind. What Gladys was saying might be important, right now. Garrett had obviously thought so, if he’d told her to read Walker in.

“That’s the weird thing,” she said. “He said the guy barged in, accused Adam of stealing his stuff, and then tore into a package he got today. Took out whatever was inside and started ranting and raving about a missing a key, threw it on the ground, and left. There’s glass everywhere.”

It took a moment for Walker to parse her words, to put them together. “Fuck. Was it a big white box with a bow on it?”

Gladys pulled the mic back up to her mouth and took whoever was on the other end off hold. “Walker wants to know if the box the guy opened was a big white one with a bow on it.”

The way her eyes went sharp at the reply Walker couldn’t hear told him all he needed to know.