16. Reylor

Chapter 16

Reylor

W hen I arrived and found all the windows on the left side and front porch area of the B she should be home soon.”

“I’ll wait for her, then.” He walked down the driveway and sat in his car parked at the curb.

Max started purring and kneading my thighs, the bite of his claws making me wince.

That’s when I saw Hannah coming down the sidewalk in this direction.

I put Max in the kitchen that thankfully didn’t have any broken windows and made sure both doors were shut to keep him inside. Until the glass was cleaned up, his paws were in danger.

Now my mate, the woman I was already starting to care for, looked like she was going to cry. Who could blame her?

I put her bag and paint on the porch floor and tugged her into my arms. “I’m sorry.”

“How did this happen?” she whimpered. “I was only gone a short time.” She pulled away from me. “I need to clean this up.” Her panic-stricken gaze met mine. “Max. Max! Did they hurt my baby?”

I snagged her arm before she could race inside. “I found him in the rat closet and put him in the kitchen.”

“Why the rat closet?”

“I assume whoever did this put him there or he somehow entered and got stuck. The door was shut, and he was trapped inside.”

“My poor baby.” She worried her lower lip. “He loves going into that closet to sniff around. Mice once set up housekeeping on the floor in the back, though it had been years since they’d lived there. When I was painting, I found an old nest.”

“He was scared at first, but he was purring when I put him in the kitchen.”

“Thank you for being here and for watching out for him.” Her eyes widened and shimmered with tears as she took in the broken windows. “How could someone do something like this?”

“That’s a very good question.” Detective Carter strode up the front stairs to join us on the porch. “Messing with gardens is one thing, but this is true vandalism.”

I didn’t point out that uprooting and shredding plants was also vandalism. I was grateful he was taking this seriously and would add to my investigation.

“I took pictures and Reylor said he looked around and didn’t see any other vandalism,” the detective said. “I’ll send you a copy of the report for your insurance company.”

“I need to call them,” Hannah said. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “I’ll let you know if I discover anything new.” His gaze scanned the building. “Please reconsider adding security cameras.”

“I will,” she said with a sigh.

With another nod, he left, returning to his car and driving slowly toward the downtown area.

“At least he’s taking this seriously,” Hannah said.

“Yup.”

After helping her clean up the glass and cover the window openings and speak with the neighbors in view of the B&B to find out if they’d seen or heard anything, I was going to install security cameras. No more being blind to someone creeping around outside her building.

“Call your insurance company,” I said. “I’ll get the shop vacuum and start cleaning up the glass.”

She rubbed her face with her palms. “They’re going to love hearing from me again. I hadn’t had the chance to call them about the water damage in my bedroom yet. That they’ll probably say came from rain even though it hasn’t rained yet this week and the metal roof is in great condition. Let alone the fact that my room is on the first level and there are three above it for the water to pass through first.” A shudder ripped through her body. “I’ll call them and then I’ll help you.”

“Do you have any plywood for the windows?”

“There are a few sheets in the shed. I’ll call Shriek & Nail, and they’ll deliver more.” She tugged her phone from her pocket and stared down at it, her shoulders curling forward. “This is overwhelming. How many sheets should I order? I think I have four in the shed.”

Four for the front porch and three for the left side of the building. “Three should do it.”

“I’ll order a few extra just in case.” She took the chair I’d just vacated and started making calls.

I went to the shed and hauled out the plywood, finding a box of screws and a drill I could use to secure them. Before she’d finished her call with Shriek & Nail, I’d covered the windows on the front porch and had started to vacuum up the glass with her shop vac.

“I don’t dare go inside to see what else they might’ve done,” she said after I’d finished with the porch. It wouldn’t take me long to do the walkway, though the glass in the flower beds would take time to remove. “The insurance company said they’d send an adjuster over tomorrow.”

“Good.” She looked so lost and sad, I wanted to hold her again, but I could tell by the flint in her gaze that she’d shoved aside her mourning, and that anger was about to take over. “Damn them,” she said to punctuate my assumption. “We need to find out who’s doing this and make Detective Carter arrest them.”

And we needed to find out why they were doing it. Just because I believed someone was trying to sabotage her renovation project to drive her away didn’t mean there wasn’t another motive here we hadn’t yet thought of.

What other reasons might someone have for destroying her property?

With a sigh, Hannah started toward the front door. She turned back in the opening. “You should add Victor Drake to your list. He owns the only other B&B in town, and when I saw him at the library, he was not only snarly, but he was reading a book about how to destroy your competition.”

“Suspicious.” And obvious, but it was rare for anyone except a seasoned criminal to be clever about something like this. Although, with the Internet, anyone could research ways to harm someone else before they acted. “We’re going to take care of this.”

Her eyes watering, she went inside.