Chapter Twenty-Five

I charged down the hall, the slap of my Converse changing tone as I pounded past the hardwood in the family room to the kitchen tiles. The pantry door was still closed. I reached out and grabbed the doorknob, murmuring, "Please, please, please," as I opened it slowly. I blew out a relieved breath, because the boxes inside were untouched.

Saul peered over my shoulder. "You store boxes in the pantry? Who stores boxes in the pantry?"

"Hey, it was available empty space." I smiled at him, a little crookedly. "Think of the Manor. In the original plans you showed me, the document room used to be the third parlor." I closed the door and patted one of its panels. "I'll have to go through all of this eventually, so I wanted them convenient, but out of the way. The basement seemed a little too far to— The basement! The furniture!"

I peeled out of the kitchen into the mudroom and clattered down the basement stairs, Ricky at my heels, with Saul following at a more measured pace.

I hadn't been down here after the Transitions guys finished unloading everything, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have knocked over a drafting table and opened a wooden chest, scattering its contents over the concrete floor around it. Every drawer on a wide flat file cabinet hung open, one actually yanked all the way out, with blueprints, renderings, and drafting tools appearing to have exploded out of it.

As I was attempting to force air into my lungs, Ricky reached out and tentatively touched my forearm.

"Maz. Nando and Keegan didn't do this. They wouldn't."

"I know." I gripped the stair railing, as though that would help me get hold of the emotions roiling in my chest. I wasn't even sure what they were at the moment. Rage was definitely a part of it. A little relief that they hadn't been more destructive, since even though the furniture—a leather sofa, a brocade loveseat, a cherrywood console table—had been disarranged, it hadn't been destroyed.

I spotted one pencil that had been snapped in half and identified another part of the emotional cocktail being shaken, not stirred, inside me.

Fear.

Because whoever had been here—whatever they'd been looking for—they were really freaking angry about not finding it.

"Do you suppose…" I had to clear my throat when my voice broke. "Do you think they found what they were after?"

"It's hard to say," Saul said. "Are you concerned with what might have been taken?"

"What? No. Heck, if I knew what it was, I'd probably tie it up with a bow and leave it on the porch." I spread my arms. "All of this—the house, its contents, Oren's things—is all a gift to me. I can't miss something I never had to begin with. What's more important is the security of the house, and the safety of everyone in it. Gil. Me. Avi. Things? Things they can have, unless they're something that has an emotional value to Avi."

"How will you know?" Saul asked. "You said he couldn't remember possessions unless he saw them."

I grimaced. "Yeah, there's that." Plus, seeing Oren's things desecrated might reignite his grief.

Saul made an apologetic noise. "I'm truly sorry to leave you with this, but I really do have to get back home if I don't want to be sleeping on the sofa on my anniversary."

"Oh, jeez." I shooed him up the stairs. "Go, go. This isn't anything you signed up for, Saul. Thanks for coming, but there's no reason for you to stay. Happy anniversary. You and Jerry have fun and enjoy your show."

"I'll let myself out, then. See you tomorrow?"

"You bet."

After Saul retreated upstairs, I gazed morosely at the disorder below me. "I suppose I should start cleaning things up."

"I'm not sure that's the best idea."

I glanced up at Ricky. "Why not?"

"I know you don't have any ideas about what could be missing, but since we're pretty sure this is a mundane break-in, you should at least report it to the police and leave everything untouched until they've had a chance to investigate. If this is a trend—"

"You mean a trend of my library getting paper piled?"

"No, I mean a burglary trend in Ghost."

I raised my eyebrows. "Ghost has a burglary trend?"

Ricky shrugged. "Maybe not a trend, per se, but things were taken from Tia's house a couple of months ago."

"Someone broke into Sofia's house?" At the thought of Sofia in danger, the fear and rage bubbled up again. "While she was home?"

"No. She was helping out at the restaurant at the time, trying to convince my mother to spice up the salsa." His mouth twisted in clear exasperation. "It wasn't technically a break-in anyway, since she never locks her doors. They didn't trash anything, but they took her TV. Some jewelry and cash, too, which she probably wouldn't even have noticed for weeks, except she wanted to loan Felicia a pair of earrings for her prom and the jewelry box was gone."

"If they're looking for cash here, they've come to the wrong house. But you're right. As much as it irks me to leave everything in this state, I should probably report this, if only for the insurance." I slapped my forehead. "Insurance. Crap. Do I even have insurance? If they've been looking for me for months—"

"Calm down." Ricky, half a head taller than me while standing a step above me, patted my shoulder. "I'm sure Taryn has it covered. She never misses details like that."

"Whew. Okay, then." I pulled out my phone, but hesitated. This wasn't an emergency, so 9-1-1 would be inappropriate, not for a cold burglary with no apparent property damage—if I didn't count the broken pencil. "Uh…"

Ricky chuckled softly and held out his hand. "I'll call the sheriff, if you like. They know me."

I handed over the phone. "Why do they know you? Because of Sofia's break-in?"

"No. Because one of my cousins works at the office."

"Exactly how many cousins do you have?"

"A lot." He didn't even look at the phone screen as he keyed in the number. "Catholic, remember? My great-grandparents each had seven siblings. It ballooned from— Hey, Yaz, it's me. No, it's a business call this time, so don't give me grief for calling you at work."

I followed him up the stairs as he outlined the details to his cousin. First thing tomorrow? I was contacting a security company and getting an alarm system installed, because I was done with people invading our home. How to pay for it could be an issue. Maybe Saul would give me an advance, or I could work out a payment plan with the security company. Or both. Both were probably in the cards.

When I reached the kitchen, Ricky was just disconnecting the call. He held out my phone with an apologetic shrug. "They'll send somebody out, but not until tomorrow, probably. There was a fire in Richdale. Possible arson, so all the on-duty deputies are on site with the fire department."

"No worries. It's not like any of this is going anywhere." I sighed. "Although, just in case, I should stick around. Which means no dinner date. Sorry."

He gave me a mock affronted stare. "Perdóname, but who do you think you are talking to? I'll hustle over to the restaurant and bring something back for both of us."

"You don't have to do that. I'll be—" The loud rumble of my stomach made Ricky grin. "Okay, you got me. That sounds great."

"Good. Any preferences?"

"Everything's been wonderful so far, so surprise me?"

He nodded. "I'll collect Gil from Tia's on the way back, too."

"I can—"

"Maz." He rested his hand on my shoulder. "Let me do these things for you, all right?"

My shoulders slumped, a release of the muscles in my back and neck that had been tensed since I walked in the door. "I should probably protest more, but—"

"Don't. Please."

"I won't. I don't have the slightest inclination. So I'll just say thank you. Sincerely."

"Hey." One side of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. "What are friends for?"

Friends. Right. Friends.

I followed him down the hall. After I closed the front door behind him, I took a moment to lean my forehead against the smooth, cool wood. "Man, this has been a day."

I shuffled out of the entryway, but when I passed the library doors, I spotted Avi inside. He was standing by the shelf, gazing at the photograph of him and Oren, not glitching anymore.

"I remember this photo," he said as he ran a finger across its face. "Saul took it."

"Yes. He told us." I stepped inside, careful to steer clear of everything on the floor. "The day you put Oren on the deed."

"We were so happy. We asked Saul to make us both a copy, so we'd remember while we went through the renovation." He laughed softly. "Oren said we needed it to remind us, because renovation was such a stressful process and a lot of couples lost sight of the reason they were going through that particular hell. To have a home. To be together. To start a life."

"This was Oren's copy. Do you know where yours could be? I haven't seen it anywhere."

Avi blinked at me. "I…" He walked to the center of the room, feet flowing through the mess as though he were wading through a creek—a creek made of paper—although of course he didn't damage or displace anything. Once there, he turned in a circle, studying the shelves much as Ricky had done. "It should have been here. A lot of things should have been here. I don't understand— Oh!" His troubled expression cleared. "I remember. I'd moved everything so I could rearrange the books. I didn't put anything back because I wanted Oren and I to decorate the space them together."

"Where did you put them in the meantime?" There hadn't been any boxes or crates in the house until Oren's effects were delivered.

"The window seats, of course."

"Window seats?"

He pointed to the bank of windows in the corner. "We built them into all the turrets." He wrinkled his nose. "Sue me. I read Jane Eyre in junior high."

"You, too?" I said. "Window seats are the best ." For a moment, we shared a smile—just two guys who dug window seats.

"The only thing I took away from that book—other than Jane needed a serious fashion intervention—was that when I had a house of my own, it would have window seats everywhere ."

Although… "There's no window seat in the attic."

Avi shrugged. "The turrets only have two floors and we decided to spare the kitchen in favor of seating with actual backs. Oren offered to put them in the third floor dormers, but I told him that could wait, since we weren't really planning to spend any time up there. He still included them in all the plans. Future expansion, he called it. A hangout for our kids when they discovered Jane Eyre ."

His gaze drifted to the photograph and right then, I made a decision: As soon as I had more than grocery money—and once the security system was paid for—those dormers were getting window seats.

"Although, since Oren was way more practical than me, he turned all of them into storage chests. Go on. Look."