Chapter 6 #2
They swept the main room first, and nothing appeared out of place.
It was just as she’d left it when she’d closed up shortly after the end of the day.
The overhead lights were off, the display racks of fishing supplies, maps, and souvenirs untouched.
The T-shirt racks were fully stocked. Hats, sunscreen, and other things boaters might need—all there.
The front room—the little office and supply nook just behind the counter—looked mostly normal.
But something was…off.
Baily stepped around him and bumped into the chair that she always tucked in neatly behind her desk. “Shit,” she mumbled as she hopped on one foot, grabbing the other, rubbing her big toe. “I hate when that happens, which is why I always push that chair in. This room is too small not to.”
“You’ve always been a creature of habit.” He held her by the forearms. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, setting her foot on the floor.
Papers on the desk had been shuffled. The ledger she’d closed was open. Her pen, which she always kept on the right side of the desk, was now on the left.
Fletcher crouched and checked the small safe. Still locked. “Open this for me, please.”
“Okay.” She leaned over, tapped the code, and the door popped open. “Passport, extra keys, loan paperwork, journal entries you gave me, and the cash for tomorrow. It’s all there.”
“That’s good. Now, lock it back up.”
She shut the door and hit the lock key. “But Fletcher, someone’s been in here.”
“I agree, and I think they wanted you to know they’d been snooping around.”
“I don’t see anything missing, but things have definitely been moved or looked at.” She tapped her finger on the ledger.
“Probably looking for something specific.” Fletcher stood and motioned toward the staircase leading up to her apartment. “Again, stay behind me, just in case.”
They moved quietly, his back to her as he took each step like it might explode. The second they reached the top landing, Baily sucked in a sharp breath.
Her apartment door swung open. The frame cracked. The knob hanging by a thread.
Fletcher turned, voice low. “Stay here.”
She wanted to argue, but the look in his eyes told her this wasn’t the time. He slipped inside.
A beat passed.
Then two.
Then he called out. “It’s clear.”
She stepped in and froze. Her apartment—small but cozy, her sanctuary above the world—gutted.
Drawers yanked from her dresser and dumped.
Clothes lay in shredded piles across the floor.
Panties tossed about like trash. Her favorite dress, the one she’d worn to Audra and Trinity’s bridal shower, shredded into a couple of pieces and hung on the back of the chair by the window.
Her mattress—slashed from corner to corner, its stuffing torn out like spilled intestines.
The comforter hung off the bed frame, stained with something dark she hoped to God was just coffee.
Every dish from her tiny kitchenette lay shattered. The chipped ceramic mug she’d had since high school? Broken. The glass dish from her mother’s old casserole set? In pieces. Even the stupid plate Fletcher had made her in ceramics class—destroyed.
Books ripped from their shelves. Pages torn. Photos upended. A frame with a picture of her and Ken—lay face down, the glass spiderwebbed. The damage—surgical—violent.
And it felt freaking personal.
With her hands balled into fists, she walked to the center of the room, staring down at the carnage, and something inside her snapped. Her gut twisted as if a tornado swirled, hurling around her insides, and tossing them aside like they were simply in the way.
Baily let out a guttural scream and kicked the edge of her overturned ottoman so hard it slammed into the wall.
She picked up the broken frame and hurled it at the closet door.
The glass shattered, raining down like hail.
“I want to bring my brother back from the dead and wrap my fingers around his neck and—”
“Baily—”
She spun toward Fletcher, but all she saw was red. There was no fear. No worry about bills. No concern over when or if she’d ever be able to climb out from the rubble her father had created.
He hadn’t done this.
Her brother had, and he was reaching up from the grave and doing it all again. “I am done. Do you hear me?” Her chest rose and fell in quick, angry bursts. “I have played nice. I have smiled and stayed quiet and paid my bills and done everything I was supposed to. And for what?”
He reached for her, but she stepped back, waving her hands wildly.
She’d always felt as though everything in her life was out of reach.
Out of control. Like, no matter what she did, she couldn’t fix it.
Couldn’t make it right. But she’d done what she always had, because she’d foolishly believed that tomorrow was a promise of a new beginning.
That one day, she’d wake up from this nightmare.
That if she put her head down, did the hard work, she’d be rewarded.
However, now she knew the truth. Playing nice would get her nothing but a trip to the bank to file for bankruptcy.
“I need you to calm down.” Fletcher lowered his chin.
“I will not,” she snapped. “I’m always calm. I’m always smiles, sunshine, and unicorns. I put on brave face and take everything on the chin. But no more. No more being careful. No more weathering the storm. No more waiting for the other shoe to drop or hoping people will do the right thing.”
“Whoever did this—”
“Wants me afraid. Wants me to close up shop and wither away into the Everglades.” Her voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
“Baily,” Fletcher said. “They were looking for something.” He waved his hand. “They tore through this place because they think you have something they want, and it’s more than the marina.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because of where they went looking.” He pointed toward her ripped-up mattress. “Hiding places.”
She blew out a puff of air. “I can’t imagine what they think I have, but I won’t let them rattle me.
Not anymore. I won’t let this break me. All they did was make me want to fight for what’s mine—harder.
” She pounded the center of her chest before she stepped over her slashed pillow and faced him.
Her voice was steel now. “I’m not playing nice in the damn sandbox anymore. I’m coming out swinging.”
The front door creaked behind them. Dawson’s voice called out, low and steady. “It’s us.”
Hayes and Keaton filed in behind him, weapons holstered but expressions hard.
Fletcher nodded. “Looks like you’ve got another crime scene here.”
And Baily? She stood in the center of it, rage shimmering off her like heat. Whatever game had started, it had just changed.
Baily Mitchell was officially done being the prey.