Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
“O
h my God,” Willow blurted, rushing forward to grab for the door handle.
“No, wait.” Tripp caught her, swung her behind him to keep her from touching it and took a thorough look around the car. The tires were still inflated and just the front passenger window appeared to be damaged. “Did you leave anything in here?”
“My backpack.” Her hands were pressed to her cheeks, distress clear in her expression. “I put the laminated paper from the ammo cache in there. I was going to take it to Rafe after our tour.”
Okay, could be worse. “Anything else? No electronics or ID or anything?”
“No. Just my favorite water bottle and a couple other unimportant things. Dammit!”
He pulled her to him, held her close while she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry this happened. You okay?”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Just pissed off at the asshole who did this. And at myself. I thought the black bag would blend in enough that no one would see it under there. Are vehicle thefts a problem around here now?”
“More during tourist season, yeah.” He stepped back and used the hem of his shirt to open the front passenger door to avoid leaving prints on the handle. The dome light illuminated the interior.
There was more broken glass on the seat and in the footwell. Nothing else appeared to be damaged. “We’ll need to take pictures and then call the non-emergency line to make a police report.” And he’d check for trackers. Just in case.
“Okay.” She took the pictures, called in, and filed a report to get a number before calling the insurance company to start the claim process.
She finally finished the call, sighed. “I’m supposed to take it to an auto glass repair shop between here and the highway.”
“Sure. I’ll drive your car. You can follow me in my truck.”
“It’s okay, I can—”
“I’ll drive your car.” He didn’t want to risk her getting cut on a stray piece of glass they hadn’t seen. “Come on.” He caught her hand, held it as he started back down to the marina where he’d parked. She was quiet but laced her fingers with his.
Maybe it was stupid—they were only holding hands, for chrissake—but it felt like a major victory.
He put her in the passenger seat of his truck and drove them back to her car. “You okay to drive?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” There was an edge of annoyance in her tone. “Just mad still.”
Fair enough.
“I guess it’s probably too much to hope that whoever did this was caught on security camera somewhere?”
“Unless someone got it on their dashcam, probably not.” It had happened out of view on a quiet side street, so no chance of any city cameras posted there.
He left the engine running while he got out. Willow slid over the console into the driver’s seat. “Follow me up there?”
“Yes.”
He drove her car the ten minutes to the claim center and parked it near the bay doors of the garage. She pulled up beside him. “Need to get anything out of here before we leave it?” he asked.
“No. Guess there’s no point in locking it for the night, huh?”
He smiled at her wry humor. “Probably not. Slide over. I’ll drive you home while you text Rafe.”
“Okay.”
By the time they got to her house, Rafe knew all the details about what had happened. “Rafe just texted back,” she said as Tripp turned down her street. “He’s on his way here with two deputies to check out the cache site. ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Good. I’ll go with ’em.”
“Oh, I...”
“What?” he asked when she didn’t continue as he pulled into her driveway. Looking at her darkened house, he thought he understood. “Would you rather I stay with you?”
“If you don’t mind,” she said in relief.
A totally selfish part of him was glad that she wanted him with her, that she was looking to him for reassurance or protection. “Okay, then I’ll stay.”
Rufus started barking his head off inside the moment they got out of the truck.
“I need to feed him and let him out,” Willow said, hurrying to the front door. She managed to quiet him down eventually, but probably it was mostly because of the food dish she set in front of him.
Rufus wolfed down his dinner, giving Tripp the hairy eyeball every so often.
“He’s worse with people here at home for some reason,” she said when he’d finished, taking the stainless-steel bowl to the sink to wash it. “I can’t figure out if he’s being defensive, protective, or territorial.”
“Maybe all three.”
“Maybe.” She took Rufus through the house and let him into the backyard, flipping on the back porch lights. He immediately raced to the back fence and jumped up to put his front paws near the top of it, snorting like a bear.
He’d scented something. Maybe heard something too. Human or animal?
“I think we might need some spy holes back there too,” Tripp said. He didn’t like that this had happened behind Willow’s house.
“He’s obsessed with whatever’s back there.” Standing at the edge of the steps, she wrapped her arms around her body the way he wanted to. “But now I’m wondering if he heard or smelled whoever buried that ammo.”
It was possible. “Might have.” He turned at the sound of vehicles coming up the street out front, went back through the house and emerged onto the front porch just as Rafe and two deputies got out of their vehicles.
“Tripp,” Rafe said. “Hey, Willow. Sorry I couldn’t get up here sooner.”
“It’s okay, we literally just got back,” she said.
“You good?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got a location on where you found the ammo?”
“Not really. Rufus found it. We were wandering around back there because I was letting him explore.”
“He’s got a good nose. Maybe we should think about deputizing him as a search dog.”
“Ha, good luck with that.”
“Think you’d be able to show us the general area where it was?”
“I mean, sort of. Honestly, Rufus would be a better help than me.”
“He can come too.” Rafe turned to his deputies. “Grab a couple shovels, and we’ll head out back and see what we can find.”