EIGHTEEN Breaking and Entering
N OAH
Elliana’s gasp about throws me into cardiac arrest. It’s a sound of horror, and before I’m even aware I’ve moved, I’m already off her sofa and there at her side. Tristan and Jackson aren’t far behind.
“What is it?” Tristan asks her, and she turns to him with wide frightened eyes.
“My shop’s been broken into.”
I might not be a cop, but I’ve followed up on breaking and enterings more than once. Anytime people might have been injured or property set ablaze, an EMT Fire and Rescue Squad gets sent out, and I’ve been on several now. One common denominator with these is shock, and that’s exactly what I see written all over Elle’s face.
“I... I have to get down there,” she stammers, scrambling around. I think she’s looking for her purse, even though she’s literally passed by it three times now. I step in front of her to block her path, snatching it up and handing the thing over.
“Not alone, you’re not.”
My pronouncement thunders out of me with more force than I intend, making her gape up at me. But I can’t help my need to protect her. Even in those super tall heels she perpetually wears, Elle’s so tiny compared to me. She has such a big personality and so much command of herself that sometimes I forget how vulnerable she can be.
“I’m going, too,” Jackson adds, standing on her other side. Tristan speaks up next.
“We should all go.”
Elle insists on driving, so the three of us pile into her SUV with me taking shotgun.
Bright red and blue lights announce the police presence before we drive even halfway down the street where her shop resides. I’ve never visited, so after taking notice of the collection of uniformed officers congregated outside, my gaze is drawn to the glimmering silver sign over the door saying Blingblang.
Jackson, however, has a different reaction.
“Fucking Christ, they smashed it all to hell.”
My focus zips along his eyeline, and I see what he means. The front of her store consists of five floor-to-ceiling windows, but the centermost pane next to the entrance is absent. In its place is a gaping hole. Behind it one of the jewelry cases hasn’t only been shattered, the outer metal casing has been tossed sideways onto the floor. I catch glimpses of all this damage as various law enforcement personnel move about, then I zero back in on Elliana.
I would’ve predicted that she’d be falling apart with fear right now, but she’s not. In fact, she seems almost unnaturally self-possessed as she approaches a clean shaven African American man with glasses and short braids.
At least until she barks, “Andre, what the hell happened?”
Andre, for his part, isn’t fearful, either. He’s angry. Angry enough that I can feel it radiating off the man in waves.
“I closed up for the night less than a fucking half-hour ago,” Andre explains, his features contorted in disgust. “I was staying late to finish up some paperwork, and it was almost like they waited for me to leave.”
“They may have been,” another man with a stern and authoritative demeanor states, and I peer at the newcomer. He seems vaguely familiar, although I can’t place him.
“You already said that, Diego,” Andre snaps, then takes a deep breath. “Sorry. Sorry. This isn’t your fault. I’m just...”
“Stressed,” Elle fills in, rubbing long strokes up and down Andre’s back. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, baby. No one was here to be hurt, even if it was only by minutes.”
I whip my head around to face Andre at his reference to Elliana as baby . But then I think back to mentions she’s made of him. He’s not just her store manager but her friend, I remember. An old, dear friend. She interacts with Andre so much differently than she does with us. It’s almost familial.
If the circumstances weren’t as dire, I’d be interested in observing them together for longer.
“Elliana,” the police officer Andre referred to as Diego speaks to her. He’s one of the few dressed in a sports coat, jeans, and boots rather than a black patrol uniform. “I’m going to need you and Andre to identify whatever might be missing.” He pauses, peers over at me, and introduces himself. “Detective Diego Ruiz. And you are?”
“Canter,” I rattle off, slipping into firefighter mode. We all call each other by our last names.
“He’s Noah Canter, I’m Jackson McTierney, and that’s Tristan St. Pierre. Is there some reason you want to know?” Jackson’s question is more aggressive than I’d ever dare use with an officer of the law. Maybe that’s why the detective boomerangs it right back at him.
“What’s the reason for your presence here? All three of you?”
“Because I asked them to accompany me, Diego,” Elle interrupts. “Don’t go all throw-your-weight-around cop on me now.”
The detective frowns at her. “Knowing their relation to you might be material to this case.”
“They’re employed by me, nosey,” she tosses at him.
“Bodyguards?”
“In a manner of speaking. How about we concentrate on the matter at hand, shall we?”
“We won’t allow anything to happen to her, detective,” I promise him, and Tristan and Jackson wrench out nods at him, as well. That seems enough to make him relent.
“Fine. My team has retrieved these items from the debris. I just need you two to separately note the inventory we’ve found, all right? How about you first?”
As Elle studies the contents off to the side, Jackson goes up to Andre. “You doing okay, man?”
“Not really. I can’t believe this happened.” His bespectacled face then scrutinizes Elliana. “At least this didn’t go down on Tuesday.”
“Right,” Jackson understands even if I don’t. “Your day off.”
“It’s the one day of the week when she opens and closes without me. Although usually there’s another part-timer with her. After all that nonsense with the cards, this shit sets my nerves on edge.”
“Cards?” I demand, reinserting myself into their conversation. I’m being rude, and growing up, I would’ve been heartily reprimanded for such a thing. But I have to know.
“Elle didn’t tell you?” Andre asks us all, eyeing Jackson, Tristan, and me individually. “Thought she was going home to do precisely that.” He shakes his head in frustration. “She’s been receiving cards here at work. Condolence cards with no return address. I think they’re creepy.”
That’s when she returns to us.
It’s Tristan who asks. “You’ve been getting sent creepy condolence cards?”
The detective has been off doing something on the opposite end of the crime scene, but that pricks up his ears.
“Excuse me? What’s this about condolence cards, Elle? And Andre, why is this the first I’m hearing about them?”
“I forgot until just this second, Diego ,” Andre scrunches his mouth up to one side and throws his hands out toward the mess behind him. “Got sidetracked by this little clusterfuck, I guess.”
Sarcasm saturates his tone, and I can’t tell if he’s just being snarky or if he’s so shaken by the evening’s events that it legitimately slipped his mind. An officer leads him away to update his report, while the rest of our eyes go straight to Elliana.
“I didn’t think it mattered, but it turns out...” She sighs, also gesturing toward the pile of obliterated glass. “Maybe it does.”
She recounts the details about the cards and when she received them. Hearing about all this in combination with the break-in is unnerving. What if someone is out to hurt her?
“Do you still possess either of these cards?” the detective inquires, and she produces one from her purse, handing it over to him. He waves at a guy in a white plastic coverall with a hood and gloves who approaches, bags it, and disappears. “How about the other?”
“I tossed it,” she states apologetically. “I really didn’t think it was that serious.”
“I’m sure it goes without saying that if any more are delivered that you should reach out to me immediately. Nothing about this case is synching up so far.”
“What do you mean?” I ask the detective.
“No return address on the cards. No message. And now, nothing stolen.”
“You’re kidding,” Jackson chimes in with a frown that mars his thick beard. “They did all that...” He indicates what I would estimate to be at least a few thousand in property damage. “But didn’t steal anything?”
“Not from what I can tell,” Elle confirms. “That case contains my favorite pieces. They’re not my most expensive, but they’re the ones I’m most proud of. Why someone would destroy the window and case but leave behind something they could easily hock is just weird.”
Andre rejoins us. “I inventoried that case this morning. It’s trashed, but those same pieces are accounted for. All of them.”
“It’s not unheard of for a vandal to get scared off by something mid-theft, but I don’t like the addition of those cards to the mix. Also, whoever did this took their time.” Diego points up at the corners of the window. “What typically occurs is a hole in the glass, but the subject was conscientious about what they left behind. The whole pane is down, almost like they went out of their way to do a thorough job of it. It doesn’t make sense.”
At this, my worry for Elle quadruples. Someone is targeting her. And while so much about this crime is bizarre, nothing about it feels coincidental. On instinct, I take another step closer to her, and I’m not the only one. So do Tristan and Jackson.
“We have your statement as well as Andre’s,” Detective Ruiz changes tack. “There’s nothing more you can do here tonight. My team is about to finish up, and I have your contact information. You should all go home and get some rest.”
I’m watching one of the officers as she puts up the familiar neon yellow police tape, and it just makes everything more real and threatening. I think what the detective has suggested is the best idea I’ve heard in a long while.
I want Elle back home with us and safe. But we take no more than a handful of steps toward her SUV when we hear one of the investigators call out Ruiz’s name and pause.
The detective crosses over to a guy in coveralls who has lifted something that had previously been obscured by the downed jewelry case. What he’s plucked off the floor with gloved hands and tweezers appears to be another envelope resembling the one Elle handed Ruiz.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” she mutters under her breath, her eyes enormous and frightened as she turns to the three of us for comfort. We gather her to us as a single unit, each of us holding onto her in some fashion. Then, as a consolidated group, we return to the crime scene.
“Open it,” I tell the investigator as he stands there frozen, despite Ruiz clearly being in charge.
I don’t care, though. I know all of us are thinking the same thing. The detective nods at him, and the man meticulously removes the card from the outer envelope. I hear Jackson flick his guitar pick against his denim shirt and feel the fist Elle has wrapped around my forearm tighten like a noose.
Once the card is exposed, I see that it’s not a condolence or sympathy card but one for a birthday. It’s fairly generic with a cupcake on the front. Protruding from the cupcake is a lit candle.
The outside of the card says, “Many happy returns,” while the inside says, “Enjoy your special day,” in a scripted font. But it’s what is handwritten below that in gleaming golden ink that has me scanning the surrounding area for signs of someone in the dark. Adrenaline pumps through my system making my blood pressure skyrocket.
We need to get Elliana home, and we need to do it now.