Chapter 6
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Sammy guessed that Burton had been working away, probably researching the Colbert connection, based on the absentminded way he had answered her call.
“Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath and asked, “Remember when you called me for a favor?”
He said, “I most certainly do. If you need something, I’m there. What’s up?”
“Well, I don’t know that I need something,” she began, “but I’m a little … worried.”
“Spit it out,” he ordered. “No point in calling me and then not telling me whatever is bothering you.”
She snorted. “If I knew what was bothering me, it would be easier,” she snapped, “but I went to go to bed and checked to lock down my security. However, the system says that I have a living room window open.”
“Okay, so go close it,” he asked, frowning.
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
“I don’t ever open that window,” she shared. “It’s behind the couch, and I can hardly even reach it. So, honestly, I’m a little worried about going downstairs and dealing with it.”
“How long have you been home?”
She pondered that for a moment. “Maybe twenty, thirty minutes. I was tired and worn out, so I just came upstairs. It’s been kind of a shitty day.
I had a shower and went straight to bed, but when I went to turn on the alarm system, it wouldn’t set because of this one window.
And I never open that window, so, if it’s open, somebody else did it. ”
“So, you think that either somebody has been in the house or—”
“Is still in the house,” she finished for him.
“Stay where you are, go into the bathroom, lock the door. Give me your address.”
She took a deep breath. “It could be nothing.”
“Don’t waste time talking like that,” he snapped. “I’m on the way, just text me the address.”
And, with that, Burton grabbed the keys to the SUV and headed outside.
He checked for her text, put her address into the online map, and was at her condo within a few minutes.
He stopped and walked around the outside perimeter, immediately seeing the open window.
Then he headed up to the front door where he checked that nothing was out of sorts at the door either.
When he couldn’t see anything, he sent her a text message.
I am at the front door. Make sure the alarm is off.
She texted him right back. I haven’t changed anything. I’m coming down to let you in.
He waited, his gaze steady through the window at the top of the door, making sure she was okay.
As soon as she opened the door, she looked up at him with relief.
Her eyes were huge and wide, and her lips were trembling.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “This kind of stuff is very unnerving.” He stepped inside and shut her front door.
“Well, particularly after everything you were saying today about you know who,” she whispered.
He frowned, not sure where this was coming from. “Is there a connection I need to know about?” he asked cautiously, not quite sure what to make of her comment.
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I haven’t had anything to do with him, but I know my father has, which is maybe why I got a little defensive when you brought it up—because of him.”
“And in what way does your father have something to do with him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. And my father has passed now. I just know the name had been mentioned, but he’s also kind of a colorful figure around town. So it’s not like I was particularly worried about it or that it triggered any kind of alarms.”
“Of course not,” he replied casually. Yet his gaze took in the living room as he walked immediately around her first floor, heading for every closet or nook that he could find, looking for any hiding space.
He did a thorough check and then turned and looked at her.
“Looks like all is well here, but I need to check upstairs too.”
She trailed behind him every step of the way, but the fact that her living room window was open for whatever reason was still a problem.
“I’ve already checked the security film,” she shared, “and it doesn’t show anybody coming up the front walkway, and the living room window is out of the camera’s view.
It’s just the front doorbell that’s capturing anything. ”
“Right,” he replied. “A pretty standard camera, a Ring doorbell, but it won’t do the job in something like this.”
“Well, I wasn’t really planning for something like this,” she noted in a wry tone.
He nodded. “Nobody is”—he patted her hand—“until it happens, and then all of us wish we had something more.”
“Am I supposed to get something more?” she asked, as she turned around and looked. “I don’t want a repeat of tonight.”
“Have you checked to see if anything’s missing?”
“No, that never occurred to me,” she admitted. “I went straight to the bathroom, locked the door, and I’m now trailing around behind you.” She gave a hysterical laugh.
He heard a nervous edge to it still. He nodded. “Let’s do that now,” he suggested.
She hesitated, then nodded, and walking with him at her side, she went through the first floor of her house, looking at everything. She didn’t see anything missing or out of place.
“What about upstairs?” he asked her.
She winced. “I really don’t want to think of anybody going upstairs.”
“If they were in your house, they for sure went upstairs,” he replied. “It could have been just a simple attempt at a robbery.”
“I don’t really have anything,” she pointed out, as she faced him.
“What you think you have versus what somebody else might think you have is a different story,” he told her, with a gentle smile. “People have no idea just how much of their household stuff is easy to sell.”
“Well, honestly, at this point, I would be totally okay if it were just a random robbery versus something targeted.”
“You mean, like Talia?”
“Yeah, like Talia,” she confirmed, a tic in her jaw visible. “All your comments today just settled in tonight, and I’m now questioning everything.”
“And questioning everything is not a bad idea. I don’t want you getting paranoid though.”
“Am I being paranoid?”
“Nope, not if that living room window is something you don’t open.”
“I wouldn’t ever open it,” she repeated, turning to look back at it. “I mean, look at where it’s located. It’s not exactly something that’s easy to even get to.”
“No, and it’s also one of the reasons it was something he could open because it’s out of the range of the front door camera, and you’ve probably ignored that window since forever.
It was likely easy for them to open from the other side, just because you probably opened it and closed it once in the last however many years you’ve been here. ”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t even know if I’ve ever opened it.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded, then closing and locking the window, said, “Let’s go check upstairs.”
And, with that, she led him upstairs to her bedroom, obviously hating the idea of anybody being up here.
Burton went through the spare bedroom and then her room intently. Turning to her, he shook his head. “For what it’s worth, nobody is here now. I’m not saying that there wasn’t someone earlier, but the house is empty. So you don’t have to worry about somebody hiding in a closet.”
She hesitated, then whispered, “I know it’s really asking a lot, but can you check … the attic?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Yeah, I should have done that in the first place. Where is it?” She pointed to the top of the master closet. He frowned and said, “I don’t like the location of that either. Why the hell do builders put access in rooms like that?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, raising both hands. “Right about now, I’m not really happy with any of it.”
He moved the access door ever-so-slightly, then asked her, “Has there ever been anything on top of the attic access?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why?”
“Because it feels like a weight is sitting on it, so I can’t open it easily.
That should be a good thing then.” He continued to look up at the attic access door, an unsettling feeling in his gut.
“Do you have a ladder? Or something that gets me closer to the hatch, where I can put some weight under the door and really put my shoulder into it? It’s just a tad too tall for me to reach from here. ”
“Not really.” She frowned at him. “Do you think it’s an issue?”
“I don’t know if it’s an issue or not,” he told her pointedly. “But I’m not really able to check if I can’t open it. It could just have been stuck simply by not being opened for years. I highly doubt you’ve opened it. Have you?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “I wouldn’t have a clue why or what would be needed.”
“Just a minute,” he noted. “I’ll grab a dining room chair and use that. Chances are, if it hasn’t been opened, it’s not an issue at all. If it’s been opened recently, it wouldn’t be that hard to open now. Yet I want to check it out anyway.”
“In that case,” she added, with a half laugh, “it’s probably not an issue. I just realized the other day that it was even there, and it kind of unnerved me.”
“With good reason,” he noted immediately.
“And you don’t ever have to be ashamed of something like that.
It’s always better to check first.” He went downstairs and grabbed a chair, brought it up to the closet and positioned it under the attic access, stood atop it, and gave it another hard shove.
It wasn’t budging. Pulling out his phone, he used the flashlight option, took a closer look, and said, “It’s been painted over. ”
“Oh, well, thank heavens for that,” she muttered.
He smiled and nodded. “It does mean that you’re in the clear. Any other places like this?”
“No, not that I know of,” she said. “I just … got so freaked out over that security message that I went a little off the deep end.”
He said, “Not an issue.”
“No, but I really appreciate you coming and taking a look.”
He nodded. “Now, while we’re up here, let’s make sure you aren’t missing anything.”
“Sure,” she agreed.
As he watched, she went through her dressers and frowned, looked around, checked her night table. “I mean, it’s not like I have any valuables here.”
“You keep it out of the house then?”
“I have a safe deposit box at the bank, which is just for me to feel safe. I don’t have anything here. So that’s a good thing.” Then she frowned and asked, “Is there any way to know if somebody added something?”
His gaze narrowed in contemplation, and he asked, “Is there a reason why somebody would?”
“No.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a stupid thought I had again.”
“No, it’s not. You’re simply listening to your instincts, and I’m trying to figure out why you’re feeling so uneasy in your own home.”
“I’m uneasy because of that open window, and now I’m worried about what you told me earlier, about that name you mentioned earlier. … I guess I’m feeling paranoid.”
He smiled. “I’m not against you feeling paranoid because it will keep you safer. Let’s just not go overboard.”
He walked around, playing with an app on his phone.
As he held up his phone around her night table, he froze because the light on his phone was now flashing.
He looked down at it, checked the security settings to make sure it wasn’t a false read, and then holding his finger to his lips, he turned to her.
Her eyebrows shot up, and he walked over to check the inside and outside of the lamp, but it was her charger that was in question.
He found a small addition at the back, behind the night table.
He pulled it out and took a look at it, his expression, his thoughts, definitely not on the pleasant side, and then without warning, dropped it to the floor and stepped on it hard, crunching it beneath his foot.