11. Karla
KARLA
Another shift. Another day. Another reminder that everything had changed.
It wasn’t that I was pining for James, but I missed my life, the life I’d had only days before. After filing the police report and calling out of work for three shifts straight, I finally made myself get back into a normal routine—as normal as it could be.
I did everything I was advised to do. Changed the locks on my apartment. Filed an order of protection against James. Shipped all his personal belongings to his parents’ house in Jersey. Took down all the pictures that reminded me of him.
The problem was that everything reminded me of the rat bastard.
The couch we got a discount on because a cushion had a little rip in it that James fixed right when we got it home.
The coffee table he built for us because I couldn’t find one in the stores that I liked.
The purple walls in my bathroom James painted for me because he knew lavender was my calming color. Those were only the tip of the iceberg.
And then there were our two miniature pinschers. Nike and Thor kept looking for James. That was what broke my heart the most; I knew I wasn’t the only one that had lost someone they loved.
Opening my front door, I could tell something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something missing. I walked in, half asleep as the sunrise started to peek in through the windows, illuminating a scene of sheer wreckage.
I dropped to my knees in complete shock and horror.
The entire apartment had been ransacked—holes in the walls, all my books yanked off the shelves and ripped apart, slashes in the couches, furniture thrown everywhere, dishes and glasses destroyed on the kitchen floor.
Glass glittered like ice across the tile.
A lamp lay on its side, shade crushed, lightbulb still faintly warm as if the chaos had heat of its own.
I looked around and realized with a start that my dogs weren’t barking at me. I shot up, bolting around the small apartment. “Nike! Thor! Come here babes,” I called. Nothing.
The silence rang louder than the crash of everything broken. I opened every door. Checked under the bed. Pulled up every blanket they loved to hide under. I was hoping they were just scared and hiding, but they weren’t. My dogs were not in my apartment.
A whimper clawed up my throat and died there. I could still see their collars on the hook by the door—the little purple one with the charm that said NIK-NIK and the blue one Thor chewed whenever thunderstorms scared him. The hooks swung empty.
My hands were shaking as I dialed my best friend. “Hello?” Martha answered. “Karla, are you ok?”
I was sobbing. “He broke in. It’s so bad. The dogs!”
“Hang up. Call the cops. I’m on my way.”
My fingers fumbled through my wallet for the white business card I’d tucked behind my insurance card. Officer Sean Whistler. Calm voice. Kind eyes. The first person who’d made my shaking stop the other night.
After wiping tears off my face with the hem of my green scrub top, I dialed. “Whistler,” he answered.
“It’s Karla,” I muttered, not exactly sure how I was supposed to explain this to the nicest cop I had ever met.
“Karla? Are you ok?” His words dripped with concern.
I took a breath and spit it out. “James broke in and destroyed my apartment, and I think he stole my dogs.”
Saying the words made them real. The room swayed.
Air turned thin. I started hyperventilating as Officer Whistler lowered his voice into something slow and steady that I could hang onto.
“Karla, sit down. Right where you are, sit. I don’t want you panicking and passing out before I get there.
I’m on my way with my partner, Officer Todd—you met him the other night.
Try to stay calm and do not touch anything. We’ll need fingerprints.”
I sank to the floor in the foyer, cross-legged like a kid at circle time, palms flat on my thighs to stop the tremor. “Ok. I’m sitting. My door is open and my friend is on her way.”
“Good. We’ll be there soon. Hang in there.” He hung up.
The next minutes—or hours—were elastic. Sounds sharpened and blurred all at once.
Somewhere above me, Mrs. Delgado’s TV murmured morning news.
A pipe clanked in the wall like a metronome for panic.
The apartment smelled like dust and old coffee and the sour bite of fear.
Every scuff mark suddenly looked like a threat.
My mind chased itself in frantic circles—What if he comes back?
What if he left something? What if Nike and Thor are—I stopped the thought before it could swallow me.
I should’ve known. James had a temper; I’d seen it flare and gutter like a bad pilot light. But I hadn’t seen this—not the kind of fury that tears a home apart and takes the only living things in it that love you without conditions. How did I ever bring a man like that into my life?
The knob turned and the door edged open. I flinched so hard my shoulder hit the wall.
“Hey, love.” Kari’s voice, soft but steady. She and Martha stepped inside like they were entering a chapel, eyes wide at the destruction.
Kari sank beside me, wrapping her arms around me with that lawyer-strength hug that says I’ve got you, keep breathing. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Martha crouched on my other side, her palm warm between my shoulder blades. “We’re here. We’re not leaving you.”
The three of us stayed there on the floor, in the doorway, a small island in a wrecked ocean. Voices rose in the hallway—neighbors whispering, doors cracking open, the building coming awake to gawk. I didn’t care. Let them look. Let them see what monsters look like when they pretend to be men.
“Karla?” Officer Whistler’s voice carried before he stepped in. He and Officer Todd moved with a kind of practiced quiet those uniforms learn early—how to enter chaos without adding to it.
We stood. Martha shook both their hands like she was hiring them to fix the world. “Officers, thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Yes, thank you officers,” I muttered, dragging the heel of my hand under each eye. I knew my mascara was a crime scene of its own. Weirdly, I felt safe with them here. Like the air got thicker, steadier.
“Please, call me Sean.” He offered a small, sympathetic smile that didn’t talk down to me. “I’m going to call this in and get a forensics team out. Do we have permission to search your place for evidence?”
“Of course.” The words tasted like surrender. Strangers would see the underwear drawer dumped, the private bits of my life clawed open. If it put James away, so be it.
Sean stepped into the hall to radio, while Officer Todd moved through the rooms in slow sweeps, careful not to disturb anything.
He spoke as he walked, more to keep me grounded than anything.
“We’ll dust entry points. Check the lock cylinder, jamb, and any windows.
Do you see anything obvious missing besides the dogs? ”
“My laptop. Jewelry box.” My voice wobbled. “He took their leashes.”
Martha hissed a curse under her breath.
“Do you have the dogs microchipped?” Todd asked gently.
“Yes.” The first sliver of hope pierced the fog. “Both of them.”
“Good. We’ll notify the local shelters and emergency vets. If he tries to dump them or they’re found, the chip flags us. We’ll also add them to the report as stolen property and living beings—New York takes that seriously.”
Sean returned, clipped and efficient again. “Patrol’s canvassing the block. Forensics is on their way. Karla, we’ll also file this as a violation of the order of protection and a burglary. That combination is serious. We’ll push the DA.”
Kari straightened, lawyer mode activated. “We’ll cooperate with everything you need.”
Martha stalked to the kitchen, peering at the busted cabinet and the knifed sofa like she could put the whole room in a headlock. “Coward,” she muttered.
Sean kept his voice low. “Karla, do you have a place you can stay for a few days? Just while the dust settles. I hate to think what might’ve happened if you’d been home when he showed up.”
Martha slid her arm around my shoulders, knew the answer before I formed it. “She can stay with me for a while and then with Kari if need be, right, Kari?”
Kari nodded. “For sure. We’ll rotate like a guard detail.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, throat thick.
Sean angled his body toward me, a little privacy in a room with none.
“Couple more safety things: change your passwords, especially your building app and phone; set up two-factor on everything. If you can, we’ll get a temporary camera for your door—our victim services office can help.
I’ll also submit a patrol request to swing by the building a few times during overnights. ”
The practical list steadied me. “Okay.”
“And,” he added gently, “when you’re ready, give us a detailed list of what’s missing. Pictures help. We’ll take photos today, but your documentation can support insurance and the case.”
I nodded. The words were starting to land again in a brain that had only heard screaming for an hour. Kari squeezed my hand; Martha picked up a blanket from the floor and folded it neatly like restoring a single square of order could start a chain reaction.
Through the open window I could hear the city’s morning—garbage truck hydraulics, a bus brake squeal, someone laughing at nothing on the sidewalk. The world didn’t care that mine had split. Maybe that was the point. Maybe I could keep moving, too.
“You’re still going to press charges, right?” Kari asked, threading her fingers through mine. The warmth of her palm anchored me.
“You bet your sweet ass she is,” Martha snapped, never taking her eyes off the mess, daring it to blink.
Sean joined us again, tone returning to that careful calm. “We’ll take your supplemental statement after forensics gets what they need. Then we’ll get you out of here for a while.”
“Thanks, guys.” Tears poured down my face again, and my eyes stung from the endless days of crying fits. I let them come. Let them clean out what they could. And under the ache, a thin, steel line formed—small, but real.
James had taken a lot from me. He hadn’t taken me.