Chapter 21 #3
Sheriff Davies arrived first, his patrol car pulling up with lights flashing but no siren.
Two deputies followed in a second vehicle, guys I recognized from the patrols who'd been watching me for weeks.
They converged on the boutique with the same caution Jaxon had shown, treating my destroyed business like a crime scene because that's what it was.
A crime scene.
Minutes passed. Time felt meaningless when your entire life was lying in ruins across the street, when years of work had been reduced to glass, torn fabric, and broken dreams in a single night.
Davies emerged, his weathered face grim in a way that said he'd seen bad things before but this was bad even for him, and approached where Jaxon and I sat. “Ms. Walsh, I'm sorry. I know this isn't what you want to deal with right now, but I need to ask you some questions.”
Questions. There were always questions after disasters, like filling out forms would somehow make the pain less real.
Had I received any new threats? No, because apparently silence was the new threat.
Had I seen Armand or Silas? No, because they must have hired other people to do their dirty work.
Did I have security cameras inside? No, because I couldn't afford them on top of everything else I couldn't afford.
When was the last time I was here? Saturday afternoon, when everything was fine and I'd been stupid enough to think it would stay that way.
Had anyone else had keys to the boutique? Just me, because I'd never trusted anyone else enough to give them access other than Connor.
How was I sure the door was locked when I left? Because I always checked twice, always tested the handle, always made sure everything was secure before I left because I was paranoid about exactly this kind of thing happening.
Question after question, and I answered them all in a monotone voice that didn't sound like mine. Mechanical. Detached. Like I was narrating someone else's tragedy instead of living through my own.
Jaxon stayed close, his hand on my back occasionally, filling in details I couldn't articulate through the shock that was holding me together like cheap glue. His presence was grounding, keeping me from completely falling apart right there on Main Street in front of everyone.
After what felt like hours but was probably only thirty minutes, Davies and his deputies finished their initial assessment. They'd taken photographs of everything, documenting the crime scene with methodical precision that felt clinical and wrong.
“We got what we need for evidence,” Davies said, his voice gentle in a way that made me want to scream because I didn't want gentleness, I wanted answers. “You can go inside if you want. We're done with the initial processing.”
The shock that had been holding me together like scaffolding suddenly shattered, fell away, left me standing there with nothing but raw emotion and rage and grief I didn't know how to process.
I stood without conscious thought, my feet carrying me back toward the boutique. Jaxon tried to stop me, his hand on my arm, his voice saying something about waiting, about not going inside yet, about giving myself time.
But I needed to see it to understand the full extent of the damage. I had to face what had been done to me instead of hiding from it.
I stepped through the door and just stood there in the center of what used to be my beautiful boutique, the space I'd poured everything into for six years, and looked.
I really looked at everything with fresh eyes that saw not just the destruction but the deliberateness of it.
The cruelty. The message that was being sent.
My mind started doing math because that's what it did when emotions got too big to handle. Cold, brutal calculations that my brain couldn't stop making even though my heart was breaking.
Drywall repairs, new paint, new shelving?
Thousands of dollars I didn't have, easily five thousand just to make the space functional again.
Lost inventory, at least ten thousand in merchandise ruined beyond repair.
Insurance processing time would be four to six weeks minimum, probably longer since this was clearly vandalism, clearly connected to the threats that Davies still couldn't stop.
How long could I afford to stay closed when I wasn't making revenue but still had to pay utilities and eventually Connor's loan? Was there even a point to reopening when I was already drowning in debt before someone decided to sink me completely?
I bent over and started picking things up because I couldn't just stand here and do nothing. My hands needed to move, needed to be productive, needed to fix something even if most of it was beyond fixing.
I lifted a headless mannequin, righting it on its base even though it was broken and useless and would never display clothes again.
I pulled an overturned clothing rack upright, the metal scraping against the floor with a sound that made my teeth hurt, the joints were bent but functional enough to hold weight.
I grabbed two empty bins from the storage room, miraculous survivors in a sea of destruction, and set them on either side of a pile of clothing before I knelt on the ground and started picking through the mess.
If something could be saved, just needing dry cleaning or minor repairs, I put it in the bin on the right that I was desperately trying to think of as “salvage” instead of “the few things they didn't completely ruin.”
If something was shredded and gone beyond repair, ripped beyond recognition or covered in glass that had embedded itself into the fabric, it went in the bin to the left that I was trying to avoid thinking of as “trash” or “everything I worked for.”
One dress had glass embedded in the fabric so deeply I cut my finger trying to pull it out, too dangerous to sell even if I could afford to have it cleaned, too damaged to repair without spending more than it was worth. Trash.
This one just needed washing, maybe some spot treatment for the footprints ground into the silk. Save.
A scarf I'd imported from Italy, torn in half like someone had grabbed both ends and pulled. Trash.
This sweater just needed dry cleaning. Save.
My hands moved automatically, sorting and categorizing while my mind continued its relentless calculations that I couldn't stop.
Inventory loss. Repair costs. Time to reopen.
Vendors who wouldn't get paid this month.
Customers who would go elsewhere, who would forget about the little boutique that used to be on Main Street.
I was vaguely aware of Jaxon trying to get me to stop, his voice saying my name like he was trying to reach me through water, his hands on my shoulders trying to pull me back from whatever edge I was standing on.
His words about taking me back to the ranch, about calling Connor, about getting me out of here before I did something stupid like have a complete breakdown in the middle of my ruined business.
But I brushed him off, kept working, kept sorting like maybe if I could just organize the destruction it would hurt less.
Kept trying to salvage something, anything, from this disaster.
I was so stupid to think this was over, the voice in my head whispered, the one I'd been ignoring for two weeks while I pretended everything was fine. So stupid to think I deserved happiness. So stupid to believe the universe would let me have something good without taking it away.
My hands kept moving even as tears started sliding down my face and my vision blurred and my throat closed up and I couldn't breathe properly.
I didn't bother wiping the tears away because what was the point?
I just kept sorting, kept working, kept trying to fix the unfixable because it was better than admitting I'd lost.
Better than admitting they'd won.