Chapter 4
Friday passed rather uneventfully. With Stefania working from home, Hailey didn’t have to deal with her snide remarks and was able to fully focus on her clients’ accounts.
The discrepancies in the Eukaria Investments accounts still had her perplexed, but she’d had other priorities for most of the day and had only gotten to spend the last hour and a half on them.
She didn’t feel any closer to figuring things out than she had been at three thirty.
That would have to be an issue for later.
Now it was time to pick up Jenna and enjoy a beautiful weekend with her little girl.
Maybe they could grab finger food and have a picnic dinner at the park this evening.
Tomorrow’s plan included a trip to Williamstown to visit the Ark Encounter.
Jenna was too young to understand the concept of exhibits, but she loved the playground and the animals in the zoo.
Hailey powered down her computer and packed up her things. Waving good-bye to her coworkers, she headed for the elevators. Sunshine beamed through the lobby doors, beckoning her into its embrace.
Was Peter on duty again today? She glanced at the security office, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to see through the one-way glass. Just in case, she waved as she passed it.
She’d thought about the British security guard quite a bit last night.
What had brought him to the States, and to here of all places?
Kentucky was a great place to live, but it wasn’t exactly known for its international appeal.
Regardless, she was glad he was here. Last night hadn’t been a life-or-death situation or anything like that, but his calm, courteous demeanor had helped defuse her frustration over the issue.
Outside, the heat of an August day enveloped her.
It was a nice change from the frigid air conditioning in the office.
For a few seconds, anyway. By the time she made it to the side lot, she was already beginning to feel sticky from the humidity.
She didn’t mind though. She’d rather be outside than cooped up in an office any day.
When she reached the Explorer, she made a quick circle around it.
The apprehension she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge slipped away.
The four brand-new tires were pristine. The chalked message from yesterday had also been scrubbed off, and the vehicle sparkled like it had just been washed and waxed.
Dad must have taken it through the car wash after replacing the tires.
He’d dropped in about noon to let her know he was finished and to swap keys with her.
And, as she’d anticipated, he’d refused to give her the bill for the tires, for which she felt both grateful and guilty.
She didn’t have a lot of extra money, but neither did her parents.
Somehow, she’d figure out some way to pay them back at least part of the money—even if it meant sneaking twenty-dollar bills into her mom’s purse or her dad’s tool chest over the next couple of months.
An hour later, Hailey was regretting her decision to picnic at the park.
She hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that Jenna would be far more interested in the playground than in the pizza they’d grabbed from Zhan’s on the way here.
So far she’d managed to get her daughter to take exactly two bites of the Parmesan-encrusted deliciousness. Mom fail.
She sighed. Wasn’t her first. Wouldn’t be her last. Still, she hoped the delayed meal wouldn’t trigger a meltdown when it was time to leave.
Maggie whined and turned soulful eyes up to her.
Hailey stroked her soft fur. “I’m sorry, girl.
She’ll be back soon.” She hadn’t wanted to take the time to drop Maggie off at home and figured the dog could enjoy the outing with them.
But, like with the picnic idea, she’d overlooked one crucial element: Since it was a public park, Maggie had to stay on leash and wasn’t able to join Jenna as she climbed the playground equipment.
The golden was not happy with that arrangement.
They stayed another ten minutes, but when Jenna started bawling after tripping on the rubber playground surface, Hailey knew it was time to go. With Maggie’s leash looped over her wrist, she scooped her little girl up, grabbed the box containing their leftover pizza, and started back to the SUV.
Home was only a few minutes away on the outskirts of town, and Hailey breathed a sigh of relief as she turned into the circular drive. The feeling quickly fled when she got a good look at the house. Someone had spray-painted a message in all caps across the formerly spotless white garage door.
YOU DON’T BELONG HERE
Her breath caught in her throat, and she pressed on the brakes. What should she do? Had whoever did this gone inside the house? Or had they left their message and departed? There was no way to tell from out here, and she wasn’t foolish enough to check it out alone.
While she dialed 911, she glanced at the dog panting beside her.
If she’d left Maggie home, would she have scared off the vandal?
She was no guard dog—not where people were concerned, anyway.
She barked at other animals and passing vehicles, but she loved humans.
Someone outside the house listening to her bark might not realize that though.
And what about if someone tried to break in while they were at home?
Hailey had never thought much about that possibility.
Kincaid was usually such a safe area that she didn’t have to.
Now she wondered if she’d been living in blissful ignorance.
She would like to think the golden would take action if she sensed someone intended to harm her humans, but Hailey wasn’t sure.
And she didn’t want to have to find out the hard way.
She’d be taking extra care to lock her doors from now on.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
Hailey recognized the voice of the dispatcher. “Hi, Sarah. This is Hailey Nieland. I just arrived home, and someone’s left a threatening message on my garage door. I’m concerned that they might have gone inside, but I have Jenna with me, and I don’t want to endanger her by checking myself.”
“Are you in a safe location?”
“Yes, we’re still in my SUV.”
“Good. Stay inside with the doors locked. I’ll send someone your way.”
“Thank you.”
After disconnecting with the dispatcher, Hailey locked eyes with Maggie. “Now we wait, I guess.”
From the quiet in the back seat, she wondered if Jenna had fallen asleep.
Sure enough, when she checked the mirrors, the toddler’s eyes were closed.
That was probably for the best, though she hoped the nap wouldn’t result in her refusing to go to sleep at a decent time tonight.
She’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
For now, she should probably keep an eye on the front of the house in case anyone decided to make a run for it before the police arrived.
But when Officer Titus Gibson showed up five minutes later, there’d been no signs of life from inside her home. She gave the officer her key and spent the next several moments on edge while he cleared the house.
When at last he emerged from her front door and beckoned her forward, she breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled farther up the drive and stepped out of the SUV to talk to him. “Find anything?”
“I don’t see any sign of forced entry or any other indication of an intruder.”
“Thank you for checking. I’m sorry to have called you out for nothing.”
He waved off her apology. “You made the right call. Better safe than sorry, especially when you’ve got kids. Too bad you don’t have close neighbors out here.”
She agreed. Wesley had thought the semi-secluded area was a great selling point, but now that he was gone, she wished there were other houses within sight to help keep an eye on things.
“Do you want to file a report about the vandalism?”
She eyed the harsh words emblazoned across the door. “Since you’re already out here, I suppose we might as well.”
He nodded. “I agree, especially since you had a similar issue yesterday. You sure you don’t have any idea who might be doing this?”
She shrugged helplessly. “I have no clue.” She paused, then pinched the bridge of her nose.
She didn’t want to bring this up, but . .
. “If these things had happened nine or ten months ago, I might think they had something to do with Wesley. You know, people mad about what happened with the city funds.”
The officer’s eyes softened with understanding and maybe a touch of pity.
Hailey squared her shoulders, resisting the urge to scuff her shoe against the paved driveway. She didn’t want his pity. She just wanted to get on with her life. Before he could comment, she added, “But it’s been too long for that to make sense. So really, I don’t know.”
“But the trials were only a month ago.”
She hesitated. She hadn’t considered that.
Since Wesley was dead, there were no pending charges against him—no reason for her to rip open her barely scabbed wounds by following the trials of his surviving cohorts.
But that didn’t mean other citizens of Kincaid hadn’t done so. In fact, they probably had.
A sigh escaped her. “I suppose that’s a possibility,” she finally admitted. “But I still don’t think anyone around here would stoop to vandalizing my property to run me out of town.”
“But someone is.”
She nodded. Yeah, someone had done this.
After the officer was gone, she pulled her vehicle closer to the garage door, but she didn’t open it just yet.
Leaving the AC running since Jenna and Maggie were still in the SUV, she climbed out again and inspected the damage.
She touched the paint and frowned. It was dry.
The August sun had probably baked it on within minutes, if not seconds.
There’d be no scrubbing it off—she’d have to paint over it.
And considering the dark shade the vandal had chosen, it would probably take more than one coat.
One more problem she didn’t need.
HOURS LATER, Hailey turned over in bed, unable to sleep.
Her cotton sheets rustled, the sound loud in the midnight quiet.
She stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about the vandalism or the looming space beside her.
The king-size frame she’d once shared with her husband still felt far too big for one person, but replacing it with something smaller was an expense she couldn’t justify.
And try as she might, she couldn’t get Wesley off her mind. The devastating tsunami of grief had begun to ebb over the last couple of months, but its retreat left her feeling hollow. Empty. And totally unprepared for the moments when it rushed back in with a fury.
It wasn’t just the grief that burned in her chest. She was angry too. So angry at the man she’d loved. Angry that he’d left them, though she knew he hadn’t wanted to, but also angry at the choices he had made that led to such a tragedy and perhaps to the harassment she was facing now.
There’d been no excuse for what he’d done.
Yes, they’d been in some debt, but things had been under control.
At least, that’s what Wesley had led her to believe.
After his death, she’d discovered the truth.
Besides their mortgage and the medical bills from her difficult pregnancy and Jenna’s hearing issues, Wesley had been buried in student loans and a decade of credit card debt that he’d hidden from her.
If he’d just been honest with her and allowed them to work together on paying down the debt, they could have figured out how to make things work.
Instead, he’d taken part in a shady business deal and got caught by the wrong person.
That had started a spiral of capitulations and eventually led to Wesley’s murder.
When he’d finally stood up to his blackmailer, he’d been shot, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
Though some of his debt had died with him, she’d felt responsible to make amends where she could, including paying the city back for the stolen funds the forensic accountant attributed to Wesley’s involvement.
She’d had to take out a home equity loan to do it, but she knew she’d never be able to live with herself otherwise.
If he’d survived his gunshot wound, he’d probably be in prison right now. Their marriage would be in shambles. But at least he’d be alive.
She clutched the blankets to her chest, remembering those last few days.
Wesley hadn’t died immediately. He’d been in and out of consciousness in the hospital, but they’d gotten to say their good-byes.
More importantly, she had the hope that he’d finally come to Christ in those last moments, and she would see him again one day.
But in the meantime, she and Jenna had to do life without him.