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“He’s not the pompous ass his name suggests.” Neal elbows Warner, making me laugh. “You good to answer some questions for us? We’re sorry this happened to you. We’re gonna do what we can to catch the guy.”
“Thanks, yeah. I don’t remember much, though.”
“That’s okay. Walk us through your day. Where did you go? What did you do? Did you notice anything strange?”
“Sam is a Sonoma firefighter and was on shift that day. I was bored and wanted to see him, so I went to the grocery store to make his crew some Rice Krispies treats.”
“What time was that, and which store?” Warner interrupts.
“Oh, um… nine or ten on Saturday morning? And I went to Nature’s Pick.”
He makes a note on his legal pad. “Okay, sorry to interrupt. Please continue.”
“I drove to the Sonoma station around noon and hung out with the guys for a couple of hours before heading back. I guess it was maybe three-ish when I got home. I remember walking in through my garage… and not much else. I’ve got some flashes of a man standing over me. I also have a very visceral memory of being kicked in my stomach and then my back like a seesaw. Like one hit, then the next, if that makes sense.”
“That lines up with what we’ve found on your security tapes. Three men entered your house around three in the afternoon and then left an hour later.” Neal pulls out an iPad and taps around on it before handing it to me. I grab it from him and stare down at the video footage he pulled up.
“Adam sent it over to them from your phone,” Sam says. I didn’t even realize I wanted to ask that question before he answered it.
I continue to stare at the iPad, trying to find the courage to press play.
Sam places his hand on my arm. “We can watch this later.”
“No, I need to do it.” What happens if I watch this and don’t remember anything?
What happens if I watch it and do?
CHAPTER 33
Sam
Watching Carter struggle through the questions the detectives ask him is hard. Hell, the past few days have been some of the hardest I’ve ever had to go through.
I hate seeing him hurt. His face is still an absolute mess. The bruises have changed color and almost look uglier now than they did when he first got out of surgery.
It’s gut-wrenching to see him this way.
Carter takes a deep breath and presses play on the security feed. Three men with balaclavas walk up to the back door of his house. They fiddle with the lock and then enter the house.
Carter pauses the video. “Why wouldn’t my alarm system have notified me there was a break-in?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out, as well. They had to have some form of override code to get past the alarm.”
“I’ll call my security company to find out if they have anything strange on their end.” Carter presses play again. Once they go inside, there’s nothing more that can be seen. He speeds up the footage until the door opens and the three men leave.
“This didn’t spark any memories. But one thing I do remember is that they weren’t wearing masks when I got there. The image I have of the man hovering over me is of his face.”
“Would you be able to describe it to a sketch artist?”
He purses his lips. “I doubt it. He had dark hair and dark eyes. That’s all I remember. Wait…” He looks down at his hands on top of the sheet. “I remember calling him something in my head… something like Don Julio or—no, it was a Godfather reference. I feel like he reminded me of a mob boss.”
“A mob boss?” Neal asks.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what I remember.”
“It’s better than the nothing we had before,” Warner assures him. “Tell us about the first break-in, as well as the notes you received.”
Carter describes everything in detail. I fill in where I can, adding things that his brothers and I found while we were cleaning up Carter’s house.
