“Again, we can leave if this is too much.” Dalton placed his hand on her lower back.
Time for total honesty. “I won’t lie, I am having second thoughts, but” –she turned in his hold, placed her hand over his heart, and looked up at him– “I have to do this. I have to go in there. If I don’t, they win. And I’m done with letting people think they can win against me.”
“You amaze me, so much.” Dalton dropped a kiss on her lips. It seemed, after their love making, that they couldn’t get enough of kissing each other, and Steff was totally okay with it.
“Right back at ya, Jag.”
He chuckled, and took the key she’d given him when he started staying with her out of his pocket and inserted it in the lock.
Dalton may have told her that he was going to go in first, but now that it was open, she wanted to go in with him.
“It’s not any better in the light of day,” she murmured as she surveyed the room.
“No, it’s not. Stay here while I check out the rest of the place.”
Steff nodded, and wondered if she had enough trash bags to put everything in. She glanced over to the one chair that had remained unbroken.
Why hadn’t they broken it?
Was there a reason?
A message?
She didn’t know the answer to the questions, and she probably would never find out why. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter.
“Oh my goodness, Steffanie, what a mess!”
Steff whirled around, her heart pounding fiercely. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard her neighbor approaching. “Mrs. Baker, yeah, it’s a mess.”
“I heard all the commotion last night and poked my head out to see the police entering. I wanted to come over, but thought it might be best if I stayed where I was. Considering how loud you had your music playing—which shocked me—I wasn’t surprised to see them.” There was a hint of censure in her neighbor’s voice, but she ignored it because of what she said.
“There was music playing?” Dalton asked the question, and she leaned against him when he came up behind her. “Dalton Jaeger, I’m a friend of Steffanie’s.”
Dalton’s tone was firm, but not in a way that would put the older lady off.
“Were you here last night partying with her, young man? Or should I say, having a wrecking party? Although that doesn’t make sense, because I can’t see you doing anything like this Steffanie,” Mrs. Baker rambled on, looking thoughtful at the same time.
“That answers why no one heard what was going on?” Steff muttered. The mystery of why the police hadn’t been called earlier was solved.
“Seems that way.” Dalton turned to Mrs. Baker. “Do you know if anyone else may have knocked on Steff’s door while the music was playing?”
“I don’t think so. I just took my hearing aids out. That’s one advantage of having bad hearing.” She laughed at her own joke. “I popped them back in when I got up to go to the bathroom. By then it was all quiet, until I heard the police, that is.”
Mrs. Baker had been helpful, but if they hoped to get more information out of her, then they were shit out of luck, because she hadn’t heard anything, apart from the loud music.
“I’m sorry that the music disturbed you, but it wasn’t me,” Steff stated.
Mrs. Baker patted her hand. “I know dear, I should’ve realized that you wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m sorry I didn’t do something earlier, like knock on your door and find out what was going on.”
“It’s just as well you didn’t do that, ma’am,” Dalton said. “You could’ve been hurt.”
“Maybe, but I might’ve been able to prevent all this destruction.”
Steff pulled her into a hug. “They’re only things. They can be replaced. You can’t.”
If the person who did this to Steff thought she was going to crumble, they were much mistaken. A few months ago, it would’ve been another story, but she was different now.
Stronger.
