“Just a quick one.”
“Alright. I’ll take her to the museum. She can’t get enough of that place.”
“Thanks, kid. Here,” I said, handing him some cash. “She’s gonna want shit from the gift shop.” She already had five stuffed animals on her bed. And that wasn’t counting the gemstones, books, and a collection of little butterflies that she’d attached to a wall like a swarm.
“Nah, I got it.”
“Wow. That feels weird,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
“You’re not supposed to pull an ‘I got it’ until you’re in your twenties. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be a mooch until then.”
“I got my own.”
“Christ. Stop growing up,” I grumbled. “Hey, honey,” I said as Charlotte came out of her room. “Your brother is going to take you to the museum. Then we can figure out something for dinner.”
Charlotte was thrilled.
Liam tried to hide how he liked her enthusiasm.
And I grabbed my keys and headed out.
I’d like to claim I had a tingle up my spine or a churning in my stomach. But I felt something more akin to anticipation, maybe even excitement as I looked at the front windows of the pawn shop.
Only to find the lights off and the door locked.
The alarms didn’t go off right away. She was a one-woman operation. If she needed to run an errand or just get out of the store for a few minutes, she had to close it up.
I was about to walk away when the light shone just right into the front door, and I saw something in the back that had me stiffening.
There was crap all over the floor.
Changing my angle, I noticed an overturned shelving unit.
Then, with a sinking sensation in my stomach, a few drops on the floor leading to the door that looked dangerously close to dried blood.
“Alara!”
My hand went to the door, shaking it uselessly.
“Alara!” I pounded on the frame.
It took an embarrassingly long time to remember that as soon as I was back on the job, I’d started carrying the tools of the trade: a knife, gun, and a lock pick set.
I was rusty as hell, and it took me three tries before I got it open. But then my hand was on my gun as I rushed into the store, glancing behind the desk but seeing no one.
“Alara?” My voice was taking on a desperate edge as I followed the blood trail to the back storage room.
And it was chaos.
A whole shelving unit had clearly been overturned.
Boxes and items were scattered everywhere.
Right there, a few feet away from the shelves, was a larger puddle of blood, like someone had paused there to bleed before leaving.
Or before being taken.
