Someone had walked into this room and known exactly what they wanted.
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
This wasn’t burglary.
This was collection.
Magnum stepped into the doorway.“You find something?”
I looked at him.“They’ve been here.”
He scanned the room.“Doesn’t look like it.”
“They took specific things.”
Goldie nodded quickly.“My planner.My notebook.My hard drive.My flash drives.My inspection journal.”
Hodge appeared behind Magnum.
“They didn’t trash the place?”
“No.”
Magnum slowly turned in a circle.
“They weren’t looking.”
I nodded.“They already knew where everything was.”
Goldie looked around her bedroom as if seeing it for the first time.“They came into my home...”Her voice barely carried.“...and I would’ve never known.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
Because whoever The Ledger had sent hadn’t needed to tear the apartment apart.They hadn’t needed to search.They’d walked in, gone straight to the desk, taken exactly what they came for, and then quietly left.
That was somehow a hell of a lot scarier than finding the place destroyed.
Chapter Eight
Goldie
The ride back to the clubhouse felt longer than the ride to my apartment.
Maybe it only felt that way because I had left with hope and was coming back with confirmation.The Ledger had been inside my home.
Not to trash it or to scare me with broken furniture or spray-painted messages across the walls.They’d walked through my apartment like they belonged there.
They had gone straight to my desk, taken exactly what they wanted, and left everything else sitting neatly in its place.
That somehow made it worse.
It felt personal.Like someone had quietly stepped into my life while I wasn’t looking and reminded me that nowhere belonged to me anymore.
I shifted slightly on the back of Wheels’ bike.
My backpack sat snug against my shoulders, heavier now with the clothes I’d managed to grab.A couple pairs of jeans, shirts, pajamas, undergarments, my favorite hoodie.Nothing exciting.
Just pieces of normal life.
