“And?”
He took a deep breath. “And ... you know how it looks after the DEA tosses a house, looking for drugs?”
Her mouth went dry. “Yeah.”
“That’s how our house looks right now.”
Her brain froze, unable to process the words coming through the phone. At the end of this long, dramatic, terrifying, exhausting day, her mind had finally shut down. Stopped working. Gone on strike.
“I don’t understand,” she finally managed.
“Wait. Garrett’s at the front door. Hold on.”
She massaged her forehead and tried to think.
Hawkeye Slaughter?
No. Chip and Trey Davis.Searching for the diaries.
An indistinct rumble of voices came through the phone, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then Brendan came back on the line.
“Same thing at Garrett and Kiersten’s house. Someone ransacked their place too.”
She shook her head, trying to corral her wild, scattered thoughts.
“How fast can you get home?” he asked.
“Reggie’s on his way. Send me pictures. And don’t touch anything. Tell Garrett the same thing.”
An exasperated sigh came through the phone. “Honey. I know better than to tamper with a crime scene.”
“Sorry . . . I know . . . I just . . . make sure Garrett knows that too.”
“I already told him. We sent the kids over to Rosamund’s. And I just called Sam, the cop who was here earlier today. He’s on his way over with a detective. They’re gonna want to talk to you. And Kiersten.”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” she said and ended the call.
She gnawed on her cuticles, waiting for the ding of an incoming text. Then Kiersten came around the corner carrying a Kit Kat and a Diet Coke.
She took one look at Piper, and her face fell. “Oh no.Nowwhat?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“You look horrible.” Kiersten sat down beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
A ping alerted her to a new text message. She looked down at her phone; then she held it up to show Kiersten the picture Brendan had texted.
“This.”
Chapter Ninety
Kiersten
Kiersten stood in her kitchen, fists curled at her sides as she tried, and failed, to fight back the tears burning her eyes.
The cannisters that had belonged to her great-grandmother lay smashed on the floor, sugar and flour strewn across the hardwood. Yellow stuffing pushed through slashes in her sofa cushions, like exposed flesh from an open wound.
It would take days to clean this up. And thousands of dollars to replace the items the vandals had broken or damaged. They’d left the kids’ bedrooms untouched, and most of the basement. But they’d trashed the main floor and the master bedroom.
