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“Hey, you okay?”
Parker walked in before she could answer. He stepped around Fuzz, who was standing near the door with his toy. “Someone’s ready to go to work.”
Skye chuckled. “Wish all my deputies were as eager.”
“Did Tristan show you the video?” Parker perched on the edge of his desk.
“He did, and between hiding his face and how dark it was, your guess as to his identity is as good as mine. I have no idea who he is.”
“Can you rule out Mason?”
“Sorry, no. I really need to get to work.” She glanced at him. “Can you take me to my apartment? I want to see the damage, and my cruiser is there.”
“Of course.” As soon as he stood, Fuzz raced out of the room. “He’ll be at the door waiting for us.”
“When we find the son of a bitch who did this, I’m going to...” Her eyes scanned her living room.
“You’re going to what?” Tristan hated seeing the tears in her eyes. Parker had said everything was ruined, but he’d been hoping that wasn’t true. It was.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I guess the sheriff can’t torture someone.”
“Probably not.” He put his arm around her and pulled her next to him. “If you do, though, I won’t rat you out.” If nothing else, he’d coaxed a smile out of her. Fuzz leaned against Tristan’s leg and whined. “I don’t think he likes the smoke smell.”
“I don’t blame him. I’m not liking it so much either. What am I going to do? Everything I own is ruined. I can’t stay here.”
“Parker said your pots, pans, and dishes were salvageable.”
“I guess that’s something anyway.”
“As for a place to stay, with us,” he said. She wasn’t going to stay in some motel for a week or two. “If you prefer, we have several guest rooms to choose from, or you can do what I want and sleep in my bed.”
“I can’t live with you. People will talk.”
So let them. But he understood where she was coming from after learning what her ex had done to her. “Then we’ll make sure they know you’re staying in the guest room next to Everly...” He winked. “Even if you’re not.”
“You’re a bad boy, Chief.”
“Not yet, but I’m hoping to be.” He looked around. “Is there anything here you want to take with you now? We can come back tonight with some boxes and pack up your kitchen.”
“Yeah, I have a fireproof safe in the closet with my other guns and some paperwork.” As she walked through her apartment with him following along, she fanned her hand in front of her face. “Stinks in here, and my eyes are burning.” She stopped suddenly. “You know what? I don’t see my laptop anywhere. I know it would be ruined, but it wouldn’t have completely melted, would it?”
“Wouldn’t think so.” They both searched the rooms, but no laptop. “We have to consider the possibility that whoever did this took it.”
“You think to sell it?”
“Probably. Or they thought something of interest to them might be on it. Was there anything in it that would be of interest to Mason?”
“I can’t imagine what. It’s password protected with one of those really strong passwords a computer assigns, so it’d be hard to get in it.”
“I’ll have Bentley check all the pawn shops here in town and the surrounding areas.” Unfortunately, there wasn’t reason enough to get a search warrant for Mason’s house to see if he had it. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Yeah. It was nice of Parker or whoever did it to board up the windows.”
“You can thank him at dinner.”
“I haven’t said I’ll stay at your house.”
“Sure you are. Why don’t you take today off?”
