Safe Haven

by Lisa Mondello

  “What scrapings?”

  “There,” he said with a grunt as the lock finally turned.

  Opening the door and swinging it wide, Kevin stepped aside to allow Daria to walk into the kitchen first. As soon as she did, she stopped short and charged back, colliding into his chest.

  She swung around and looked up at him, her deep eyes wide with terror, her expression blanched.

  Without thinking, he wrapped his arm around her as she fell against his chest, trembling violently. The quiet sobs that escaped from her lips tore at his soul.

  “What is it?”

  Holding Daria with one arm, Kevin pushed into the kitchen and immediately froze. On the floor in a large heap was the hummingbird vine she’d shown him that first morning he’d been at the house. When he’d first seen it, it had looked stark and lonely out in the middle of the barren yard. In the middle of the kitchen floor among what he guessed were the bulbs she’d immediately blamed on Spot for digging up, it looked ominous. In a vase on the counter, the flowers George had given her the other day, decayed from having been tossed in the compost pile for days, were arranged in a vase.

  “Daria, I want you to get in my SUV, lock the doors, and stay there.”

  “No,” she said on a sob.

  “Get in the damned SUV! They may still be in the house.”

  Staring at the floor, she cried. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Her eyes were tear rimmed and her bottom lip quivered. Kevin listened for obvious signs the intruder was still in the house and heard nothing. But that didn’t mean a thing.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve had enough of this madness,” Daria said, eyeing the mess. “It’s not enough that he’s stalking around outside, but now someone has actually gotten into my house.”

  Daria closed her eyes and hugged her middle. She stood in the center of her kitchen looking at the dirt on her floor from the pulled up tulips and cried deep sobs

  Someone had been in her house. Someone had breached what little sense of safety she’d felt since he’d told her about the contract George had tried to put on her. Even with Kevin sitting out front for days, someone had still managed to get into her house and…

  He held her with one arm and pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

  “I have to call this in.”

  He felt her nod against his chest.

  “Do you have anything valuable in here?”

  “What? Other than the pulled up tulips and shrubs I paid a fortune for?”

  Then Daria pulled away from him, her face in a panic. She turned and stalked toward the stairway.

  “Where are you going?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ll be right back.” And she disappeared into the darkness.

  “Wait, I haven’t checked upstairs.” But she was already gone.

  The bastard had been in her house, Kevin fumed as he raced up the stairs after Daria. Somehow, with all the precautions they’d taken, George had still managed to touch her. Maybe not with his hands, but he’d definitely reached in, grabbed Daria, scaring the hell out of her. It was a violation all the same.

  “Watch out for the eighth step. It’s very weak,” he heard her yell down as his boots hit the worn wood.

  Kevin heard a groan of the wood and then felt a slight bend and he figured he’d found what she was hollering about.

  He resisted the urge to check her drawers. He knew from experience that some burglars got off on going through a woman’s drawers, touching their sweet under things and then masturbating on them.

  He’d have to wait until they both came down from upstairs, until she’d done whatever it is that she felt the need to run up there for, to check on it.

  He glanced in the darkness. Flicked on the switches, but no lights went on.

  “There isn’t any power up here,” she called out. “It all needs to be replaced and gutted so I had it shut off.”

  There was a small beam of light though, coming from the last room with the open door down the end of the hall. Kevin found her on the floor among some scattered boxes holding a large battery powered emergency flashlight and pouring through a large open box.

  “I keep some of my more important papers up here so they won’t get ruined while I renovate. I know it’s really dark and musty and smells from all the mice that lived and died in the walls but someday that will change. When I’m done fixing these walls and floors, it’s going to be bright and airy with sun streaming through the windows. The bedrooms will have bright white sheets and handmade quilts. It’s going to be really beautiful.”

  Daria started to cry again.

  “These don’t look like they’ve been touched,” she said, sniffing and wiping her wet cheeks with a quick swipe of her hand.

  Kevin glanced around the room, walked over to the closet and opened it. It was a staircase that lead to the attic.

  “I already checked it. There’s no one up here.”

  Still, he stayed on alert.

  He heard her big sigh of relief. “Thank God, it’s still here.”

  “What?”

  “My great-grandmother’s bracelet. It’s the only thing I own, besides the house, that is of any real value. It’s been passed down each generation since my great-grandmother came to America. I would have been heartbroken if this was taken.”

  “Why do you keep it here? And in a box?”

  As she glanced up at him, tears glistened in her eyes from the beam of light from the flashlight. “Would you expect to find anything of value up here?” She swept her hand across the room.

  “I’m not a criminal. But I do know they tend to think of all the handy secret hiding places homeowners store their valuables. You need to get a lock box or one day that will be gone for real.”

  She put the bracelet on her wrist and glanced at it. “I know you’re right. I just didn’t want to pay the expense just yet. There’s no way I’m going to keep it unlocked like this now.”

  “We need to check the rest of the house,” he said. “Why don’t you pack all that away and come downstairs.”

  “I will in a sec. Be careful of the eighth step when you go downstairs. It’s kind of weak and I haven’t had a chance to fix it yet.”

  Kevin smiled, shaking his head as he turned away and walked to the doorway. He waited for Daria there. There was no way he was going to leave her alone in the house.

  They both went downstairs and he called the station as Daria looked around. He figured they could leave the bedroom for last, although in reality that is where thieves did the most damage. Most of a person’s worldly possessions were kept there in “secret” places under the mattress or in a hidden drawer. Unfortunately, professional burglars knew all the tricks of the trade.

  Nothing on the main floor appeared disturbed except for the uprooted flowers that were trampled on in the kitchen.

  “It doesn’t look like there was any forced entry upstairs. They may have found their way in through the basement.”

  “The bulkhead is wooden,” Daria said. “I haven’t had a chance to replace that with a metal one yet. The wood may have been weaker than I realized.”

  “We’ll definitely check that while waiting for Jake to come and lift some prints. He’ll file a report at the station.”

  Daria followed him down to the basement, staying one step behind his heels. Even though the small light at the base of the stairs was lit, Jake panned the musty cellar with the flashlight, delving into dark corners. Except for the tools and an old table saw, the cellar was virtually empty. A short flight of stairs led to the closed bulkhead in the back of the basement.

  He walked to the bulkhead and shined the light on the stairs. A long split in the wood by the frame said it all.

  “That’s how he got in,” he said. When Daria didn’t answer, he turned to look at her. She was on the floor by the pile of tools, picking them up and putting them into their rightful place.

  “Don’t touch them yet. Don’t touch any
thing.”

  “Damn,” she said, leaning back on her heels. “They took my big wrench. I can’t tell you how many times that thing saved me from having a flooded basement before the plumbers did their repairs.”

  “Is the wrench all that is missing?”

  She looked around. “I think so. They made a mess of my toolbox. These tools cost a small fortune and are too valuable with the work I’m doing in the house for me to just keep them on the ground like that.”

  She huffed again, a slight annoyance replacing her fear, it seemed. At least, momentarily.

  “Any chance you could have left it somewhere else in the house when you were working?”

  Daria glanced up at him, lifting an eyebrow in challenge.

  “Guess not,” he answered himself.

  He snapped off the flashlight. He needed to call Ski, find out if he’d been tailing Carlisle all afternoon. Who knows if Ski had lost him at some point after their meeting at the home improvement store?

  Another thought nagged at Kevin. Even if Ski had lost Carlisle, Kevin doubted Daria’s ex was the one who’d physically broken into the house. He wouldn’t have had time to get here, do the damage and get out before they’d arrived. And everything about this breakin screamed amateur.

  “What are you thinking?” Daria asked.

  Kevin sighed. They’d dust the tools. See if they could lift a print or two off one of them they could use to find out just who was involved. See if maybe there was a match with the partial they took off the porch the other night.

  “Any pro who’s been around knows what’s valuable. Professional thieves know a gold bracelet like the one you have upstairs is easy to trace at a pawnshop. It’s unique. Not to say they wouldn’t take it if that was all they found. But they had a goldmine right here in the basement.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tools, the good stuff like you have here, can’t be traced and they gain high money on the open market. If whoever broke into the house knew what he was doing, and came through that bulkhead,” Kevin said, pointing to the back of the cellar, “he’d have stopped right here and called it a day. There wouldn’t have been any need to go further, except to case the place.”

  “What about the mess in the kitchen?”

  Kevin scratched the back of his head and stared at the pile of disheveled tools. Daria was looking up at him and he knew she was trying to convince herself her ex didn’t have anything to do with this breakin. And he had to admit it did appear to be a random act of vandalism given the small amount of damage.

  “George couldn’t have gotten here before us. No way. It couldn’t have been him. At least not directly,” he concluded reluctantly. Until he’d heard from Ski about the exact whereabouts of Carlisle, he wouldn’t believe it fully. But for now, he just wanted to smooth out the fear he saw on Daria’s face.

  “You think so?”

  “Ski said he’d be tailing George all morning.”

  “That’s right.”

  She sighed, brushed her hands on the thighs of her jeans and stood up.

  “I’d better go clean up my kitchen before it smells like compost up there.”

  He took two steps toward her and without giving it a thought, he reached for her and crushed her against his chest. Damn, she felt good. He’d wanted to give her comfort. But the more he tried to give, the more he realized he selfishly took for himself.

  “Jake will be here in a few minutes. Let us do our job and then you can clean up.”

  She glanced at him, her expression unreadable. But she didn’t utter a word as she stepped out of his arms and pulled the overhead chain to shut off the light. Then she climbed the steps.

  “Who did this? Who keeps doing this?” she asked. “If not George, who?”

  Kevin wanted to say it was nothing more than a prank by overzealous street punks getting a quick rise out of scaring Daria before heading off to the park to push back a few too many beers.

  But something nagged at him. Smashing street and porch lights, even the bird, gruesome as it was, was typical of neighborhood kids who had a little too much time on their hands. But to keep coming back? Then escalating to breaking and entering? Kevin just didn’t know. It was too brazen, giving street hoods too much credit.

  He wanted to blame Carlisle. Kevin wanted to drive right over to that damned high rise apartment building George probably paid a month’s worth of Kevin’s salary for, and grab the man by the throat. He wanted to tell him to keep his damned distance from Daria and if he so much as looked in her direction again he’d…

  As the fury bubbled up his throat, choking him, Kevin realized things had gotten way to personal here. He wasn’t being a cop detached from the situation and looking at the facts rationally anymore. He’d lost his reason where Daria was concerned. Maybe fatigue and distraction by the woman herself had brought him to this.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. The smell of wet earth and decaying matter filtered down from the kitchen and mixed with the scent of the musty basement.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Ski has a way of being practically invisible, too. I doubt the guy knows Ski is even out there. Let’s wait to hear what he has to say.”

  He reached the landing and followed Daria into the kitchen. With his hands by side in fists, he took in the mess someone had made there. God, someone had been there, poking around, touching things that meant something to Daria. The next time it could be worse. They might actually reach her.

  Kevin couldn’t stand it. Closing his eyes to the image that tumbled on him like an avalanche, he followed Daria to the bedroom and prayed Ski had answers for him that would lead to Carlisle’s arrest. He’d be damned if the bastard got any closer than this. Kevin had to make Daria see that no matter how hard it was, she had to leave tonight. He’d make her see if he had to hoist her over his shoulder and carry her out of town himself.

  *

  “We got a few good prints here,” Jake said. “Maybe something will come up in the database.”

  “Still nothing on that partial we picked up from the porch?”

  “Nothing so far,” Ski said. “Jorgensen says whoever left that print was probably wearing latex gloves and the prints bled through. They’re too faint to have been left by a bare hand. He still sent it to the lab to be analyzed though.”

  Kevin groaned. “That’ll take a good long while before it comes back.” By then Carlisle could have succeeded in carrying out his wish to murder Daria. He wasn’t about to let him get that far. He’d take the bastard down before he came near Daria again.

  “Why aren’t you still watching, Carlisle?” he asked Ski.

  “Jorgensen was moaning earlier about the paperwork piling up on my desk. I’ve got to put in some time at the station tonight, Kevin. I’m sorry.”

  Ski was a rookie, barely a year out of the academy. The last thing Kevin wanted was for him to start looking bad with his superiors on Kevin’s account.

  “No, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. You do what you have to do.” Kevin only wished Dylan were still in town. It was hard enough with four of them keeping tabs on George. Now it was down to just Jake and Ski. They had their own lives to live.

  “Thanks,” Ski said. “Before I came over I made sure Carlisle was snug in his bird cage. He probably won’t fly until he’s ready for his nightly walk about.”

  “I’m heading out, too, Kev,” Jake said, coming back into the kitchen with Daria. “Cassie’s coming home tonight. She finally finished her book and—”

  “Say no more,” Kevin said, guilt stabbing him. “Go home to your wife. Give Cass a big kiss from me, too.”

  Jake chuckled. “That I plan to do. But none of them will be from you, buddy.”

  They said their goodbyes and Daria thanked Jake at the kitchen door as if he’d been an invited guest. Gracious and with a smile. If Kevin didn’t know any better, he’d have thought she was bidding him goodnight after a dinner party instead of a breakin.<
br />
  When she closed the door and turned, Ski said, “You need an alarm system.”

  Daria chuckled, her eyes pulling with fatigue. “And how am I going to manage that? As it is, I’m living week to week, putting a little at a time away so I can fix up this house. An alarm system costs thousands of dollars that I just don’t have now.”

  “No,” Kevin said, his interest piqued. “Ski’s onto something. It’s not a perfect idea, but at least it will keep the thugs that keep vandalizing the house away. One or two times having that alarm go off should be enough to scare them. And if it isn’t street kids—”

  “The police will be here in a matter of minutes,” Ski finished. “Twenty seconds after an entering if you don’t punch in the right code a siren sounds that’ll wake the dead.”

  “Mrs. Hildebrand would love that. How do you know so much about alarm systems?” Daria asked.

  Ski smiled with pride as he drummed his hands on her countertop. “My old man been installing them for years. He has his own business. I’m sure he’ll give you a good deal. He’s good that way.”

  Daria shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t afford—”

  “Do you want me sleeping on your doorstep every night?” Kevin interjected.

  She lifted her chin. “No.”

  “This is your way to get rid of me.”

  He couldn’t quite read the expression that crossed Daria’s face and seemed to change as seconds went on.

  “An alarm system is enough?”

  His shoulders slouched. “No. And I don’t want to pretend it is. But it is a safeguard we don’t have in place now. Look, I can’t watch the house twenty-four/seven. That became glaringly obvious last night and now today. Even sitting outside, I’m not doing you any good if I’m dead to the world in my SUV.”

  “True.”

  “We’ll work something out with Ski’s dad, get you something that is affordable, maybe a payment plan?” He glanced at Ski.

  “My dad will do that. He has a couple of different systems. Some are just the alarms.”

  “But some have cameras, right?” Kevin asked.”

  “Yeah. They’ll record everything, anywhere you want on the property.”