“It’s almost over, Goldilocks. And when it is I promise you. We’re going to take a long vacation.”
Hannah lifted on her tippy toes to kiss him. “I’m going to hold you to that.” Hannah slipped out of his arms and headed upstairs to pack. Ben remained downstairs to make a few calls.
~
Three days ago, Hannah and Ben left to stay with Adam “Hound”. His house was heavily secured and contained more arson than most military bases. She had met Adam a few times while dating Liam. He was a giant of a man but was quiet and kept mostly to himself and stared at computer screens more than she did. Security was his top priority and a hobby. It seemed a little overkill in Cora’s opinion but whatever made you feel safer. Since the night her office window was broken, there hadn’t been any sightings of cars in front of hers or Ben’s house. She hadn’t seen much of Liam. He said he was preparing, whatever that meant. She only saw him coming or leaving. That should make her happy, instead it made her sad. What was wrong with her? She didn’t want Liam back in her life. She should be glad he was gone.
After three days Cora was starting to relax, and things were starting to feel normal again. Liam had tried calling her several times telling her he had to talk to her about something important, but she ignored him. She still didn’t want to talk about her clients. He came to her office too, but she conveniently was always too busy to talk to him. One she didn’t want to talk to him, and two, she was swamped with work. Hannah was still trying to convince her to leave, but Cora refused. Her parents had taught her young to never retreat and always stand your ground. This was her home, and she wasn’t leaving it. She pushed away from her desk needing a break after working almost non-stop since the incident. Alejandro had only called her once in the past few days to tell her he was impressed with her work and might have some new clientele for her. She was ecstatic at the prospect of building her clientele list. When she had first started, she only had one client. Now, she had well over thirty that she worked with on a continuous base.
Cora went to the kitchen and realized her short break would be longer because she was out of groceries. After her grocery run, she would finish running a diagnostic check on Alejandro’s security. Someone kept poking their nose in her security, and no matter what she did she couldn’t keep them out. They never got far before she blocked them, but she didn’t want to give Alejandro cause to doubt her work again.
It felt good to get out of the house. It had been a few days. She made it a point to get out every few days, so she didn’t feel so cooped up and get grocery shopping out of the way. Her foot was starting to feel better, but she kept it bandaged and stayed off it as much as possible.
Cora was returning home when she felt something was off when she pulled into the driveway. Nothing looked out of place. Her office window had been fixed yesterday. Something still felt wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. Her parents had warned her to never ignore her intuition. If something felt off, it probably was.
Cora left her groceries in her car and slowly made her way towards the front door with her car keys in her hand, ready if she needed to make a quick getaway. She was walking up the front steps when she saw her front door was barely cracked open. What the hell? Did someone break in? But why wasn’t the security system going off? Why weren’t the police here? The security system she bought the other day promised her that once the alarm was tripped, police would be there in less than five minutes. She hadn’t been gone more than thirty. So where were the police cars?
Cora’s first instinct was the push the door open and see if someone was still there or if anything was missing but she didn’t want to contaminate any evidence. Cora stepped away from the door and locked herself in her car as she called the police. They arrived within a few minutes and did a sweep of the house. Once they proved no one was there, they allowed Cora into her home to see if anything was missing. Cora looked around, but nothing looked out of place. It was as if whoever broke in just opened the door and left again.
“Ma’am does anything look to be missing?” an officer next to her asked.
“No, everything looks here.” That was a relief. She didn’t have money in her house, and most of her jewelry was cheap, so it was easily replaceable. Her computer was what she was most worried about. She ran over to it and did a system check. There had been several log-in attempts, but it looked like her firewalls had held up. Whoever had broken in knew what they had been doing. They had tried getting around her security, which meant they had been in her home for a while. She would have to add a few more firewalls for extra protection. “Can someone tell me why the alarm never sounded when the front door was opened?” Cora asked the officers standing in front of her.
A few looked around sheepishly before one spoke up. “Because it was never turned on, ma’am. We checked with your security provider, and you had set it but turned it off a few minutes after that.”
That was impossible. She hadn’t returned until she had groceries. That was thirty minutes later not a few minutes. The fact it was turned off shortly after she
