She took a step farther inside, her legs trembling.
“Can you tell if anything is missing?” Reed asked.
She glanced around the room. “Without cleaning up, I can’t be sure, but I do know my iPad is missing. It was sitting right there on my desk when I went to bed.”
“And when you came downstairs, you didn’t enter this room?”
“No, I went straight to the kitchen via the hallway.”
She led him back to the banister and retraced her steps. Inside the kitchen, a deputy was dusting the doorknob for prints while another took photographs. Emma’s gaze drifted over the broken bay window, the glass littering her kitchen floor and the shattered cookie jar. A coldness crept up her spine, stealing the breath from her lungs.
“Emma?” Reed stepped into her line of sight, dipping his head to catch her eyes. “We can stop for a minute if you need to.”
“No. I’m fine.” Emma realized she was absently rubbing her throat. She forced her hand down. “The attacker must have heard you or saw your flashlight, because he jumped off me and ran for the back door.”
“Were you able to get a good look at him? Can you describe what he looks like?”
“No. It was dark, and he was wearing a ski mask. I didn’t see anything.” She scooted a leaf away with the edge of her tennis shoe. “I thought the branch had broken the window.”
“He threw it inside to gain entry to the house.” Reed glanced over his shoulder. “Then he went into the living room and started searching for stuff to steal. The noise from the thunderstorm would’ve covered his tracks.”
“Except Sadie heard him moving around,” she concluded.
“Yes. He probably saw you go right past the living room doorway to the kitchen. It spooked him, and he attacked.”
“So you think it was a robbery then? Not something personal?”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t know. I’ve got men out looking for Owen as we speak, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. The threats could be connected to the break-in, or they could be two separate incidents. I’ll know more once we’re further into the investigation.”
Vivian appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in jeans and a simple T-shirt, her hair piled on her head in a messy bun. On her hip, Lily bounced, stretching her arms toward her mother.
“She’s tired, but I think she wants Mama,” Vivian explained.
Emma took her daughter into her arms. She breathed in Lily’s sweet smell, the familiar weight of her thirteen-month-old baby a reminder of her obligations and blessings.
Thank you, Lord, for protecting my family and for sending Reed in time.
The prayer soothed her, but it couldn’t erase the dread as she surveyed the destruction in the kitchen. Could this have been a simple break-in gone terribly wrong? Or had Owen finally decided to take his opportunity to get rid of her once and for all?
THREE
Heyworth Sheriff’s Department was a small red-bricked building tucked between the courthouse and a park. Midafternoon sunlight sparkled off the glass windows. Reed pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. The scent of french fries from the diner across the street tickled his nose. His stomach growled. It was well past lunchtime and he hadn’t eaten, but there wasn’t time right now.
“Hey, Sheriff.” Cathy, his daytime receptionist/dispatcher, handed him a stack of messages. “How’s Owen?”
“Still in the hospital.” It’d only taken an hour for Reed’s deputies to locate Owen Tillman in the parking lot of a local bar. However, Owen was so inebriated, he had to be rushed to the hospital. Alcohol poisoning had nearly killed him. It had taken hours before Reed could question Emma’s cousin about the break-in. “Is Deputy Shadwick here yet?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Waiting at his desk.”
Reed went through the swinging half door separating the lobby from the rest of the department. “Shadwick,” he called out. “My office. Now.”
Reed ignored the attention from the others in the bull pen, his entire focus on the man marching to his office. Bald with a chubby face covered in a thick beard, Dean Shadwick was dressed in a vest covered with fishing lures and wading boots. His mouth was tight and his body vibrated with tension, like an angry hornet, but he did his best to plaster on a look of veiled concern.
“I’m not in uniform because Cathy told me to come right in,” Dean said, once they were both inside Reed’s office. His eyes narrowed. “I was fishing on the lake when she called.”
“I’ll get right to the point.” Reed circled around the broad expanse of his desk and set the stack of messages down. He purposefully didn’t sit. “Did Emma Pierce file a complaint with you last Sunday?”
“Is that why you called me in?” Dean took his time settling into the visitor’s chair. He stretched out his legs and crossed his arms over his paunch. “She did come into the station. I listened to her story.”
Reed clamped down on his rising temper. He’d inherited most of his deputies when he took over as sheriff nine months ago. Dean was one of them. “And?”
“The phone calls seemed like a prank to me. A couple of weird things happened on the property, but they could be explained a hundred different ways.” Dean waved a hand as if flicking away an annoying pest. “She was making wild accusations. Mentioned someone might be involved in poisoning her dog. Ridiculous.”
“Deputy, I can’t help but wonder if this report disappeared because Emma mentioned her cousin Owen as a possible suspect. I’ve seen the two of you around town, and I know you go hunting together.”
“That has nothing to do with it.” Dean glared at him. “I made a judgment call—”
“Which wasn’t yours to make. It was mine.”
The idea that someone’s complaint had gone uninvestigated and a person had almost died as a result pushed every one of Reed’s hot buttons, as a lawman and a human being.
