Page 25 of Betrayal In Calusa Cove
It was ajar.
Her heart hitched. “Fletcher…”
“I see it.” He stepped in front of her, instantly alert. His hand went to his waistband, and he drew the sidearm he kept holstered under his shirt. “Stay behind me.” He pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick group message to the team: **Marina. Door open. Possible break-in. Being preemptive. Back-up requested.**
“Do whatever I tell you. Got it?” Fletcher said.
“Loud and clear.”
Fletcher pushed the door open slowly, the hinges giving a soft groan that echoed like a gunshot in the silence.
They swept the main room first, and nothing appeared out of place. It was just as she’d left it when she’d closed up shortly after the end of the day. The overhead lights were off, the display racks of fishing supplies, maps, and souvenirs untouched. The T-shirt racks were fully stocked. Hats, sunscreen, and other things boaters might need—all there.
The front room—the little office and supply nook just behind the counter—looked mostly normal.
But something was…off.
Baily stepped around him and bumped into the chair that she always tucked in neatly behind her desk. “Shit,” she mumbled as she hopped on one foot, grabbing the other, rubbing her big toe. “I hate when that happens, which is why I always push that chair in. This room is too small not to.”
“You’ve always been a creature of habit.” He held her by the forearms. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, setting her foot on the floor.
Papers on the desk had been shuffled. The ledger she’d closed was open. Her pen, which she always kept on the right side of the desk, was now on the left.
Fletcher crouched and checked the small safe. Still locked. “Open this for me, please.”
“Okay.” She leaned over, tapped the code, and the door popped open. “Passport, extra keys, loan paperwork, journal entries you gave me, and the cash for tomorrow. It’s all there.”
“That’s good. Now, lock it back up.”
She shut the door and hit the lock key. “But Fletcher, someone’s been in here.”
“I agree, and I think they wanted you to know they’d been snooping around.”
“I don’t see anything missing, but things have definitely been moved or looked at.” She tapped her finger on the ledger.
“Probably looking for something specific.” Fletcher stood and motioned toward the staircase leading up to her apartment. “Again, stay behind me, just in case.”
They moved quietly, his back to her as he took each step like it might explode. The second they reached the top landing, Baily sucked in a sharp breath.
Her apartment door swung open. The frame cracked. The knob hanging by a thread.
Fletcher turned, voice low. “Stay here.”
She wanted to argue, but the look in his eyes told her this wasn’t the time. He slipped inside.
A beat passed.
Then two.
Then he called out. “It’s clear.”
She stepped in and froze. Her apartment—small but cozy, her sanctuary above the world—gutted.
Drawers yanked from her dresser and dumped. Clothes lay in shredded piles across the floor. Panties tossed about like trash. Her favorite dress, the one she’d worn to Audra and Trinity’s bridal shower, shredded into a couple of pieces and hung on the back of the chair by the window. Her mattress—slashed from corner to corner, its stuffing torn out like spilled intestines. The comforter hung off the bed frame, stained with something dark she hoped to God was just coffee.
Every dish from her tiny kitchenette lay shattered. The chipped ceramic mug she’d had since high school? Broken. The glass dish from her mother’s old casserole set? In pieces. Even the stupid plate Fletcher had made her in ceramics class—destroyed.
