Chapter Thirteen
Allison drove quietly in her banged-up little car on her way home to change and then to work. Quintus had told her the hybrids were out in force patrolling the area, so she wasn’t that worried about another Glycon attack.
Whatever concerns she had about the monsters were washed out by the warm memories of her lovemaking with Quintus. Although she was a bit tired and sore from the night before, she found herself smiling.
The whole thing was crazy, but she’d already found that she was starting to accept and surrendering to the idea that they were fated to together.
A week ago she would have scoffed at the idea as senseless garbage, but now it made perfect sense in a way that nothing else in her life ever had.
She still wasn’t quite sure where she and Quintus were heading, but she wasn’t so sure she needed a definition or a clear plan at that moment. Maybe it was okay that they just lived in the here and now.
Pulling into the main street of Eagle Ridge, she chuckled. So much excitement in such a short period of time. As she drove close to town hall, she had to slow down. A small crowd and several cars were clogging the area near the building.
It was somewhat early in the morning, and she was surprised to find the area bustling with people. She hoped Doris hadn’t started some sort of new and angry anti-mayor crusade.
Ahead to the right, flashing police lights came into view. She frowned. What the hell was going on?
“Is that the—?” Allison muttered to herself.
She turned sharply into the closest parking spot and climbed out of her car.
Someone broke away from the crowd and headed toward her. It took Allison a few moments to realize it was Celine.
“Oh, I’m so glad you got here… early. I guess that explains why you weren’t answering your home phone for the alarm company.” Celine stared at her rumpled clothes and then back to the flashing lights. “I swung by your place, but you weren’t there.”
“Home phone? What about my cell?”
“You weren’t answering that either.”
Allison pulled out her phone and winced. At some point the previous night, she’d apparently shut off the ringer. And now it was out of power. She’d never even thought to check.
She pocketed her phone and looked at Celine. “What the hell is going on?”
Celine motioned toward town hall. A suited man stood near the door. Allison recognized him as Detective Jones from the Eagle Ridge Police Department. She hurried over toward him.
“Detective?” Allison asked.
“I’m glad she called you in,” he said. He glanced over at Celine. “Did you fill her in?”
Celine shook her head.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked again, both irritated and concerned.
The detective made his way through the front door. Allison followed. A large window near the door had been shattered into oblivion. Jagged and irregular shards of glass littered the floor.
They moved farther into the hallway, and the giant pane of glass that made up her office door had suffered a similar fate.
The detective motioned to her office. “It seems as if there’s been a break in.”
Part of her wanted to roll her eyes at his explaining the obvious, but she refrained. Given how little serious crime happened in the town, she didn’t begrudge him wanting to go full cop for a few minutes.
Allison looked around the hall and frowned at the other pristine doors. “Was anyone else broken into?”
He shook his head. “Likely got spooked and ran off before they could get the rest.”
Allison frowned. She didn’t want to tell the cop how to do his job, but it seemed a little strange to her that they would go all the way to the end of the hall to break in to her office when there were plenty of others closer to the front door.
One of the downsides of there not being much real crime in the town was that their police force wasn’t exactly filled with elite super-cops.
With everything that had been going on, it might just be better if she handled it herself. There were too many uncomfortable questions any half-decent investigation might raise.
Allison looked over to Celine. The other woman shrugged, a pained look of helplessness and fear clinging to her face.
“Did they take anything?” Allison asked.
Celine shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a mess in there, and if they did find what they are looking for, we might not know for weeks.”
Allison sighed and rubbed her temples as she tried to think what they should do first to deal with the catastrophe.
“Are we allowed to go in? Or are you still investigating the scene?”
The detective shook his head. “You can go in,” he said. “We’re unlikely to get anything else from the mess in there.” He shrugged.
Allison nodded and stepped through the broken door. Celine hadn’t been lying. Every square inch of the place was wrecked. Cushions torn and pictures slashed. It seemed as if they had gone out of their way to ruin every object in the office.
She considered that. Really, the level of destruction was unnecessary. This was a small-town mayor’s office, not some secret lair. There was no reason to destroy everything.
Unless they’d been trying to send her a message. But who? And without even a scrawled threat it was hard to take it that way. If not a message, then maybe as a means to hide what they were really after.
Again, the question of who resurfaced. She also had to think of possible suspects.
For all of the crap that Doris pulled, she’d never be party to something like this. No. It had to be someone who was willing to risk a lot, confident they wouldn’t get caught, and maybe even knew she wouldn’t be able to respond to the alarm company calls.
The one answer that came back to her was the one she hated to even think about. There was only one group of people that even knew she wasn’t at home or easy to contact the night before. And only one group who might have known she’d be very distracted.
Allison sighed loudly. “Just let me go home and get some work clothes on. When I get back, we can start to get this cleaned up.”
Celine nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Allison patted her on the shoulder. “It will be fine.”