Force of Attraction (16 page)

He released her quickly and headed for the door. He had climbed into his truck before she remembered Hugo was still in the front seat. She ran out after him but he had pulled away.

She debated calling him but decided he must think he knew what he was doing. After all, she couldn't bring a dog into the emergency room. If she hadn't been so worried about Scott and his dad, she might have been amused by the thought of Hugo and Izzy and Scott together.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Looks worse than it is. Strictly amateur hour.”

The New Brunswick patrol officer who had accompanied Scott to his parents' home turned the key to let Scott in past the police tape.

On alert, Scott gazed around the living room of his parents' home, looking for a clue. Pictures and mirrors had been smashed. Lamps, the flat-screen TV, and small tables knocked over.

Scott shut his eyes briefly, imagining his parents' horror when they walked in on the destruction of their home.
My fault
.

“You getting a picture?”

His expression void of emotion, Scott turned to the officer who had followed him in. “Yeah. The scumbags didn't miss a trick.”

“Yep. Real bad boys. They shit and pissed on things upstairs. Cleaned out the medicine cabinet and all the liquor. Your dad's a professor, right? We're thinking maybe he gave some frat boy a grade he didn't like. Got his friends in here to toss it.”

“My mother's a family court judge.”

“For real? Then it could be some juvie miscreant sending a message he didn't like her decision. No real harm, but ugly.”

Scott got the message. The local police weren't all that concerned about vandalism. Any excuse to write it up and file this case away would work. He knew the drill. It might have looked bad to the owners. So horrifying, his dad had had a coronary event. But to the hardened gaze of law enforcement, this was a minor incident.

They didn't know what he suspected and he couldn't tell them without jeopardizing both present and former undercover work. Besides, he had no proof.

He looked around for some clue to the identity of the intruders. Even his parents' CDs had been dumped from their chest in one corner and stomped on. The intruders didn't steal. Just set out to do maximum damage. This was intimidation masquerading as rage.

“Can you get DNA from the piss and shit?”

The officer shrugged. “Took samples. But I doubt it's going to be a high priority with the lab. We've had a stabbing plus a rape case just this week. Could be months before results, even if we make an arrest. No one was injured. No weapons displayed. Say, did your parents have guns in the house?”

Scott shook his head. His mother didn't even like him to bring his weapon into her home, though she'd never said so. So many silent displays of disapproval of his life choices. And now this. His father would never forgive this, if Scott was the cause.

Scott treaded cautiously around the main room. “You did collect other evidence?”

“Some. Without suspects, fingerprints are next to useless with this kind of thing. We don't have much to go on. No neighbor heard or saw a thing. That's about all we can do. Vandalism is not that big of a crime, on the scale. Know what I mean?”

“You go tell that to my mother.”

The cop shook his head. “I don't envy what they're dealing with. But tell them to look on the bright side. No personal harm was done. These are just things. They can replace them.”

Scott didn't reply. He'd been the responding officer on many break-ins during his early years on patrol. He had always thought people made way too much of things being lost, stolen, or broken. They were, after all, just things. But looking at the accumulated contents of his parents' lives broken into so much landfill turned his stomach, and set rage burning in his belly.

“What about the fact this incident put my dad in the hospital?”

The patrol officer gave him a palms-up shrug. “He had a heart attack when he came home and saw the damage. That's not a direct connection. The D.A. won't want the bother, unless we catch the perpetrators. Or do you know something we don't?”

“Just a hunch.” Scott did a systematic search of the room, eyes doing a thorough sweep, looking for the clue that must be here somewhere.

He moved quickly through to his father's study. File drawers had been pulled open and the contents tossed. Books had been dumped from their shelves. His father's computer had been dropped and either smashed with something heavy or repeatedly stomped on.

He turned into the dining room with a heavy heart. The intention had been to inflict pain. They had succeeded. His mother's good china lay in shards all over the floor. His grandmother's crystal had been smashed on the shelves of the china cabinet, gleaming wetly like icicles in the light. Even the chandelier had been struck repeatedly. The floor sparkled where bits of broken crystal had fallen.

He doubted this was random, though it had been planned carefully to look that way. Until he had evidence that said otherwise, no one else would believe it. He wouldn't either, if he didn't have this big fucking hunch sitting on his shoulder.

*   *   *

It was a little past noon when Scott left the hospital a second time. He'd slept, sort of, in the waiting room, giving his mother the recliner in his dad's room. She wouldn't leave and he couldn't encourage her to go home. Fuck it all! He didn't want either of them to come home to the wreckage he'd left behind last night. That's why he was stopping at the house, instead of going to the motel where he'd sent Cole after his father's surgery was over. At least someone was getting some rest.

His eyes felt as if he'd rubbed sand in them. His back had a hitch in it, and his breath must be as rancid as his attitude. Still, he had work to do.

The sight of his mother's car parked out front, instead of the garage where she kept it, set Scott's heart into action mode as he pulled up in the driveway. The front door was open. The police tape gone. He reached for his gun, which he'd kept in the glove compartment while he was at the hospital.

Even before he reached the front door he heard music, up-tempo and heavy on the beat. Hip-hop. And a woman's voice, singing regrettably off-key. He was pretty sure he recognized who was singing.

Suddenly he felt a little foolish and tucked his weapon in his jeans.

He didn't knock, just walked in. Amazingly a bit of the clutter had been removed from the living room. But the music was coming from the dining room. He walked quickly in that direction.

Cole had laid towels over the surface of the dining room table, which now held pieces of crystal and china that had escaped damage, and some that looked like they could be repaired. She was doing salvage.

She still wore her clothes from the day before, just as he did. The music coming from her cell phone speaker was loud and rude, and slightly familiar. But it was like a desecration in his parents' home.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Cole straightened up from where she'd been sweeping glass into a dustpan. She smiled when she saw him. “Hi, Scott. How's your dad?”

He nodded, feeling too raw to talk about it. Still, he had to say something to her. “What are you doing here? I thought you'd taken a hotel room.”

“Couldn't sleep.” Cole yawned. “The keys you gave me last night to your mother's car also included the house key, so I decided to come over and make myself useful.”

“Could you turn that off?” He pointed to the music source.

The resulting silence seemed to vibrate with relief.

“You left Izzy and Hugo in a motel room?”

Cole looked at him as if he'd pulled a rabbit out of his ear. “I put the dogs out back in your parents' dog run. Your mom told me Kato died last year, which I was so sorry to hear. She was a good dog. They should replace her for safety's sake. Still, it was nice to have a place for our pair. They were tired of being caged up. I figured they'd probably get along just so they wouldn't be put back in your truck.”

“Okay. But you don't need to do”—he waved his hand around—“this.”

She frowned. “You don't want your parents to come home to it. They've suffered enough.”

He tucked in his chin. “I planned to take care of it.”

“You have two people depending on you already. Let me at least clean.”

He looked around. Cole saw a twinge of pain in his face each time his eyes alit on something broken or damaged. He was looking at them through his parents' eyes and feeling their pain. All the more reason why she, one step removed, should be doing the heavy lifting in this situation.

“I have a little coffee left.” She pointed to a cup. He didn't have to be invited twice.

“You shouldn't have touched anything.” He frowned hard, scratching at the day-old growth on one cheek. “Now I don't have an inventory.”

“I took pictures of everything.” She held up her camera. “Better than that, I called your parents' insurance company this morning, like your mom asked me to. They sent an agent over an hour ago. The claim's already being filed. So we've got permission to straighten up.”

He just stared at her. Okay, maybe he was all out of thank-yous at the moment.

Cole held up a clipboard. “I'm making a list of everything I recognize. Once we know exactly what's salvageable it might help your parents to make a list of what was destroyed or missing.” She glanced at the pile of glass and porcelain she had swept into one corner to make a walkway. “It's kinda impossible for me to tell the remains of a champagne flute from a crystal candy dish.”

He continued to stare at her until discomfort made her continue talking.

“I put some of the pictures and mirrors in the car. Thought I'd take them over to a glass shop and see if I can get them redone before they return home.”

“Did you clean up the shit upstairs, too?”

She flinched at the ugliness in his voice even while she reminded herself that he was hurting and worried, too. But she wasn't going to be provoked into being his punching bag so he'd have a release.

“Why don't you start in your father's office? I couldn't begin to sort his files. Maybe you'll have better luck.”

“Is that the washer and dryer running?”

“I'm washing some of your mother's things. She'll need a bag to stay at a hotel for a while. Then I'll tackle your dad's. Piss washes out.”

His mouth tightened. “The fucking bastards.”

From the corner of his eye, Scott saw her reach for her phone. “What in the hell were you playing?”

“Eye-C's latest album. Thought I should familiarize myself with it. In case I have an opportunity to pal around with Shajuanna.” She rolled her eyes. “It's just what you'd expect; misogynistic, homophobic, and crude. Never say I don't like culture.”

Her little joke fell flat. Scott's expression didn't alter a muscle. He just turned away.

Ten minutes later, he was on his knees sorting the paper chase that had once been his father's files when he heard her call.

“Scott?”

His gut turned watery at the odd note in her voice. He didn't even consciously move from his father's office. He was simply there in the kitchen.

She was standing with the refrigerator door open. She pushed it wider when she saw him.

A bloody hog's head sat on the middle shelf with an
X
carved into its forehead.

He moved forward and stared at it.

This was the clue he had been looking for. The break-in wasn't random. It wasn't amateur. This was a warning, to him, made at his parents' expense. How was he supposed to explain that to them, and then make it up to them?

He didn't even look at Cole as he walked away.

*   *   *

“A hog's head?” Dave Wilson, Scott's former undercover handler, whistled over the phone line.

“Yeah, the kind you can find in the frozen food section at Walmart.”

“You figure all this was just a way to deliver a message to you?”

“Pig. Police. The
X.
Doesn't take Einstein to connect the dots.”

“What's local law enforcement saying?”

“What you'd expect. Despite the implied threat, it's not the kind of case they can classify as potentially lethal without further evidence. But you called me. Talk.”

Dave snorted on the other end of the line. “For starters, someone out of criminal investigations up in Philly requested your file a month back. It wouldn't have come up on my radar if you hadn't alerted me to look into things. The officer claims he pulled it by mistake.”

“Uh-huh. What did he get?”

“The standard stuff. Age, rank, general background. Nothing about U/C or SWAT. That's classified.”

But enough to cause trouble. Anyone who was interested would have enough to take even basic information and find out where he went to school. From there it wouldn't be at all difficult to locate his parents because they had lived in the same house for more than thirty years.

“Second. You were right. There's money on the street in D.C. for information about a former undercover narc. No name attached. Info says it's not gang-related but the Pagans know about it.”

Scott nodded. “So there's a bounty on me?”

“More like reward for information. Maybe you. Okay, after your parents' vandalism, probably you. So far, we got shit on this Dos Exquis scumbag. But his paperwork looks suspect so I'm digging. He's been out of prison for six months. Visits his parole officer like clockwork.”

“He got a job?”
Somewhere I can find him,
Scott thought.

“You hear about the economy? Jobs are scarce even for the good guys. I'll ask you again, can you think of anyone else who might want to get at you?”

“I'm pretty sure X is the guy trying to punch my ticket.”