“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.”