Debbie Lambson, the part-time housekeeper Dad had hired to keep an eye on James—and my mom—while Charity and I were at school, was already at the house making breakfast when I came downstairs. I grabbed a couple of her muffins off the kitchen counter and headed out to the drive-through at the Java Pot. I picked up two coffees to go and then made a beeline for Day’s Market in hopes of catching Daniel before he took off for school.
I knew something was wrong even before I saw the police tape barring the entrance to the parking lot behind the market—the sheriff’s patrol car was parked out front, the OPEN sign whose neon usually blazed above the glass doors was dark, and a small group of would-be customers stood gesturing a few yards off from the store.
Tension pricked under my skin as I pulled up behind the patrol car. I couldn’t help thinking about that night a little less than ten months ago when there had been a very similar scene here. On that same terrible night when I’d almost lost Daniel.
The scar on my arm flared, and the pain of my powers tingled into my muscles. I clutched my moonstone and shook off those terrible memories. A more immediate problem stood in front of me now.
I left the tray of coffee cups in the car and headed up to the storefront. The thing that struck me the most was how strangely clean the glass of the front door seemed. That is, until I realized the door was actually missing. Shards of shattered glass littered the ground just inside the doorway. I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I was allowed to enter, but no one tried to stop me, so I stepped through the gap. I heard voices near the cash registers—or where the cash registers should have been. One lay smashed on the ground, and the other two appeared to be missing altogether. Mr. Day slumped on a stool while talking to Chris Tripton, another early-morning employee, and Daniel stood nearby with a broom.
It looked like Day’s Market had been the epicenter of an earthquake that somehow hadn’t touched the rest of town. Most of the shelving had been knocked over like a giant set of dominos, it’s demolished contents scattered everywhere. Spots on the floor were slick with soup oozing out of crushed cans. Basketball-sized holes pocked the walls, and the Halloween display in the center of the store looked like someone had taken a bulldozer to it.
“What happened?” I asked Daniel when I caught his attention. “It looks like a hurricane swept through here.”
“Might as well.” Daniel leaned his weight into his broom. “Somebody ransacked the place last night. They emptied out the registers, tore the safe out of the wall in the back office, and trashed just about everything else.”
“Holy hell,” I said.
Stacey Canova came up to us with an empty box in her arms. “The strange thing is,” she said, “they destroyed everything else, but took every last bag of chips and can of beer in the place.”
“What? Does the sheriff think it was teenagers?” I asked her.
“Only if they make teenagers with superpowers these days,” a voice said from behind me.
I reeled around to Mr. Day. “What was that?” I blushed and crossed my arms behind my back, as if I had something to hide.
“Whoever did this had to be superfast, and strong as a bull. It would take a forklift to knock over one of those aisles. And they got in and out of here in a matter of minutes. I locked up and headed home last night, but I was barely a few blocks away when I realized that I’d left my garage key in the back office. I turned around and came back to the store and found all this. I was gone five minutes tops. And there’s nothing on the security cameras.” Mr. Day indicated the cameras in each corner of the store. “Looked them over with the sheriff last night. They just go black. And these are battery powered, so it’s not like cutting the power to the whole building would do anything. None of you scrawny Holy Trinity kids could have pulled this off.”
He turned to Chris Tripton. “I’m telling you, it had to be those invisible bandits from the city. Either that, or the Markham Street Monster has turned to a life of larceny.” Mr. Day sounded just like the news reporter from last night, only he wasn’t joking.
Stacey rolled her eyes but then shook her head when she saw Mr. Day glaring at her.