‘Did you set the alarm?’ Frederick asked her gently.
‘Yes, of course.’ Her voice broke. ‘I know I did.’
Frederick stroked her hair. ‘Try to breathe, honey.’
‘Found him!’ Thorne called. ‘He’s okay.’
Gwyn choked back a sob. ‘Thank God.’
Thorne and JD came back together. ‘It’s clear,’ JD said. ‘Come in, shut the door.’
‘I left Tweety in the bathroom,’ Thorne said, ‘until we clean up the glass.’
‘He’ll need to go out,’ Gwyn said, her mind refusing to comprehend the catastrophe she was seeing. ‘He needs to pee.’
‘He already did,’ Thorne said, taking her from Frederick’s arms into his own. ‘We can clean the bathroom. The rest of the place may be harder. It’s a mess. I’m so sorry.’
She reached around his neck, wishing for her heels just to get closer to him. He solved that by picking her up and holding her to his chest. She buried her face in his neck and breathed him in.
‘Not your fault,’ she whispered. ‘None of this is your fault.’
‘Did you have your laptop on your desk?’ JD asked.
‘No. I left it at Clay’s. I was using it to review the books Monday night.’ There was that then. Her documents were safe. Except . . .
Her gut clenched and she abruptly pushed away from Thorne. ‘Let me down.’ He immediately complied and she ran to her bedroom, throwing open her closet.
It was empty. Completely empty. Hangers were scattered on the floor and every shelf was bare. Oh God. Oh no. Her knees wobbled and she held on to Thorne, who’d been right on her heels.
It was gone. Her fire safe, holding her important papers. Her life. Her secrets. Could they open it? Probably. It had a keyed lock. Not terribly hard to jimmy.
And what would they find? Her birth certificate. Her passport. And all the newspaper clippings she’d collected over the years. Some of Thorne, a few of Lucy. One of herself, on the tightrope. But most were of Aidan. A few from his childhood, usually a grainy photo in a school newspaper about an award. The better clippings came when he’d entered high school. Number 54. Offensive line.
That whoever stole the safe could identify him was a given. His last name was on the back of his jersey. And if they figured out who he was to her? Less likely, but exact relationships weren’t necessary. The existence of the clippings screamed his importance. Her stomach twisted painfully. She needed to warn him. That could be complicated. I need to figure out how.
‘They took your clothes?’ Frederick asked, coming up behind them.
‘No,’ JD said. ‘They’re mixed in with bedclothes on the floor over there by the bed. But they’re trashed too. Ripped up. Sorry, Gwyn.’
She didn’t care about the clothes. Turning in a slow circle, she took in the smashed cosmetics and perfume bottles, the broken mirror, the mattress on which she and Thorne had first made love. It had received the same treatment as the sofa, slashed with a knife, stuffing everywhere.
And then she got the real message. Her gun safe stood open, but the guns were still there. ‘They knew my combination. That’s how they got past the alarm.’
‘You used the same combo for your security alarm as your gun safe?’ JD asked.
She nodded numbly.
‘The alarm was 0-2-1-7,’ Thorne said, because he’d always known it. He just didn’t know what it stood for. His voice became thoughtful. Questioning. ‘I never knew your safe was the same combo.’
‘Yes,’ was all she could say.
‘Who else knew?’ JD asked, his phone out, ready to call this in to BPD.
‘Lucy. That’s it. Except . . .’ She turned away from the open safe to the less upsetting mess on her dresser. ‘Anne. She came home with me once. I had car trouble and Thorne and Lucy were busy. She said she had to use the bathroom, so I asked her to come up. She could have seen me put in my alarm code.’
‘When did this happen?’ JD asked. ‘At the club? Because you haven’t worked at the firm in a couple of years.’
‘I still worked there from time to time as a paralegal. When Thorne or Jamie had really sensitive cases they didn’t trust to anyone else.’
‘Right,’ JD murmured. ‘You told Hyatt that on Sunday when Thorne was in the hospital. I thought you were lying, actually.’
She glanced up at him sharply. ‘You would have let me lie?’
JD nodded soberly. ‘To protect Thorne? Hell, yeah.’
She was able to smile about that. ‘Thank you.’
‘But how did Anne get past your dog?’ Frederick asked.
Gwyn shrugged. ‘He knows her. She always had a treat for him, every time we came into the office or every time she brought papers to the club for Thorne to sign. I thought her giving him treats was sweet at the time, but now . . .’
Thorne threaded his fingers through her hair. ‘We can replace everything.’
‘Not everything. I had a fire safe. On the closet shelf. It had all my important papers in it.’ Her stomach gave another heave. God.
‘Did it have the same combination?’ Frederick asked.
‘No. I had a key.’ Her voice was calm now, surprising her. ‘But if she was able to copy a key to my apartment – which I assume she did, since she managed to disable the alarm – she probably has a key to the fire safe too.’
Thorne had his hand around the back of her neck, providing just enough pressure to reassure without any pain. ‘Do we need to stay here?’ he asked JD. ‘I’d like to get her back to Clay’s.’
JD nodded. ‘Yeah. Let’s lock up. I’ll request a uniform to stand watch until we can get CSU here to process the scene.’ He smiled sadly at Gwyn. ‘Looks like we’re both going clothes shopping soon.’
‘Looks like.’ A whimper caught her attention, followed by scratching. ‘Poor Tweety. We’re lucky he hasn’t dug through the door.’
‘He tried.’ Thorne took her hand. ‘I think your bathroom will need a severe overhaul when this is over.’
Please God, let that be soon. They were fraying at the ends. All of them.
They could only maintain vigilance for so long before one of them made a mistake. Got hurt. Or worse. And then Thorne would wish he was dead.
Which was exactly what Tavilla wanted.
Hunt Valley, Maryland,
Wednesday 15 June, 9.30 P.M.
Thorne threw his phone on the dresser in the guest room he and Gwyn were sharing in Clay’s basement. He had to take a moment to breathe. To calm himself. She didn’t need his frustration now. She’d had a shock of her own. Her home had been invaded, her sanctuary destroyed.
Still fully clothed, she lay on the bed, propped up by pillows. Tweety sat on the floor, his chin on the edge of the bed, watching her. As if he too knew she needed extra care tonight.
She looked up from her laptop. ‘Anything?’ she asked cautiously. She was still too pale, her brow furrowed in worry.
He knew the feeling.
‘No.’ He sat down on the bed, forearms on his knees, and hung his head, huffing a tired chuckle when Tweety shifted his chin from the edge of the bed to his knee. He scratched the dog behind his ears. ‘I tried to call them both again. Both Nystrom and Christina Brandenberg. Both went to voicemail. Hers rang like ten times, but his just went straight to voicemail.’
‘She’s ignoring you then. He’s either blocked you or turned off his phone.’
‘I know. I just . . . God, Gwyn. I don’t want anyone else to die.’
‘I know, baby.’ She put the laptop aside and crawled so that she could drape her body over his back, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades. ‘I know.’
‘I asked Alec to search for Colton Brandenberg. I don’t know what else to do at this point.’
‘Hopefully Alec can work his magic for us,’ she murmured, sounding so totally not like herself that he twisted abruptly to catch her face in his hands.
‘We will stop this,’ he promised. ‘We have to.’
She nodded, leaning into his palm, then jerked away at the knock on their door. ‘Yes?’ she called.
‘It’s me,’ Alec said through the door. ‘You guys decent?’
Thorne felt his cheeks actually heat. ‘Yes,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘Come in.’