Since the house only had one floor, Daniel headed to the hall next, and Kara was able to take in everything in a sweeping glance. All the bedroom doors and the one to her office and the hall bathroom were open. Just as they normally were. That meant Daniel and she would have to go into each room to make sure no one was there.
Daniel didn’t waste any time doing just that. He went into the first guest room, his gaze shifting from one side of the room to the other. When they went inside, he checked the closet as Kara looked under the bed.
No one.
They repeated the process on the next bedroom and got the same results. However, the moment Daniel went through her office door, Kara knew something was wrong. The curtain was fluttering in the night breeze. And she soon saw why. The window was open.
Daniel didn’t ask if she’d left it that way. Probably because like her, he saw the bits of glass on the floor. Someone had broken the window, slipped a hand through and unlocked it to get inside.
“Keep watch,” Daniel reminded her, and he took out his phone to text for backup. Kara hadn’t thought anything could rev up her heartbeat even more, but that did it.
While he waited for a response to his text, he glanced in every corner. The intruder wasn’t here, and that left just one more place in the house. Her bedroom suite. Lots of places to hide in there, too.
His phone dinged, and Daniel checked the screen. “Barrett’s on the way,” Daniel told her in a whisper. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Barrett was not only Daniel’s brother, he was also the town sheriff, and his ranch was only a couple of miles from Kara’s place.
As she’d done in the other rooms, she looked around to see if anything was missing. And there was. Her laptop was gone, and the bottom drawer of her desk was open. The small metal box she kept there was also open, and the money that would have normally been inside was missing.
“A burglar,” Daniel added, his voice still barely audible. “Someone who knew you wouldn’t be in the house. He could have come in through the window and gone out through the back door.”
Daniel was right. Why else would the back door be unlocked? Plus, she had put out word that she’d be in the barn tonight. And that made Kara want to kick herself. She’d practically invited someone to break in.
With Kara right behind him, Daniel went out of the office, back into the hall and headed for her bedroom. Her first thought was her jewelry box that would be sitting right on the dresser. She didn’t have a lot, but there were several rings and a necklace that had once belonged to her mother and grandmother. That made Kara want to rush inside the room when Daniel walked through the door.
But instead she froze in her tracks.
The lamp on the nightstand was on, the milky light practically spotlighting her bed. In the center of it was a woman with long brown hair. A stranger.
And her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Copyright © 2021 by Delores Fossen
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ISBN-13: 9780369709028
Cold Case True Crime
Copyright © 2021 by Denise N. Wheatley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Cold Case True Crime Page 22