by Cindy Bell
“I don’t know, but these aren’t average pictures. They’re all different locations. It looks like he might have been following Jack.”
“Well, maybe he was jealous of Jack? Maybe he was still holding a candle for Emma?” Ally pointed to a picture that Luke held. “Look at that one of Emma by herself. Where is she?”
“It looks like that mall right inside city limits. It’s fairly new. That means he took at least some of these photographs in the past year,” Luke said.
“She looks so sad.” Ally frowned. “I wonder if there was trouble between her and Jack.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she sensed that someone was watching her.” Charlotte sighed.
“I’m going to take this into the station. Between this and the note we might be able to get some traction on getting an official investigation started. But I can’t make any promises.”
“Thank you,” Ally said.
“In the meantime, don’t break into anywhere else, okay?” He looked into her eyes. “I don’t want to see anything happen to you, Ally.” He glanced over at Charlotte. “To either of you.”
“Don’t worry, Luke.” Charlotte patted his shoulder. “We’ll be more careful.”
“Technically we didn’t break in.” Ally smiled. “The door was open.”
Luke glanced over at her and quirked an eyebrow. “Are we going to bicker over forced entry?”
“No.” She smiled at him. “Not at all. Thank you, Luke.”
“I’m going to see if I can figure out where Gary went,” Ally said to her grandmother as they left Gary’s apartment. “He’s on the run, and I don’t want to lose track of him before we figure out just how he was involved.”
“Good idea,” Charlotte said.
On the walk to the car Ally thought about how lucky she was to have people to turn to when she had a problem. Maybe Emma wouldn’t be dead if she had that support. Gary. Was he the murderer? Was she scared of him?
“Are you okay, Ally? You’re quiet.” Charlotte opened the door to the passenger side of the car.
“Just thinking that I’m so lucky to have you, Mee-Maw. You always listen to me when I have trouble with something and give me the best advice.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.” She chuckled. “If you listened to my advice you’d have Luke locked up in a tower somewhere to make sure he doesn’t wander away.”
“Mee-Maw!”
“You’re the one that said I give great advice.” She grinned.
Ally smiled in return.
“We’ll see, Mee-Maw. I just want to take things slow.”
“That’s just fine, it’s your choice. I wouldn’t want to pressure you into anything you’re not ready for. What comes next for the two of you is something that only you can decide.”
“Mee-Maw, I just don’t…” She slammed on the brakes and gasped. Right in the middle of the road that led past the cottage and towards her grandmother’s apartment complex Mavis was standing. Ally stuck her head out the window. “Are you nuts? I could have killed you!”
“Pedestrians have the right of way. Maybe you should be paying more attention to your driving.” The woman continued to stand in the middle of the road with her hands on her hips. “Maybe you should pay more attention to a lot of things!”
“That’s it, I’m going to find out once and for all what this woman has against me.” Ally started to turn the car off.
“Ally don’t. It’s not worth engaging with her. She might have mixed up her medications or something. I’ll call to have someone check on her. Let me see if she is okay.” Charlotte rolled down her window. “Are you okay? Do you need some help?”
“Ha! Like I’d take help from the likes of you. I think not!” She turned and stalked across the street to her house. Ally shook her head as she looked over at her grandmother.
“She really scared me. Why would anyone jump in front of a car like that?”
“I don’t know, but you should be more cautious around her. Something is not right.”
“I agree.” Ally started to drive down the road again. She glanced in the direction of Mavis’ house with a deep frown. “I hope she doesn’t do that to anyone else.”
“Maybe we should mention it to Luke so he can have someone from senior services check in on her. There are assisted living apartments at Freely Lakes, she’d probably be much happier there.”
“I don’t think that woman even knows what happy is.” Ally continued towards Freely Lakes.
Chapter Ten
Ally turned down the street that led to her grandmother’s apartment complex. “Okay, let’s see if your key is missing.” She parked and followed her grandmother up to her apartment.
“I hope it isn’t.”
“Be careful, Mee-Maw.” Ally lingered close to her as she used the spare key on Ally’s keyring to unlock the door. “We still don’t know why the shop was broken into.”
“Ally, really, you don’t have to hover over me like this. I’m sure whatever happened in the shop was just a mix-up. No one is after us in particular.”
“No, maybe not, but it’s better to be safe. Besides, if I was really hovering I would ask Luke to give you an officer escort.”
“Ally, you’d better not! That would be awful, and embarrassing!” She opened her door and stepped inside with Ally right behind her. When Charlotte flipped the light switch the living room was revealed to them both. The couch was overturned, the end tables were strewn across the room and every drawer had been emptied onto the floor. Charlotte gasped as Ally grabbed her grandmother’s arm.
“Someone could still be in here. Come back outside.” She gave her grandmother’s arm a tug.
“All of my things!” Charlotte groaned. “How am I ever going to clean up this mess?” She pulled away from Ally and began picking things up off the floor.
“Mee-Maw, please, don’t clean anything up. Let me call Luke and have him come over here to check things out.” She dialed his number as Charlotte stood in the middle of what appeared to be the aftermath of a tornado.
“This is why we need to live together, Mee-Maw, what if you had been home when someone broke in?”
“I think people who break in generally make sure that no one is home first.” Charlotte crossed her arms.
“Mee-Maw, you know what I mean.”
Luke picked up the phone. “Hi Ally.”
“Luke, someone broke into Mee-Maw’s apartment and ransacked it. We’re here now.”
“Are you sure that no one else is inside?” Luke asked quickly.
“I don’t think so. We haven’t heard anything. But I haven’t looked through the entire place.”
“Stay outside until I get there. I’m sending officers over now.”
“Thank you, Luke.” She hung up the phone and grabbed her grandmother’s arm again. “Luke said we should wait outside, let’s go.”
Charlotte appeared dazed as she followed after Ally. Once outside Ally balled her hands into fists. “You shouldn’t live alone, Mee-Maw, it’s not safe.”
“Stop that right this second, young lady. I can take care of myself just fine. There will never be a time when any criminal is able to drive me out of my home. No matter what anyone has to say I will not be giving up my apartment. Understand?”
Ally took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. You have a right to live anywhere you want. I just can’t believe this happened. First the shop, now your apartment.”
“It really feels personal now.” Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “I wonder what they were looking for.”
Luke jogged up to them, his cheeks red as if he ran the whole way from the parking lot. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.” Ally frowned. “It’s just like at the shop. Everything is a mess.”
“Let me take a look around to make sure that no one is hiding anywhere.” He moved past them into the apartment. Ally slipped her hand into Charlotte’s. A few minutes later Luke returned.
“No one is in there, but the bedroo
m is ransacked and so is the bathroom. Charlotte, do you feel up to walking around with me to see if anything is missing?”
“Of course.” Ally followed behind them as Charlotte looked for her most valuable items. “All of my jewelry is still here. Even my extra money is still in the jewelry box. It’s like they never even opened it.”
“A jewelry box is not the best place to store extra money.” Luke glanced around. “You should think about getting a safe.”
“Maybe, but I don’t like to live in fear. And the point is that it’s still there. What kind of burglar doesn’t even open the jewelry box?” Charlotte asked.
“A burglar who is looking for something in particular,” Luke said.
“But what?” Ally shook her head. “What could anyone possibly be looking for at the shop or here?”
“I have no idea.” Charlotte sat down on the end of the bed. “I have to tell you though, I’m starting to get worried. If someone broke into the shop, and now to my apartment, what’s to stop them from going to the cottage next?”
“Oh, Mee-Maw, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Actually, I think she does.” Luke settled his gaze on Ally. “It’s pretty clear that this is targeted now. With the first burglary I could believe that it was random and coincidence, but this is targeted. I think it would be best if we put a patrol car out in front of the cottage, and if you plan to stay here Charlotte we could put one here, too. It’s probably best that you don’t open the shop.”
“What?” Charlotte stood up from the bed and stared at him. “No, absolutely not. I’m not going to run and hide from some classless fiend.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “So, you’d rather put yourself at risk?”
“Luke.” Ally placed a hand on his arm and shook her head. Luke narrowed his eyes and looked from her to Charlotte.
“Let me tell you something, young man, I was taking care of myself long before you piddled in your first diaper, and I certainly will not be told what to do. It’s clear that whoever is doing this is not out to cause any harm to myself or Ally. If they were, then they wouldn’t have broken in when we weren’t at the shop and when I wasn’t home. Maybe they’re trying to scare us? Maybe they’re looking for something? But they are not trying to hurt us.”
Luke’s eyes widened with every word she spoke. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You don’t know that. You can’t just assume that a criminal isn’t going to hurt you.”
“Just like you assumed that Emma’s death was an accident? Do you still think so?” Charlotte’s cheeks reddened with passion as she studied him. “Luke, I like you, I really do. You’re a good man and a good officer of the law, but you’re too worried about what the evidence says and not concerned enough about what your gut tells you.”
“Actually, I am.” He glanced between the two women. “My gut tells me that you’re both in danger, and if you continue to run your own investigation it’s only going to get worse. Now, you are both very capable, I know that. But I have a little more experience with criminals. Don’t you think?”
Charlotte sighed and nodded. “I suppose you’re right about that, Luke. I’m sorry. I’m just a little tense. Forgive an old woman?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Luke?” Ally gasped with surprise.
“There aren’t any old women here.” He leaned forward and kissed Charlotte’s cheek. “Why don’t you two have a tea at the café and I’ll come and get you when the crime scene investigation is done?”
“Aw, so sweet. I’ve always told Ally that you’re a keeper. Isn’t that right, Ally?”
“Am I a keeper?” He flashed a grin in Ally’s direction.
“Absolutely.” Ally winked at him. Despite the seriousness of the mess that surrounded them it felt good to be a little lighthearted. “Let’s go, Mee-Maw. We don’t want to be in the way.”
Charlotte followed Ally out of the apartment. Ally took her grandmother’s hand as they walked.
“Will you stay at the cottage with me tonight?”
“Oh Ally, I don’t know.”
“Please?” Ally met her eyes. “I don’t want you to be alone and I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course, if you want me to be there.” Charlotte smiled.
As they had tea at the café, Ally’s mind fluctuated between figuring out who broke in, and figuring out who killed Emma. Could it be the same person? She assumed that it was, but why? Could it be because she and her grandmother were looking into Emma’s death?
“If this had something to do with Emma’s death and they were looking for something what do you think it could be?” Ally asked.
“The only thing I can think of is what we bought from the sale.”
“The pan, keyring and wooden box was everything we bought.”
“We need to look at them and see if we can work out why someone might want them,” Charlotte said.
“We’ll have to look at the pan when we get to the cottage. Let’s look at the keyring and box now.” Ally opened up her purse. She took out the keyring and looked at it.
“It’s very pretty?”
“Do you think it could be worth a lot?” Ally asked. “Maybe the gemstones are real.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it.” Charlotte studied it.
“And the box?” Ally pulled the box out of her purse and her grandmother looked at it.
“It’s lovely,” Charlotte said as she turned it over. “But there’s nothing in it. It’s just a box with a beautiful design.”
“Maybe, like the golf clubs it’s Gary’s and he was angry that she sold it,” Ally said.
“It’s possible, but then wouldn’t it be easier just to ask for it back.”
“Yes, I guess so, but who knows what is going through his head,” Ally said as she put the box along with the keyring back into her purse.
“Ally, do you think that we’ve gotten ourselves into something that we might not get out of?” Charlotte shot her a look of concern.
“As long as we are together, Mee-Maw, I don’t think that there’s anything that we can’t get out of.”
“I agree with that.”
“But I do think that we should be aware of what we’re dealing with.”
“What is your gut telling you?”
“It’s telling me that if Emma really was murdered, maybe it wasn’t just an argument that got out of hand as we’ve considered. Maybe her murder was planned and deliberate. There could be a lot more to this crime than we first suspected. We don’t know much about Emma’s history. It could be someone from her past, from her present that we didn’t know about, even someone she worked with at one time. We have almost nothing to go on.”
“Not nothing.” Charlotte shook her head. “We know that whoever did this is looking for something.”
“Or maybe they just wanted to warn us, scare us off.”
“Maybe,” Charlotte said. “You’re right though, it’s not looking like a crime of passion. If all the person wanted was Emma dead there would be no reason to come after us. Don’t you think?”
“So far they’ve struck the shop and your apartment. That feels very personal to me. Maybe we upset someone with the questions that we asked.”
“Maybe.”
“Like you always tell me, Mee-Maw, there’s no point to worrying.”
“You’re right.” She forced a smile. “I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of this soon enough. Ally smiled at her and gave her a warm hug. Even though both the shop and Charlotte’s apartment were in shambles, Ally really did believe what she said. She and her grandmother had always been able to figure things out.
“Ladies.” Luke walked up to them as they pulled away from their embrace. “They’ve finished the initial search. We can’t find what the motivation for the burglaries is. There must be a reason why they ransacked both the apartment and the shop, I am just not sure what that reason is. I’m going to find the connection though and take care of this.”
“It must be something to do with Emma’s death.”
“I don’t know that for sure.”
“Luke. You can’t be serious.” Ally placed her hands on her hips. “Of course it’s connected to Emma’s death.”
“Now wait a minute, we don’t know that. Jumping to conclusions could send us right down the wrong path. Right now we have the shop and the apartment ransacked. There’s nothing that connects that to Emma.”
“What about the fact that Jack’s room was ransacked?” As soon as the words flew out of her mouth Ally regretted them. She hadn’t intended to share that information with Luke, at least not just yet.
“What do you mean?” He locked his eyes to hers.
“Oh nothing. Never mind. I do think it’s connected though.” She bit into her bottom lip.
“Ally? Is there something you want to tell me?” He studied her.
“No, I just got confused. You don’t have to believe that it’s connected, but I do.”
“It was Gary, I know it.” Charlotte stood up from the table. “After you spoke to him he panicked and wanted to warn us off.”
“I’ll look into it. All right? If it was Gary, then I will find out. I’m not going to let this go. Anyone daring enough to cross the two of you is going to face the consequences.”
Ally smiled. “Thanks Luke.”
He nodded. “Meanwhile, it would be best if you stayed with Ally, Charlotte. I didn’t find any keys in the apartment, and you said you didn’t have them earlier. Do you have a key to the cottage on that keyring, too?”
“Yes, I do.” Charlotte frowned. “Where could I have left them?”
“I have a feeling that you didn’t leave them anywhere. I think someone took them out of your purse.”
“When?” Charlotte shook her head. “I can’t think of a time when I left my purse behind.”
“A skilled pickpocket can steal keys while you’re standing right in front of them. Can you think of anyone you know that acted strange around you?”
“No, no one,” Charlotte said thoughtfully.
“Okay, well if you think of anyone please let me know.”
“Okay. I will.”
“Also, I’ll be stationing a patrol car outside the cottage. I highly recommend that you keep the shop closed.”