Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Thirty-Three

After calling in a robbery in progress, Josie parked across the street under a neighbor’s large oak tree. She got her bulletproof vest out of the back of her Escape, strapping it on before checking her Glock. After that, she circled the house twice, her steps silent, her movements covered by darkness. She knew where her own motion sensor lights were and carefully avoided them. It only took one lap to figure out that whoever was in her house had broken in through one of her kitchen windows.

Anger boiled inside her, warring with the anxiety that raged beside it. Who was in her house? What were they doing in there? Just the thought of strangers in her private space, touching her things, felt like a violation. She had bought the house with her own money after she’d left Ray. It was huge and airy, with plenty of windows to let in the sunshine—the exact opposite of the coffinlike trailer she had grown up in. This home held only good memories for her. It was her safe place in a world that never ceased to horrify her—her sanctuary. Or it used to be, until tonight.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the arrival of two marked units, followed closely by Noah in his own vehicle. Vest already on, Noah jogged over to her, checked his weapon, and signaled for the uniformed officers to join them. They formed a small knot behind her Escape, heads bent together as Josie gave instructions. “There are two points of entry—front and back. The screen door out back is locked from the inside, so there’s no getting in there from the outside—at least not quietly. They broke in through a kitchen window out back. I have no idea how many are in there, or if they’re armed. I couldn’t hear anything. Please exercise extreme caution.” She held out a set of keys, which Noah took from her. “We’ll go in the front using these. Lieutenant Fraley and me on one team, and two of you on another. You two stay out here and keep eyes on the house. Lieutenant, you have a notebook?”

Noah pulled a folded notepad from his back pocket. One of the other officers handed her a pen. She quickly scratched out a diagram of the layout of her house. “Lights are on here,” she said, pointing to the square representing her bedroom. “Fraley and I go this way, you two go that way; we clear the first floor and then go to the second and proceed down this hall.”

Nods all around.

Adrenaline shot through Josie’s bloodstream as she and Noah crept up to the front door, followed by two of her uniforms. She’d done this dozens of times before, but never in her own home. Again, fear pushed itself to the front of her mind.

“Boss.” Noah’s whisper interrupted her thoughts.

She had to keep focus. This was just a regular house with potential burglars inside it. That was how she had to think of it. She clamped a hand onto Noah’s shoulder, and he slid a key into her front door. The door swung open without a sound, and they padded over the threshold in a column, two teams splitting off, moving soundlessly until they met back up at the steps, giving all-clear signals. No one was on the first floor.

As they ascended the stairs, Josie heard the sound of voices—two, from what she could gather. Noah must have thought the same, lifting his hand to signal with his index and middle fingers—two perpetrators—then he pointed down the hall toward the last door, Josie’s bedroom, where a sliver of light outlined the doorframe.

The voices coming from within were male. “Yo, is he coming back or what?”

“Nah, he said he got what he needed. We’ll just mess this shit up real good and get going. He said this bitch ain’t ever home anyway.”

There were three empty rooms between them and the master bedroom—the bathroom, the guest bedroom, and a room full of surveillance equipment Josie used as a home office. Stealthily they checked each of the rooms with flashlights, but each one was dark and empty. Finally Noah stopped outside of Josie’s bedroom, and the rest of them stilled behind him. Inside her chest, Josie’s heart took two extra beats. Josie gave the hand signal for go, and then they were through the door with a bang, weapons panning the room, voices hollering, “Freeze! Police! Hands up! Get down on the ground!”

Two teenage boys in sweatpants and hoodies froze, dumbstruck. One of them stood on top of her bed, a can of red spray paint in one hand. On the wall above her headboard he had sprayed the letters S, L, and U. Josie guessed the last letter was probably a T. Across from him, the other boy had been yanking drawers out of her dresser and dumping the contents all over the floor. He immediately threw his hands up. The other boy dropped the can in his hand and made to jump down from the bed, only to fall face-first onto the carpet. Within seconds, the uniformed officers had both of them cuffed and ready to be transported to the station. Both teens were read their rights, then patted down, but they had none of Josie’s personal property on them.

“Yo, dude,” Spray Paint said as the officer pushed him into the hallway. “I hit my head. Hey, be careful all right?”

Her officer said nothing, and the sound of the other boy telling his friend to shut the hell up faded as they were both led out of the house. Josie stood, gun at her side, eyes roving every inch of the room. The word WHORE had been spray-painted on one of the other walls. Most of her pillows had been slashed open, their stuffing pulled out and tossed all over the room. Clothes had been pulled from her closet and strewn everywhere. Muddy boot prints punctuated her clean carpet and her bedspread. The mirror over her dresser was shattered. Her nightstands were overturned, the lamps broken but still lit, casting strange shadows across the destruction. Her jewelry box lay in pieces on the dresser-top.

She strode over and sifted through the remains. “Oh God,” she whispered.

Noah put a hand on her shoulder. “Boss,” he said, “I think we should have the evidence response team come through. You heard what I heard in the hall, right? There was someone else working with them. You can come through after and figure out if anything is missing.”

“My jewelry,” she said. She didn’t have much, but she had amassed a small collection of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets over the years. Gifts from her grandmother, Ray, and her fiancé Luke when they’d been together. Pieces she’d bought for herself for different events. Most of it she could live without, but there were three pieces of jewelry she owned that she really cared about.

“My wedding ring,” she croaked. “My engagement ring from Luke and the diamond pendant Ray gave me when we graduated from high school. They’re gone.”

She couldn’t stop staring at the dark wooden shards spread across her dresser. The jewelry box hadn’t even had a lock on it. There was no need to break it, but they had anyway. Why? Why so much destruction? The rest of the house was untouched. Why had they destroyed the room in her home that she loved most? What had they done with her jewelry?

“Those little bastards,” Josie blurted. Finally, she looked at Noah.

His face wore an uncomfortable expression. He wanted to comfort her, she realized, but he had a job to do, and he knew she would want him to do his job first. She holstered her weapon but remained in place, staring at Noah, focusing on his face instead of the detritus around her. Gently, he took hold of her elbow and guided her out of the room.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Boss,” he said as they moved down the stairs, his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath tickling her hair. “I promise.”