“It looks okay,” Shiloh said in a strange, small voice that made my stomach clench. “It looks okay.”
I gritted my teeth.
“There’s been an incident…” the cops had said back at the house.
I wanted more than anything for it all to be okay, but my gut told me it was bad. Real fucking bad.
I followed the cops around to the back parking lot, trying to bury my own rising nightmares at the sight of the red and blue lights. My only goal was to get Shiloh through this and then fix whatever the fuck needed fixing. All of it. Whatever it was, I’d make it right for her somehow.
In the back lot, we climbed out of the car, and I went to Shiloh’s side. She didn’t look at me or anyone else but walked tall and silent behind the cops to the rear door of the shop, to the first sign of damage. The wood around the lock had been pried away with a crowbar and the knob itself smashed off.
“They got in here,” said one officer—his name tag read Tran—leading us in. The lights in the back room were on; everything looked intact. He nodded at the boxes of inventory—Shiloh’s life’s work. “Did they take anything?”
Shiloh shook her head. “Looks okay,” she said in that same strange voice. A flicker of hope lit up her eyes, but Tran shook his head.
“I know this is hard, but you need to see the rest.”
She nodded again, and we followed him into the shop that was dim.
“Responding officers made their initial inspection and dusted for prints, though to be honest, there wasn’t much to dust.” He looked at Shiloh with a kind, sympathetic expression. “Brace yourself.”
He flicked on the light, and Shiloh made a sound I hoped to never hear again as long as I fucking lived. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she stared.
Letitia let out a little cry, and Rudy threw his hands up. “Good goddamn.”
I said nothing, the rage burning me from the inside out. I could hardly breathe, never mind speak.
Motherfucking sons of shit-licking assholes…
Glittering under the pot lights Shiloh had installed during the shop’s renovation was an ocean of shattered glass. Every single display was smashed, including the front-facing glass on the cabinet that served as her cash register desk, the rings glittering with shards. The walls and floors were tagged with black spray paint in random zigzags and lines, the faces of the women in the artwork blacked out, and what was left of the display boxes was marked with haphazard sprays.
Shiloh had been so careful with every penny of the start-up business loan, keeping costs down and using her own talents to makesimple things beautiful. She let me pay for a fraction of what I wanted to spend of my inheritance, insisting on doing as much as she could by herself.
And now she stood in the center of the rubble of her dreams that had, a few hours ago, been perfect.
I moved beside her, glass crunching under my boots, not knowing what to say or do.
“Who would do such a thing?” Rudy asked.
“That’s what we’re hoping you’ll be able to tell us,” the other cop—Murray—said, his notepad out. “Did you remove all your items from the window displays before close of business?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Anything else look taken?”
She stared blankly at the jewelry in the smashed and sprayed displays, covered in glass, some pieces shattered too.
“Don’t know,” she said dully. “Don’t think so.”
He frowned. “Not a robbery then. Just straight mayhem. Whoever the perp was, they only wanted to cause damage.”
And then a ball of pure ice seemed to slam into my chest, making my blood run cold.
We’re not done with you, a voice screeched in my memory.You’ll pay. In the way that hurts you the most.
I looked at the woman beside me. Hurting Shiloh was how to hurt me the most.
Fuck. Oh fuck, no.