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  “You have three sisters, Bee!” Anthony laughed.

  “Yeah, but I like Julie. That’s what I meant. She’s the sister I never had!”

  Bee and I joined Anthony, laughing loudly. Maybe too loudly. It was my “Fuck You!” to whoever was doing this.

  Screw you! I said to myself. You can do your worst. I have my family, and we’ll get through this.

  Maybe it was false bravado or over confidence, but it was the best I had at the moment, and I was going to run with it.

  “Oh, Jules, here you go.” Anthony slid some papers across to me. “Last night Jeffries let me go into the office to get this for you.”

  I took the papers and saw that it was our insurance policy. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Thank you, A. What would I do without you?”

  “I shudder to think,” he told me dryly.

  I rolled up the insurance papers and swatted him. He laughed and moved his chair back out of the way. This was my family. They had my back, and right then, in that moment, I felt like I could do anything.

  Chapter 32

  The house was a mess. He figured it had sat empty for at least 2 years, maybe more. At some point, probably during one of the bad storms that passed through, a tree had crashed through one of the windows in the living room. That hole let in the elements, and the flooring in the living room had started to rot away. The wallpaper was peeling, and the house felt damp all the time. But it served his purpose. He crawled there a while ago. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been living there, months maybe.

  It offered him a place to heal, to get better. He had collected things over the time he’d been there—sheets stolen from someone’s clothesline; a blanket he’d taken from someone’s car once it got colder. Cans of food, bread bags, and other odds and ends all littered the house. But it was this latest item that he held to his chest, that he slept with.

  He looked at the picture, held securely in it’s frame. Seven people stared back at him—four boys and three girls. Or rather one woman and two girls. It was a professional picture and should have looked stiff and fake, but the 7 people in it looked… natural. He couldn’t come up with a better word. They looked real. Happy.

  He was drawn to the gorgeous woman in the picture, and he traced her face with his finger. A feeling of peace settled over him, and he laid down—to sleep and finish healing.

  The Woman was coming, and she would bring death with her.

  Chapter 33

  “You want to tell me what’s going on, Julie?” Joe Angelis was standing in my bathroom looking at the damage.

  We returned home to the mess on Sunday, and it was now Tuesday. Detective Jeffries, true to his word, had pushed the crime scene techs to get what they needed so that I could start the process of cleaning up our home. He seemed to understand that I was going to take a stand, and not be run out.

  Aftermath Cleaning—apt name—had come out first thing Tuesday morning. They helped me pick up the pictures that could be salvaged, and then cleaned up the glass that had come from the destroyed frames. They cleaned up the broken shards of my bathroom mirror and soaked up all the water that had come from the destroyed toilet. The tile in the bathroom looked okay to me, but I wanted to be sure. The hardwood flooring in our bedroom was another story. It looked soft and almost sunken. I was pretty sure something would need to be done with it. They removed the pieces of my destroyed toilet and broke down the shower doors. The glass, though it was tempered, had also been broken. They disposed of my shredded mattress, and I had gone through my clothes. There wasn’t a whole lot I could salvage. My shoes were left untouched for the most part, but almost everything I had hanging in my closet had been shredded. All I kept in my dresser in the bedroom was my underwear and workout clothes. They were fine. Brian had built shelving units in the closet for me, and I kept my casual clothes in there. The drawers had been pulled open and clothes ripped out of them. My closet was a lost cause, though the shelves themselves seemed okay.

  When the company started to get some business and really take off, Brian set something up with the company lawyer that would allow some of the senior employees to buy me out should something happen to him. They would then take over the company. It was all over my head, so don’t ask me the details. About two months after Brian passed away, I made the decision to go ahead with that contingency plan. I didn’t know enough about construction to think that I could make a go of it, and I didn’t want something Brian had worked so hard on to fall apart at my hands.

  Joe Angelis, our old college friend, and his brother, Luke, stepped up, along with Isaiah Wright, who had been the very first person Brian had hired. The three of them now owned the company, though they had kept the name—Klevan Construction. It was sort of a tribute to their boss, but most importantly their friend.

  When I had called on Monday morning, Joe said that he would come out as soon as I could get back in the house, just let him know. And sure enough, when I texted him that the cleaning crew had left, he dropped everything and pulled up to the house less than 30 minutes later. He and Isaiah stood in my ruined bedroom, surveying the damage.

  “What the hell is going on Jules?” Joe asked me with concern.

  I didn’t have an answer for Joe’s question. “I don’t know what’s going on, Joe. I wish I did. I came home to this.”

  Joe and Isaiah exchanged looks.

  “Julie, whoever did this… well, this is bad,” Isaiah told me. He looked at me with his soft brown eyes. He reminded me of Anthony. Same coffee colored skin, same barrel chest, though Isaiah was a bit older, and his mostly salt hair proved that. “The toilet is demolished. And the shower?”

  I didn’t know what to tell them. I didn’t have any answers, and the police had nothing new to tell me.

  I looked at the men we had known for years—men Brian had trusted with his company, his legacy—and I knew, like our dear friends, they would take a bullet for me. I sat on my ruined bed and put my head in my hands. My shoulders shook, and I just let the tears come. As strong as I wanted to be, it was still overwhelming.

  The insurance company had an adjuster come out the day before and talk to the police. And though they assured me all of it was covered under our homeowners policy, it still left me with the task of coordinating all the repairs and replacing what was lost.

  The cleaning company was amazing, so professional, but I still had to stand by and watch as the memories were swept up.

  The door was being repaired by Luke. Sam and Ben had picked out a door very similar to the one we had, but thicker, stronger. And it made me sad that those were suddenly two qualities I needed to consider.

  Amy had searched through Brian’s files and found the pictures he used to make the canvases of the kids and I in the kitchen, and she was having those reprinted for me.

  Everything could be replaced, except for what mattered most—my jewelry box and some of my turquoise jewelry. None of it was very expensive. It was the memories. Fortunately, I still had the bracelet Sam had given me that first Mother’s Day. A pair of earrings had also survived, as well as one of the rings the girls had picked out for me the last Mother’s Day Brian was with me. They weren’t all lost, but the box my husband had lovingly made for me was another matter.

  It appeared that he had told all our friends about it. Bee and Amy had cried with me when I told them how it had been smashed, and even Joe, Isaiah, and Luke looked at me with sad eyes when they came into my room and saw me picking up the pieces of the ruined gift. They’d each given me a hug and assured me that whatever needed to be done, they would take care of it.

  Isaiah came over to me and squatted down in front of me. “Baby girl, we’re gonna fix this.”

  Baby girl—my own father had never called me something so endearing. I had heard Brian call the girls that more than once. For just a moment, I allowed Isaiah to take care of me, to coddle me. My father was gone, as was Brian’s. Isaiah was the closest thing I had to a f
ather figure now.

  “All of this. All of this. Whoever this piece of shit was... Whoever it was that came in here and violated the sanctity of your home was just a coward. They had to ruin something beautiful, but we’re gonna take care of it.” He held my hands tightly in his, and the callouses offered comfort. “Promise us you won’t worry about that?”

  I smiled at him and was suddenly overwhelmed with all the love our friends had shown us. I threw myself in his arms and thanked him. “Thank you, Isaiah. Thank you so much! Thank you for just being here.”

  He laughed and hugged me back. “Girl, I’m too old for you.”

  Joe laughed with him.

  Isaiah stepped back, taking my face in his hands. He wiped the tears from my cheeks. “It’s gonna be okay, baby girl. It’s gonna be okay.”

  “Agh! Why couldn’t you be my dad?” I had to join in the laughter, and it felt good. I stepped to the side, but kept my arm around Isaiah’s waist. “Okay. Tell me what we’re looking at here.”

  Joe looked at the flooring in the bathroom. “The tile’s okay. Luke said the damage to the ceiling downstairs is most likely from the bathroom.”

  I figured that, but didn’t know the extent. “How bad?”

  “Drywall’s gonna have to be replaced, not a problem.”

  “And the flooring in here? It’s buckling, isn’t it?” I asked.

  Isaiah looked at it. He had installed the original flooring. The flooring had been our first real splurge—a beautiful solid hardwood—a dark, distressed oak. We had foregone date nights for almost five months to pay for it, and I had never regretted it once. I loved the flooring and seeing the damage to it broke my heart.

  Isaiah bent down to look more closely at the flooring. “There’s buckling, and the easiest solution is going to be replacing it. Just ripping it up and redoing it.”

  I sighed. That’s what I figured. “Do you think we can get this flooring again?”

  “We’ll find something, Julie.” Isaiah stood back up. “The shower doors shouldn’t be an issue either. That was a special order from Lowe’s, and I’m betting we can even get the exact same pair.”

  We had just done some work on the bathroom last year, so I was glad to hear that we shouldn’t have too many problems with replacements.

  “We can probably have all this done in a few days, but we’re gonna have to look for the flooring. Maybe just hope we can find something that will match up.” Joe was jotting down some notes. “And Julie, while we’re here, anything else you need done, we can take care of it.”

  The house had always been a work in progress. I was always coming up with ideas, and Brian would do them as we had time and money. The kitchen was my latest project. Brian had gotten me a Viking range at a great price. A friend of his had been doing a kitchen remodel when the client changed her mind at the last minute, so Brian snatched it up. We had also found a Sub-Zero fridge with glass doors—my dream fridge—at a kitchen demo Brian and the guys did a few years ago. Amazingly, the client gave it to us. We had repainted the kitchen cabinets, and refinished the flooring. All that was left was a backsplash.

  “Come on,” Joe teased. “I can see your mind working. What is it?”

  “Kitchen backplash?” I shared.

  “Pshh, no problem. You pick out what you want. We’ll get it and put it up. Done. Anything else?”

  I figured that moment was as good a time as any. “Brian’s workshop. Can one of you go through it with me? He has a lot of stuff down there—stuff I don’t think we need, but maybe you guys want it. Or you could use it for work.”

  Luke walked in while we were talking. “Julie, are you sure you want to go through all that? You don’t think the boys might want it someday?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s time. I asked Sam, and he went through some of the tools. We have a basic tool kit—hammer, wrenches, stuff like that—but some of the wood working equipment—things like that—I would rather someone use it then it just sit there.”

  “If you’re sure, I’ll look it over with you.” Isaiah stepped up, and I thanked him, yet again.

  “I have a replacement toilet in my truck. We can get that installed now. The mirror and the shower doors will take a few days, and the flooring, we’ll start looking right away. I’m sure we can have something in a few days,” Joe told me.

  “The ceiling downstairs is gonna be messy, but a couple guys and I can get it done in a day. Best thing would be to move everything off the kitchen counters,” Luke told me. “We can get what we need and handle that tomorrow.”

  “I’m not taking you guys off another job, am I?” I asked them, though they probably wouldn’t say anything if I were.

  “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll handle it,” Isaiah assured me.

  I knew they would.

  Chapter 34

  “This is some serious bullshit!” Ethan Jeffries had been a police officer—a detective actually—for over 20 years, and he’d never run into something like this. “You’re telling me you have nothing? No fingerprints, footprints, blood, nothing?”

  “Umm… no sir.” The lab tech was all but cowering in the face of Jeffries’s frustration. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Excuse me? What did you say?” Jeffries was well aware of the fact that he was being a prick. He cupped his hand to his ear and leaned into the scared young man. “What was that? You have nothing to tell me? Would it be redundant if I said ’no shit’ again?”

  The lab tech, his coat said Hogarty, cleared his throat and tried again. “Sir, I’ve run the samples three times, and they must have been contaminated somehow.”

  Jeffries took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Okay. Contaminated? Why?”

  “We have hair that doesn’t belong to anyone that lives in the house. But the DNA that we were able to pull from the sample… Well, something isn’t right.”

  “Okay, Hogarty. You can see I’m trying really hard to reign it in here. Give me something.”

  “Well, it’s animal hair,” Hogarty finally spit out.

  “Alright. What was so bad about that?” Jeffries was now confused as to why the tech didn’t want to part with that information.

  “But, there’s human DNA in it.” Hogarty flinched when he said this.

  What a pussy! Who hired this kid? Jeffries thought to himself.

  “So you think there’s some cross contamination? Did you clean the...” He couldn’t remember the name of the machine they used to check hair samples. “The machine. Whatever it is you use?”

  And that is when Hogarty got his hackles up. He was a shy, young man, but the one area where his confidence reigned supreme was when it came to his lab. He was immaculate when it came to his equipment, aware that solving a case might come down to his work.

  “Detective, the mistake did not lie with me. My work and my lab is above reproach. I will guarantee you that. If there was a mistake, it came from the techs on the scene.”

  Damned if Jeffries didn’t believe the little squirt. He blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? Look, I just wish you could’ve seen this woman, her house. Her husband coached my boy about 5 years ago. Good guy. He was hit by a car about a year ago—left behind a wife and five kids.”

  “That’s whose house was broken into?” Hogarty was pained for the family he knew nothing about.

  “Their house wasn’t broken into. It was violated. Whoever did this, they have a problem with this family. There’s something else here. I know it. But this young woman... Julie Klevan. That’s her name. We owe it to her to figure this out.”

  Hogarty looked Jeffries in the eye. “I understand that. I want to give you answers, but either the hair samples were contaminated, or I’m looking at something new here. I can run my tests again, but I’m going to come up with the same answers.”

  Jeffries nodded and tried to come up with a new angle. “Fingerprints? Anything there?”

  “We’ve eliminated the family. Of c
ourse we found prints from everyone living in the house. I have prints from a Beetrice Ransom and an Anthony Ransom as well.”

  Jeffries waved that away. “No, they’re good friends of the family. Nothing else?”

  “Two other prints—neither of them belong to anyone in the system.”

  Jeffries jumped on the news. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Go with that. See if you can find anything. That’s got to be our guy.” Jeffries was hopeful. He wanted to give this family something.

  “There’s one more thing, Detective.” Hogarty turned and picked up a file from his desk. “One of the scene techs found something in the kitchen.”

  Jeffries was aware that he held his breath, and he mentally crossed his fingers.

  “It says here that some of the pictures were slashed, correct?” Hogarty asked.

  “Yeah, but not just the pictures,” Jeffries explained. “The mattress in the master bedroom was shredded.”

  “A nail was found in the kitchen—”

  Jeffries held up his hand. “A nail? What, like off some sort of weird homemade tool?”

  Hogarty looked confused for a second, and then it dawned on him. “Oh. No, Detective. Not a nail, nail. A fingernail. A claw. It belongs to a wolf.”

  For only the second time in his life, Jeffries’s blood ran cold.

  Chapter 35

  I slept on the bottom bunk in Jimmy’s room. Jimmy had willingly sacrificed his bed to his mom.

  “Ugh!” I stretched and tried to work the kinks out of my back. “I miss my memory foam!”

  Jimmy laughed above me. “I bet. Can I get a new mattress?”

  “It might be time. How old is this thing?”

  “I don’t know. It was Carey’s.”

  I sat up, careful not to smack my head on the bottom of the top bunk.

  * * *

  It was Friday—almost a week since we had gotten home and been confronted with the mess. True to their word, Luke and a few of the guys that worked for the company had already repaired the kitchen ceiling. It took them less than a day. They even replaced the smashed toilet.