I stand frozen in the doorway, breath fogging in the chill.
My hands shake so hard the keys jingle like sleigh bells.
Jared.
I know it’s him the way I know the scent of snow before it falls.
His greasy fingerprints are all over this even if it’s purely in a figurative sense.
This is revenge for the hardware-store fight, for getting him in trouble with his superiors even though I had no hand in any of it.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
I don’t know why the first number I call isn’t the police or my dad.
I don’t even know why when I put the phone up to my ear and Callum answers that the tears begin to fall down my cheeks. But the moment he hears the first sniffle, there’s a shuffle on the other end of the line.
“We’ll be right there. Where are you?”
I managed to get out, “at the shop,” before I completely dissolve into tears.
After that, I dial 911 with numb fingers.
My voice trembles as I give the dispatcher my name, my address, and what little I can piece together between ragged breaths.
The officer who arrives—Officer Jennifer Ramirez, a woman I actually went to high school with back in the day—arrives at the same time the guys do. She takes one look at my face, the crime scene, and her expression softens.
“Oh, Noelle, I’m sorry.”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes out behind me. “What the hell happened?”
Someone’s arm comes around my waist to pull me back from the doorway, Grant’s I realize after a minute, just as another cruiser pulls up. “Someone broke in.”
Ramirez steps over a pile of smashed ornaments, her boots crunching loudly, making my entire body wince at the sound. “We’ll dust for prints, check for footage from the street cam, but…”
She doesn’t finish, though she doesn’t need to.
We both know the street cam on my side has been broken since last winter.
And we also both know that unfortunately Jared’s smart enough to wear gloves.
The next hour unfolds in a haze.
They take photos, measurements, statements from me as I recount trying to open the door and finding everything.
I print my name where they tell me to, sign my signature with a shaky scrawl at the end to affirm it, but my chest feels hollow.
“We’re going to do what we can. But without physical evidence linking him, we can’t make any arrests. We’ll increase patrols around the area. Make sure whoever did this doesn’t come back for round two,” Ramirez says gently.
Patrols… As if that’s somehow going to glue together everything that’s been ruined.
By the time the cruisers pull away, the sun is high in the sky, mocking me with its cheer.
I move through the shop slowly, Grant’s hand in mine as he guides me.
With every footstep of glass that crunches under my shoes, my heart sinks a little further.
Christmas is three weeks away.
