But all thoughts of their morning sex-fest fell by thewayside when her manager opened the door and she walked into her apartment.
Or what had been her apartment. There wasn’t much left of the place she remembered. The few pieces of furniture she’d had—mostly IKEA remainders—had been torn apart, with the stuffing pulled out and strewn across the floor or, in the case of the wood, broken into pieces. It was as if a cyclone had hit it.
But from the level of destruction, it was more than that. It felt almost malevolent. As if someone hadn’t been just looking for something but had wanted to destroy.
John swore.
Brittany felt oddly numb. It hadn’t been much of a home, but it had been the only one she had.
The manager, an older man who’d lost his wife a few years ago and seemed pretty checked out most of the time, seemed to suddenly see it as well. He turned a chair upright. “I didn’t want to disturb anything,” he apologized defensively.
“I understand completely, Mr. Polonsky. I’m sure the police had their investigation and you didn’t want to throw out anything that might be important.”
The old man was obviously relieved at the out she’d given him. “That’s right.”
“We can take it from here,” she said. “Joe is going to help me clean up.”
The manager took in the big, strong-looking SEAL, obviously concluded that she was in capable hands, and gave her a nod. “Good. Let me know if you need anything.”
He shut the door behind him, and Brittany looked around. “Lots of trash bags,” she said to herself.
Glancing up, she saw John watching her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Or I will be as soon as I get some new furniture.”
He must have picked up on the malevolent aspect ofthe destruction as well. “You’re safe, Brit. I won’t let anything happen to you. And there are a half-dozen guys watching this building right now. No one is getting in or out of here without us knowing it.”
She nodded, the reminder definitely making her feel better. But it wasn’t the half-dozen guys posted around the building that steadied her; it was John’s presence.
He swore again. “I never should have agreed to this. I’m going to call my guy and tell him it’s all off.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said, putting her hand on his chest. She wasn’t the only one who needed steadying. “It was just a little bit of a shock. I’m fine—or will be when we get some of this cleaned up. Okay?”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer and went to work. They spent the next hour clearing the worst of it, filling a few trash bags and salvaging what they could. A couch with one cushion, a couple wooden chairs, and her breakfast table. Fortunately, her dishes were mostly melamine and she only had a few broken coffee mugs that she had to toss, including a SAVE A REPORTER: BUYA NEWSPAPERgag gift that Mac had given her for her birthday last year.
There was only one time the tears that she’d kept tight in her throat threatened to spill, and that was when she saw her clothes all over the floor of her bedroom and realized someone had gone through her underwear, socks, pajamas, and everything else in her drawers. That made it personal. Violating.
Fortunately, John was still in the living room and didn’t witness the moment of weakness or he might have called it off for good this time.
She threw all the clothes in a laundry bag to be washed, but she wondered if she’d wear any of them again.
Once the worst of it was straightened, John asked her to see if she could find anything missing. What limitedjewelry she had—a few necklaces and earrings that had belonged to her mother—had been tossed on the floor, but thankfully appeared undamaged. This hadn’t been a robbery; it had been a hunt.
She didn’t have much by way of electronics, but the TV and the alarm clock that served triple purpose by functioning as a phone dock and stereo speaker had been knocked over but seemed okay.
Her desk mostly served as a place to rest her laptop. She didn’t store files at home, so nothing important would have been taken. Her personal papers consisted of bank and credit card statements and tax documents. Nothing worthwhile there. The would-be thief must have agreed because those appeared to be opened and strewn across her desk—the only pieces of upright furniture in her apartment aside from the bed—but intact.
She panicked for a minute when she couldn’t find the silver frame with the photo of her parents that she kept on the desk, but it was on the floor by her bed. The glass was broken, but she cleared it away and placed the frame back on her desk.
She didn’t realize John was watching her. “You look like your mom.”
She nodded, smiling wistfully at the woman who looked so young and happy in the picture. “Who do you look like?”
He didn’t answer right away. “My dad.”
Clearly, he wasn’t happy about that. “Well, I looked like my mom, but I was more like my dad. I’m sure you’re nothing like your father in the ways that matter, John.”
He didn’t look so sure, but he let the subject drop. “Anything missing? Laptop? Anything else like that?”
