He ended the call and immediately dialed Theo.
“I need someone to cover the rest of my shift on set. Zee took my truck and it just got broken into.”
Theo didn’t hesitate. “I’ll send someone.”
Church was already striding toward the grip, Luke—the young kid who liked looking at Zee too much. As he approached, the guy looked up.
“I need your vehicle. Now.”
* * * * *
How did this happen?
One minute Zee had been walking out of the little shop with an armful of yoga mats and a bag of grippy socks, thinking about the kiss Church had pressed to her forehead before she left the set.
She’d never imagined something as simple as a peck on the forehead could feel…sexy.
But the warmth of it had lingered long after she’d driven into town, leaving her smiling like an idiot while she wandered the aisles searching for supplies.
Then she stepped outside and saw the truck.
The driver’s side window was shattered.
Glass glittered across the pavement.
For a second she just stood there, her brain refusing to make sense of what she was seeing. Then the realization hit her.
It was happening again.
Panic splintered through her chest so fast it punched the air from her lungs. The yoga mats slipped from her arms and thudded hollowly on the sidewalk while she stumbled closer to the truck.
The window was completely blown out, the jagged edges of glass clinging to the frame. Shards littered the seat and floorboard.
Her hands started shaking.
Not again.
She fumbled for her phone and dialed the police first. Then Church.
She couldn’t force out the words when he answered, but the patrol car pulled in with its lights flashing. And luckily, the officer took the phone and explained to Church what happened.
The officer was calm and polite. He asked if she was hurt and to step away from the broken glass while he took a look inside the truck.
Another officer joined them shortly after, and suddenly Zee was standing beside Church’s vehicle answering question after question. Each one was the same as ones she’d answered before. And that same sense of hopelessness that nothing would be done, that the perpetrator wouldn’t be found, flooded her.
She tried to answer, but frustration kept creeping into her voice. “Nothing was visible,” she insisted. “There was nothing to steal.”
The officer nodded while writing in his notepad.
He asked where she’d come from, and she told him about the movie set. That came with a dozen more questions about any people who might have followed her, or if she had any problems with the crew.
“No. Everyone is really nice.”
She thought about telling them that this had happened before—in another town. And nothing was ever determined after that time either. Or the time after that.
Tears bottled in her throat, leaving it aching. It was all too obvious that she was a target in those places because they didn’tbreak into the Porsche on one side of her. Or the Land Rover in the opposite row. They broke into her old Ford.
The crimes weren’t random. They were all connected to her.
