Chapter 1
Kara
The Orlando heat clings to me along with the sweat I’ve worked up since I received the call from the security company. I pull up in front of my house, just behind the police cruisers. Red and blue lights flash across the neighboring houses through the front windows, throwing restless color across my entryway walls.
Two police cruisers sit parked along the curb, engines running. A security van blocks half of my driveway. And suddenly the reality of this no longer feels distant or abstract. Someone broke into my house.
I rush inside, feeling as if I can fix something that’s broken, but I don’t know what it is. One officer near the kitchen notices me immediately.
“Ms. Stone?”
I nod automatically, though my throat feels too tight to speak properly.
The officer softens his expression. “I’m Officer Delgado. I’m sorry you had to come home to this tonight.”
Home.The word barely fits anymore.
I slowly close the front door behind me and stare past him into the open-concept kitchen I spent almost three years designing down to the smallest detail. Copper cookware hangs above the marble island. The cookbook drafts I left are still stacked beside the espresso machine.
Nothing looks destroyed. One thing to be grateful for.
A second officer emerges from the hallway leading toward the bedrooms.
“We finished the sweep a while ago,” he says. “No sign anyone’s still inside.”
My pulse skips unpleasantly. Still inside.
I grip the strap of my bag tighter as I walk farther into the kitchen, eyes and ears on full alert. My nervous system is on overdrive. Every sound suddenly feels amplified inside the house. But that’s what I need to do … notice things. What has been taken?
The stool nearest the patio doors sits slightly crooked. One cabinet above the stove hangs partially open. And then my eyes land on the knife block beside the prep sink.
I stop cold. Every knife is there. Except one. A hollow feeling opens in my chest.
Officer Delgado notices immediately. “Ms. Stone?”
I step closer slowly, staring at the empty slot near the center of the block. My chef’s knife. The expensive Japanese one engraved with my initials. The one I use almost every single day.
“That knife is missing,” I whisper.
Both officers straighten immediately.
“Can you describe it for us?”
I nod automatically, but my mind already feels disconnected from my body somehow. Like I’m standing outside myself watching this happen to someone else.
Someone stood in my kitchen. They touched my things. Someone walked through my house while I smiled for cameras on set in the studio kitchen.
Officer Delgado writes something in a small notebook. “We’ll add it to the report.”
I barely hear him. Because now I’m staring toward the dark hallway beyond the kitchen. Toward my bedroom. My stomach twists hard.
“What exactly happened?” I finally ask.
The officers exchange a quick glance.
“There was no forced entry,” Delgado explains carefully. “Whoever entered the property disabled the alarm system sometime this afternoon.”
“That’s impossible.”
