Page 45 of Serve ’N’ Protect

“I think his eyes were blue. The glove on his hand was definitely blue. I couldn’t miss it right before he rammed it in my face.”

“Okay, then.” The trooper made another notation. “It’ll be up to the detectives as to whether or not they need to take your prints or send over a tech team.”

When Markus glared at her, it was obvious he didn’t believe her. He thought she was lying just so he didn’t have to give a print sample and risk his identity being discovered.

“Is anything missing?” one of the other police officers, Trooper Asher, asked.

Cassidy gasped. “Oh, no. My purse.” Hastily, she clumped into the kitchen where she’d left it on the counter. Not caring whether it was okay to touch anything, she dumped out the contents, relieved to find her wallet inside and still snapped closed. She opened it, releasing an audible breath when she glimpsed her one and only credit card and the cash she’d gotten from an ATM the other day. Money was so tight, every dollar mattered. Quickly, she counted the bills. “It’s all here. Cash. Credit card.”

At that statement, Markus’s glare turned to a frown, his eyes narrowing.

“Is there anything else that could be missing?” Trooper Asher prodded. “Jewelry?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think he made it upstairs, and I don’t own any jewelry that’s worth very much.” Not since she’d returned her engagement ring to Hugh, that was.

“What about a laptop?” This from the third officer, Trooper White, who’d remained silent until now.

For a moment, her mind went utterly blank. Her entire world was on that laptop.

Returning to the living room, her heart sank. Once neat stacks were now totally jumbled. Ledgers and invoices littered the floor. Biting her lip, Cassidy dropped the gel pack on the sofa and began shuffling documents aside left and right, not seeing the laptop. Her hands began to shake as she flipped over ledgers and papers, frantically searching and still coming up empty.

“No,” she breathed. “No, no, no, no!” It couldn’t be gone.

“Cassidy?” Seeming to sense she was about to explode, Markus came over. “What’s missing?”

“My laptop,” she cried, throwing up her hands. A new one would cost her between $500 and $1000, none of which she had to spare. Her shoestring budget was about to be decimated. “Without a laptop, I can’t finish the audit. If I can’t finish the audit, I won’t get paid.”

“Did you back anything up?” he asked. “Online or on a hard drive or anything?”

“Of course I did,” she snapped, louder than intended. He was only trying to help, and she had to remember that. “I have an external hard drive, but without a laptop to attach it to, the drive won’t help much.” With all the privileged information in the data, it wasn’t like she could walk into a library and use their computers. Not only would they not have her software, it would violate all kinds of confidentiality clauses. She wasn’t even willing to risk storing data in an online cloud system.

“Did he get the drive?”

Her jaw dropped as the horrible possibility took root. She rushed to the side table and yanked open the drawer. Relief washed over her and her muscles actually went weak as she held up the device for the police officers to see. “No. It’s right where it should be.” Now all she had to do was beg, borrow, or steal a laptop.

“Looks like he was interrupted when Ms. Morgan saw him,” Trooper Collins suggested. “Then when you broke the window,” she said to Markus, “he took off.”

“Yeah.” Markus’s eyes narrowed as he stroked his chin, deep in thought. “Could be.”

“If you want to come by the barracks tomorrow, you can file a stolen property report for the laptop,” Trooper Collins said in a sympathetic tone that told her it would be a waste of time. “If you still have the receipt, bring it with you.”

“Thanks.” Unable to stand a moment longer, she lowered to the sofa and put her face in her hands, hissing in a breath as her palm slammed into the growing goose egg on her cheek.

This was bad. Really bad. Talk about a vicious cycle. Not only was she cash poor, but she might have to sell her house. The house that she loved—the one she’d planned to start a family in—was a money-sucking pit of despair, needing repairs which would never happen in this century.

God help her if she had to move back in with her parents. She loved them, but taking a step backward in her life was something she could never do.

The cushion beside her sank, and Markus’s comforting arm came around her shoulders, once again tugging her to him. She sighed against his hard chest, wishing she could go to sleep and wake up to find this was all a bad dream.

“You’ll get through this,” he whispered against her head. “I’ll help you.”

She grunted. “How?”

“When the sun comes up, we’ll figure things out.”

We? Not you? The little pronoun had registered, but right now her brain was too exhausted to comprehend its full meaning.

“I’ll write up the report.” Trooper Collins flipped the cover on her pad and slipped it into her breast pocket. “Just give your name to the duty officer when you bring in your receipt.”