Into the Garden (Wildflowers 5)

I followed her down the hallway to the kitchen. As soon as I turned on the light, we both stopped dead in our tracks and stared. The rear door was wide open and it was obvious from the chips of wood on the floor that it had been forced. Star turned to me and shook her head.

"It can't be. No," she said.

My heart was pounding so hard, I thought my chest might just explode. I actually couldn't speak. My throat was that tight and my feet felt nailed to the floor.

Star moved first, slowly, glancing back at me, and then reaching the door and opening it further.

"Get that flashlight," she ordered. "Cat, c'mon." I think I whimpered like a mouse.

"Cat!"

I moved as quickly as I could to the drawer, seized the flashlight, and thrust it at her. She took it quickly and aimed the beam outside, running the light quickly toward Geraldine's grave. I inched up beside her and, leaning on my crutch, gazed out. Nothing had been disturbed. I think we both released a lung full of boiling hot air.

"For a minute I thought we were in a Stephen King movie," Star said, and then turned to the door with more scrutinizing eyes. She ran her fingers along the jamb. "Whoever did it just pried it out without concern. You've been burglarized, girl."

"What did they take?" I wondered aloud.

We looked at each other and both thought about the safe.

"Jade closed it and locked it again, but we took the money and the jewelry out," I reminded her. "And I took it with us to your house in my purse. All we left inside the safe were the documents."

Star led the way through the house, up the stairs, and into what had been Geraldine's room. We paused in the closet doorway and I pulled the chain to turn on the over- head fixture. Again, we both gasped.

The safe was gone.

"Whoever it was couldn't get it open and decided to just carry it off and maybe blow it open someplace else," Star imagined aloud.

"It was heavy."

"Yeah, but not that heavy." She gazed around the empty room and freshly painted black walls. "What else could they take?"

"I don't know. There isn't much that's worth a lot," I said.

Nevertheless, we went to check my room. This time I gasped aloud when I opened the door. My room had been torn apart: dresser drawers opened and emptied, my bedspread pulled down and cast on the floor, the mattress pushed off the bedsprings, the closet open and clothing tossed about.

"Who would pull a bed apart like that? No burglar I know," Star remarked. She stared at me as my eyes widened with a terrifying thought. Then she nodded. It was as if she could read my mind. "You think it was him?"

I couldn't keep the tears from escaping my lids. They were cold tears, tears of fear rather than tears of sorrow.

"He must have come by, seen the house was dark and tried to get in. Geraldine changed the locks after she threw him out because she was worried he had an extra key somewhere."

"So he broke in the back and came up here because he knew about the money, probably," Star continued. "When he couldn't get into the safe, he just carried it off." She gazed around my room. "Why did he tear your room apart? What else was he looking for?" she wondered.

I started to shake my head and stopped, shifting my eyes guiltily away.

"What?" she cried. "Damn, girl, don't be keeping secrets from me now, not after all this!"

I nodded, fighting to get the breath to speak. She waited, impatiently.

"Remember when I told you all about the trip he took me on, that time up in Santa Barbara?"

"Yeah, sure," she said. "So?"

"I was ashamed to talk about the pictures. It was so hard telling about it as it was. I thought it wasn't necessary to give all the details."

"What pictures?"

"Of me. He made me pose. He had one of those instant cameras. Then, he... he didn't want to keep the pictures on him or anywhere he thought Geraldine might find them, so he made me hide them in my room and promise to let h