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“I warned you,” Duke reminded me.
Moving to the kitchen, I found all the drawers and cupboards open. The flour was inches deep and littered with what was now garbage. Everything, literally everything, had ended up on the floor. “Why?” was my only word.
“Two options, bad and worse.”
“Give me the bad one first.”
“Spinelli was searching for that USB drive he’s sure you have.”
The destruction was near total. He’d even torn open containers in the fridge as if I’d hide something in leftover mac and cheese.
I was afraid to ask, but I did. “And the worse one?”
Duke checked that we were alone. “This was destruction done out of hate—a message. Does Harvey Fox hate you this much?”
My hand went to my mouth as I doubled over. Five seconds of slow breathing later, the urge to puke thankfully passed.
Duke put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I nodded. “He does.”
“LAPD is here,” Terry called.
“Thanks. We’ll be out in a minute. You guys can brief them.”
Steeling my resolve, we climbed up to my bedroom, where the devastation continued. Prison had probably given Fox a lot of time to think of how he was going to kill me, and yes, this was the message.
“This took a while,” Duke said. “He took out the internet in the whole neighborhood to blind us.”
“You think he knew we’d be gone all day?” I asked.
“Most likely.”
“How?”
“Maybe he bugged the house, the car, your phone. Who knows? If that was it, Jordy will sort it out.”
Looking at all the destruction, I could no longer hold back the tears.
Duke took me into his arms. “It’s just things. Things are replaceable. The important truth is that you’re safe.”
But it wasn’t only things he’d ripped from me, but also the certainty that I could be safe in my own house. Now I’d hesitate to open my front door every time, afraid of what I’d find.
A half-hour later, it got worse. “What the hell?” Dad’s voice echoed through the house. “Serena?”
“He’s pissed,” Duke whispered into my hair.
“We have to face him.”
Duke retrieved tissues from the bathroom to wipe my eyes, and we started down the stairs to face the dragon.
Dad was in the front room, berating Lucas and Constance. “What the hell kind of operation is this that something like this happens? You should have put a security system in, a good one.”
Lucas stood there, looking angry, staying silent.
“We did.” Constance tried a steady, even voice with Dad.
He waved his hands around. “If this can happen without you knowing, then it sucks.”
