Page 29 of Flint
“Shit.”
“Yeah. The police showed up pretty fast. They tried to tell me it was probably kids out after dark pulling pranks. Only I knew that wasn’t true. Children aren’t running around in the middle of the night. They’re home in their beds. And because the rock had a piece of paper wrapped around it with a couple of rubber bands. It felt like how the bad guys send messages in the movies.”
“Fuckin’ hell. What did the message say?”
“That’s the weird thing, there was no message, just a blank piece of paper. I looked on the front and back, and there were no words.”
“A blank piece of paper? That’s strange.”
“Yeah. I think it was the men from the beltline. They followed me to the police station when I reported the incident. I think they followed me home. They wanted me to know they were watching me but didn’t want to leave any incriminating evidence.”
“They were playing mind games,” Flint says grimly. “That’s worse than a note.”
When I don’t answer, he states, “Tell me they at least took the paper in for fingerprinting.”
I shrug, having entirely lost my appetite. “Yeah, they took it. I never heard back about it.”
“That’s fuckin’ infuriating. Did you ever follow up?”
Nodding, I tell him, “I called them a couple of weeks later to check on the case. The guy who answered the phone asked for my case number and verified my identity, only to tell me they were still looking into it. Since I couldn’t force them to do anything and wasn’t even sure what they could do, I let it go.”
“You should have called Tommy.”
He’s telling me what I already know, so I just agree. “I know. If I had it to do over again, I would.”
“Why didn’t you?”
My cat stretches in my lap and then jumps down and walks off towards her food bowl.
“Jules, answer me.” It’s another command but spoken gently this time.
“Because I’m supposed to be an adult living in the real world and making decisions for myself. I did the right thing by calling the police. My brother’s trying to live his own life. He had enough on his plate at the time without worrying about me.”
Flint takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His expression is unreadable. “He would have wanted to know.”
“Yeah, I thought the rock was a one-off thing,” I tell him wearily.
“Are you saying it wasn’t?” I can hear the slight panic in Flint’s tone but force myself to tell him the rest.
“My apartment had a doggie door leading out to a fenced backyard. The previous tenants put it in. Since Fluffy’s an indoor cat, I put a little lock on it. I don’t think she even realized it was a door. I went to meet with a client to turn in an oversized sketch of their grandmother. I was only gone maybe an hour or two.”
“Tell me they didn’t use that fucking thing to break into your place,” Flint growls.
“No. These guys are smart, Flint. Our front door had a Ring cam, and there were cameras in the living room and kitchen. I put them in to check on my cat.”
“What then?”
“On the way back home, it started raining really hard. I had to pull over at one point because I couldn’t see well enoughto drive. It picked back up again as I got near my home. I got soaked walking from the car to the front door. When I got inside, she didn’t come running like she usually does. So, I called for her.”
“They took her?”
Finally, I nod, tearing up. “I went looking for her, and that’s when I discovered the doggie door had been busted from the outside. I could tell because all the broken pieces were on the inside of the house, along with some cat treats.”
My throat closes up, and I can’t go on.
Flint whispers, “They lured her to the door and took her, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, I ran out into the rain looking for her. Looked all around the block and eventually found her wet and shivering behind a dumpster. She was too terrified to move or meow. I’d already passed the dumpster twice before I thought to look behind it.”
