“I think…” Cassie pulls on her coat, grateful for the warmth. “I may head out, actually.”
Anna’s face falls. “Well, okay. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Cassie looks at Anna and decides she means it.
“You work at a bookstore, right?” Anna says. “Or… you own it?”
Cassie nods. “A used bookstore.”
Anna grins. “You got any books for freaked out mothers-to-be?”
“I think we’ve got a few,” Cassie laughs. “I’d be happy to put some aside for you.”
“That would be great.” Anna beams at Cassie. “I’m glad Joel started dating you. Not that I didn’t like Francesca, but… well, it’s nice to have someone new in our group, that’s all.”
Anna rests a hand briefly on Cassie’s arm, then smiles and pulls away. There’s no way Cassie would consider going back to that party, but it’s good to know at least one of Joel’s friends’ wives is on her side.
Chapter 26: The New Girl
Cassie sleeps fitfully after the party, tossing and turning all through the night. She texted Joel that she wasn’t feeling well and decided to head home, and although he did call her to make sure she was okay, she was disappointed he didn’t ask to come over to check on her. They’ve been spending more and more nights together lately, and she finds she misses him on the nights they aren’t together. Joel even cleared out a drawer for her last week to fill with her stuff so she doesn’t have to feel as much like a nomad.
Of course, then she wondered if the drawer used to belong to Francesca.
At nine in the morning, Cassie is awakened by a text from Zoe. She fumbles for her phone, and stares blearily at the words on the screen. It takes a moment for her to make sense of it, but then she’s wide awake.
The store has been trashed. Call me.
Cassie grabs her phone off the nightstand and calls Zoe, her heart slamming in her chest. The store has been trashed. She imagines the rows of books, painstakingly arranged, mostly by Cassie but many by Grandma Bea and even Grandpa Marv, shredded and burned.
“Zoe,” Cassie gasps into the phone. “What happened?”
“The place is a mess,” Zoe says. “Books everywhere. Paint on the carpet. I called the cops.”
“Shit,” Cassie breathes. “How’d they get in? Did they break the window?”
Zoe is quiet for a moment. “That’s the crazy part. The windows weren’t broken. The lock wasn’t damaged. They just… got in.”
Cassie shivers. She feels the same way she did when she found the writing on her door. Someone is targeting her. Someone who knows where she works. And where she lives. And now can somehow get into her store.
“I’ll be right there,” she tells Zoe.
She’s tempted to hop in a taxi to get there as fast as possible, but she’s thinking about the cost of getting the store cleaned up, so the last thing she should be doing is springing for a taxi. She doesn’t need any unexpected expenses right now.
When Cassie arrives, the sight of the store makes her stomach turn. Just as Zoe described, there are books everywhere. Half the contents of the store have been ripped from the shelves. They are lying on the ground, pages ripped and bent. Cassie steps over volume after volume, a lump growing in her throat. She keeps walking until she gets to the spot where Grandpa Marv keeled over from a heart attack all those years ago. She looks up and sees the word scrawled in black ink on the back of the empty shelf:
SLUT
No. Not again.
The police officer—this one named Rogers—had been taking a statement from Zoe when Cassie arrived. He looks just as young as the last one did—not even old enough to grow a beard yet. And he’s just as jaded and disinterested in finding the culprit.