Still no answer.
Reaching into her purse, Gabby pulled out her pepper spray then reached for the wall switch and turned on the overhead light. The lamp stood undisturbed in its place on the entry table. Maybe the bulb had just burned out. Chiding herself for overreacting, she stepped inside.
Light from the entry streaked across the carpeted floor and she got a view of the living room. Total disarray. Gabby clicked on the light and scanned the mayhem. Every sofa cushion lay askew, shredded. The glass-topped tables had been turned upside down, legs up in the air, the sculptures once atop them haphazardly littered the floor. Even the wall paintings hadn’t escaped. Every framed canvas hung crooked, as if someone shoved at them to peek behind. What had happened here? Had her father suffered an adverse reaction to a medication and gone into a rage? Had he driven Lucy over the edge?
The dining room was in the same shape as the living room. Gabby called out again, headed into the kitchen. “Lucy?”
Every cabinet door stood open. Flour and sugar dusted the floor, the empty bags discarded near the table. Broken plates and glasses had been left on the granite countertops; shards spilled over onto the planked-wooden floor. The spice rack stood empty, all its jars in a broken heap on the floor. The stovetop was bare. Whatever happened had happened before Lucy began preparing dinner.
Gabby stilled, listened, her heart beating faster and faster, echoing in her ears, throbbing in her temples. Eerie silence. No sounds except the dull drone of the refrigerator, the quiet whir of the central heating.
Her pepper spray ready to discharge, she edged room to room, scraping her back against the dimple-textured wall, turning on lights and visually scanning every inch of destruction. In the laundry room, half-dry towels draped across the open dryer door and the strong scent of chemicals hung in the dead air. Bottles of cleaning supplies had been dumped; the empties tossed into the laundry sink. Otherwise the room was clear. Lucy’s bedroom and bath. Tussled, but clear.
In the hallway, Gabby turned back to the far side of the house. Her throat felt too dry to swallow. His office. She hadn’t checked his office. Or upstairs. No way was she going up there alone.
At the French doors to his office, a funny feeling swam through her. Gabby stopped and flipped on the light switch. The room flooded with light and, instinctively, she gasped and recoiled.
The office was a worse disaster than the kitchen. Papers strewn everywhere; all his files dumped from the cabinets. Everything moveable had been kicked over, shoved or slung. His chair cushions had been slashed, the back of the leather wingchair he favored, marred with jagged, gashed cuts. Stuffing poked and pulled out.
But the smell was a hundred times worse than the sight. Iron, like her hands when she’d emptied her piggybank and rolled all those old coins.
Blood.
The roof of her mouth tingled, and her palms sweated. She stiffened all over, bracing herself, then stepped around the splintered remnants of a banker’s bookcase, and looked behind the desk.
Face down on the floor lay her father.
Lucy lay crumpled beside him.
Burnished blood stained their backs—the source of the awful smell. And a butcher knife with a long black handle protruded from Lucy’s wound.
Stunned, doubting her eyes, Gabby couldn’t move or look away. A scream burned her throat. One that came from so deep within, if she let it out, she’d never be able to stop it. To bar its escape, she clasped her hand over her mouth. Stuff it down! Stuff it down! Shaking so hard she feared convulsing, Gabby forced herself to breathe, to bend, to check for signs of life.
There were none.
Get out of the house, Gabby. The killer could still be here. Get out!
She’d heard no sounds, sensed no presence, but that meant nothing. Quickly, she hurried to the front door and then down the sidewalk to the driveway, back to her Mustang. Fumbling her keys, she jerked open the car door and then checked inside. Empty. Scrambling in, she slammed and locked the doors. Think, Gabby. Think.
She needed help.
Now.
Finally gripping her phone, she dialed 911.
An operator answered. “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“My father and his caretaker have been murdered.” Gabby darted her gaze to the house, across the lawn, and down the street. Quiet. Still. Nothing seemed odd or out of place. She answered the operator’s questions, reciting the address and her name.
“Where are you now, Gabby? Are you still in the house?”
“Locked in my car.”
“Good. You stay there. Officers are on the way. Don’t you open the car-door for anyone else.”
“Okay. Okay, thank you.” Gabby hung up, hearing too late the operator instructing her to stay on the line. But she didn’t call back; she needed her phone to text Shadow Watcher.
“My father was right. Just got home from work and found him and Lucy murdered. Police on the way.” Gabby hit Send.
“Stuff it down, GK. First things first. Are you safe?” Shadow Watcher’s words filled the screen on her phone.
He was there. Thank you, God. Thank you. “Locked in my car. Pepper spray in hand.”
“How did it happen?”
“Stabbed. Lucy for sure, and my father, I think. No blood spray. No smell of gunfire. Just blood, and the knife in Lucy’s back. Looking for something. Tore up everything.”
“No signs of anyone else in the house now?”
“Didn’t hear or see anyone. Everything is wrecked, SW. An elephant could be in there and I might not have seen it. I didn’t go upstairs at all.”
“Where did you find them?”
“In his office.” Why was he out of bed? Downstairs? Why was he in his office?
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Clearly, Lucy wasn’t a plant.”
“Is that what you thought?”
“It is. But if so, she was double-crossed.”
They texted back and forth a few more times, him getting as many details down as she could recall. Then Shadow Watcher asked, “What was missing?”
“Who knows? I told you, the entire place was trashed.”
“What about his computer? Was it there?”
She stilled. Clients. Computer. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Summoning her frantic memories of what she’d seen in his office, she mentally scanned his desk. “No. It was gone. His external hard drive, too. He used it to store backups.”
“Do you know what was on it?”
“Not a clue. He was going to show me some of his work tonight.”
“You didn’t have his password?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t peek in—? “
“Hack my father? Absolutely not.”
Sirens sounded in the distance and drew near. Gabby looked back over her shoulder and saw two police cars pull to the curb and stop. A third one joined them and then an unmarked car.
“Police are here. I have to go.”
“I’ll be close. Keep me posted.”
“Thanks.” She wished he were not close but with her. Still, if she’d had to wait alone . . . Her dry eyes burned. Tears hadn’t yet come. They would. Of course, they would. But not now. Now, she had to hold herself together.
Her father had known this would happen. He’d known someone would murder him. Had he known that person would murder Lucy, too?