“What the heck?” Carolyn muttered. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough. “It’s like the ones I saw on the Jewel Rater last week. All lousy and not true. I wonder…” She let the word dangle as her mind processed her thoughts.
“What?” Faith asked, studying her.
“Does it feel like someone could be sabotaging us? Bad reviews? An armed robber?” Her mind returned to the things the robber kept saying about how this wasn’t part of the plan. Did someone have a plan to damage All That Sparkles? If so, they couldn’t have launched it at a worse time.
“Don’t forget about the canceled orders,” Charlotte added, getting onboard with the idea.
“Those could be connected, too.” Three shipments had been mysteriously canceled or delayed in the past month, and as a result they’d been unable to fulfill orders on time. They’d compensated the customers, who’d been understanding, but it was bad for business. Carolyn had a sinking feeling in her stomach…but why would someone want to do this to them? They competed with the store down the street, which was currently trying to buy them out, but the relationship between the businesses had never been malicious. “If you two can handle things here, I’m going to the police station. I want to run the idea past them.”
“Do that. And then go home. You need some time off.” Her mother pulled Carolyn’s purse from the drawer where she kept it and handed it to her. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” she promised.
“Hey.” Charlotte caught her before she could leave the office. “What about Zach?”
Her mother’s eyes widened. She had loved Zach. “Zach’s home?”
Carolyn hadn’t mentioned it because she couldn’t explain how she felt about seeing him again. She needed time to process his return and what it would mean for her life. “He was here yesterday as part of the response team.”
“Austin?” Faith didn’t have to form the full question.
Carolyn sighed. “Zach didn’t know he had a son until yesterday.” Faith and Charlotte had been there for her throughout her pregnancy, the birth, and the first year of Austin’s life. They had been as upset and disappointed as she had when it appeared that Zach was ignoring her attempts to communicate with him.
“Oh, baby,” her mother said, giving her a hug. “You did have a tough day. Do you want me to come with you to talk to the police?”
“No, I can do it,” she insisted.
Half an hour later at the police station, Carolyn wondered if she was making any sense. She’d laid out the unusual occurrences of the past month: the bad reviews, the delivery problems, and an armed robbery. Detective Novak, who faced her, seemed unimpressed.
“Every business goes through ups and downs,” he said. “This might all turn out to be a coincidence.”
“It seems like more than a coincidence to me,” she argued.
“The perpetrator yesterday has a long record, from purse snatching to drug use. I’ll admit that armed robbery was a bit of stretch for him, but you never know when these guys are going to escalate their crimes.”
“What about what he said, that this wasn’t part of the plan?”
“He probably had a simple idea in his head. Walk in, wave the gun around, grab some jewelry, and run. Anything outside that he might have seen as violating his plan. I’ll note it in the report, but I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that it means anything.”
Detective Novak hadn’t referred to her as little lady, but that was the sort of treatment she felt she was getting. He didn’t take her seriously. But if someone was trying to malign her business, that was deadly serious to her.
“I think it does mean something,” she said, determination filling her. “I’ll start my own investigation if I need to.”
That got the detective’s attention. “I have to ask you not to do that.” Novak waved his hands as if warding off the idea. “On the off chance you’re right, you could be walking into a dangerous situation.”
Carolyn made no promises. She thanked him for his time and headed to pick up Austin at Nina’s house on her way home. She’d called her pediatrician earlier and had an appointment the following day just to be sure Austin was fine after what he’d gone through.
He sure seemed fine, chatting away in his own lingo as she picked him up and took him home. After giving him a quick snack, she put him down for an afternoon nap and went to the alcove in her kitchen where she sometimes worked from home. She’d just checked in with her mom and Charlotte at the store when she heard a knock on the front door. She dashed to answer it, not wanting the noise to wake Austin. Without looking to see who it was, she whipped open the door.
“Hi.” Zach stood on her front porch with an adorable stuffed dog in his hand. “Is it okay if I visit Austin?”
“He’s napping…but you can come in and wait for him to get up,” she offered. She could have sent Zach away with the ready and true excuse that their son was asleep, but the truth was, she didn’t want to. And the fact that he’d thought to bring Austin a gift warmed her heart.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” He stepped inside, filling the space as he always had. He was tall and fit, lean and handsome in jeans and a black T-shirt. Underneath, she knew, he was ripped with muscle. How she’d enjoyed running her hands over him. Her fingers tingled with the remembered sensation. She should have sent him away, she realized too late. The temptation to pick up where they had left off hit her. They’d been good together during the good times, but it had been far from perfect. His job got in the way. Carolyn didn’t know how other wives and girlfriends of the SEALs handled it when their men were gone for months with no word from them, never knowing if they were dead or alive. It had been too much for her.
She’d waited out two deployments during their engagement, but when he was about to embark on the third, she’d given him an ultimatum. It was her or the mission. He couldn’t have both, because she could no longer live with the worry and fear. When he’d chosen the mission, it had broken her faith in him, in love. And then she realized she was pregnant. During the months when she had tried to contact him and received only silence in return, she’d felt anger and betrayal, but she’d transferred her love for him to the baby they’d created.
It had been enough…until he walked back into her life. Which didn’t mean there was anything between them anymore. Zach was trying to be a good dad, and she appreciated that. Her own dad had stopped being interested in her life after her parents’ divorce, no matter how she’d tried to attract his notice. From what she was seeing, Austin wouldn’t have to suffer as she had.
“Would you like to look at some pictures and video from Austin’s first year?” She reached for her iPad and tapped a folder open. Inside it, she’d stored everything from images of his birth to video of his first birthday party.
“That’d be great.” Zach took the tablet from her and sat on her couch.
Within seconds he was absorbed in the pictures, and she slipped back into the kitchen. She didn’t want to see his reactions. What would it be like to know you’d missed more than a year of your child’s life? She didn’t want to think about that and couldn’t help the smidgen of guilt she felt. Even though she’d thought she’d done everything she could to contact Zach, maybe if she’d made one more attempt…