The Heart of Murder Read online

  “Wait, the police said something about that,” Autumn said. “About other burglaries. Do you know who else has had their house robbed?”

  “Someone tried to break into my home,” Nick said. “Remember? I left early last week to deal with it.”

  “I thought you said that it was nothing?”

  “I had hoped that it was nothing, but one of the windows had been jimmied open. I got lucky; the police said the burglar must have fled when the alarm went off.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. You never told me.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you, and nothing came of it, so I figured there was no reason to bring it up. Now, though, I am worried. You and I make two people from Asheville Meadows who have been targeted.”

  “Do you think the culprit is connected to the nursing home? Amelia was there too, so even though she didn’t work there, she had a tie to the place.”

  Nick frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe we should bring it up to the police. This has happened to more people than just us, though.”

  “I need to tell Alicia. She and her husband need to be careful. Anyone in town might be at risk.” She felt light headed, and realized that she was hyperventilating.

  “Autumn, take a deep breath. I know how terrible this all must be, but panicking won’t help. Let’s clean up, then we’ll go look for Frankie, okay? Have you called the animal shelter?”

  “It’s forty-five minutes away, do you really think they’d have her? Plus, she had her collar on, so if someone picked her up, they would have my number.”

  “She might have gotten the collar caught on something and slipped out of it. If someone did find her, and she was missing her collar, they probably would have taken her to the shelter.”

  Autumn nodded. “Okay. I’ll call them, then we’ll clean, then we’ll go look for her again. I’ve been putting bowls of food outside, and something keeps eating it, but I think it’s a raccoon. I’m going to go see if the food’s gone again. Thank you, Nick. I’m a mess. I don’t know if I could do this alone.”

  “Just tell me what I can do to help, and I’ll do it. Everything will be all right.”

  Even though the animal shelter didn’t have Frankie, Autumn felt better after she gave them the dog’s description. She had convinced herself that the dog was nearby – sometimes she even thought she heard her barking – but it was possible that she had ended up miles away.

  While Nick made a run to the nearest gas station to pick up heavy duty garbage bags and cleaning supplies, Autumn started in the bedroom. It was the room that was supposed to be her sanctuary and escape from all of the other troubles of her life. Whoever had ransacked her house had done a thorough job. Every one of her drawers had been emptied, and she knew right away that there were things that she was missing. Her jewelry, to begin with. Some of the pieces had been left behind, but her diamond earrings and the string of real pearls her mother had given her for her thirtieth birthday were gone. The burglar had also found the emergency credit card that she kept in her desk drawer, which wasn’t a big hit but did mean that she would have to call and cancel it.

  Cleaning the rest of the house took a long time, even with Nick helping her. With the mess, it was hard to tell right away what all had been stolen, but she was able to make a list of a few valuable items that she was sure were missing. She would give the list to the police later that day, and they would be able to check the local pawn shops to see if anything showed up. With luck, the burglar would slip up eventually and would be caught. She wasn’t counting on getting anything back, and thankfully many of the things that held the most sentimental value to her weren’t items that were valuable in the monetary sense of the word, but she still hated the thought of someone selling her stuff for petty cash. She had never imagined that being robbed would feel so violating, but every time she discovered a new drawer that had been rifled through, she felt her skin crawl.

  “Are you doing okay?” Nick asked after a couple of hours. They had started on the kitchen, which he had deemed the most urgent to clean up due to the broken dishes and shattered glasses. She had lost a surprising number of plates, and knew that a trip to the supermarket was in her near future. It was hard, seeing all of her possessions treated like garbage. They had moved on to the living room now, where the carpet had at least kept most of the things the burglar had tossed aside from breaking.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I just want to finish cleaning up the last of this as soon as possible.”

  “If you want to take a break —”

  “No, I want to get this done. I don’t want to see this mess the next time I walk through my front door. I want to get this cleaned up so I can focus on more important things, like finding my dog and figuring out who did this to me and who killed poor Amelia.”

  He nodded and returned to his task of stacking the books on the bookshelf. Autumn realized with a pang that this could easily have been him if the burglar hadn’t been scared away by the alarm in Nick’s house. Is he thinking about that too? She wondered. It must make him worry. What if the burglar returns to his place?

  “Well, I think this is it for the living room. The other rooms aren’t too bad, so hopefully it won’t take too much longer.”

  “Thank you so much for helping,” she said. “You’re missing work and everything. I could call Alicia if you need to get back to Asheville Meadows.”

  “Oh, they’ll survive without me for one day,” he said. “Are you sure you want to come in tomorrow? If you need more time –”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “I’ve wallowed in self-pity for long enough.”

  “You deserve to wallow. When I think about what could have happened if you had gotten home just a little bit earlier…”

  “Then it might have been me laying in the laundry room, and not Amelia,” Autumn finished. She fought back a shiver. She hadn’t thought of it that way before.

  “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “So am I,” she said. “I just wish Amelia had been as lucky.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  By the time they were finally done cleaning up the mess that the burglar had made, Autumn was sore, tired, and cranky. Only the thought of her dog, lost and scared in the snow somewhere, was enough to make her put on her boots and her coat and go outside to try calling for the dog again. She didn’t know if she would ever stop looking for Frankie. Nick came with her, just as solid and supportive as he had been all morning. He hasn’t complained once, she realized. She knew that she would be eternally grateful to him, for all of this. He had gone above and beyond to help her when she needed it.

  They began walking around the neighborhood, taking turns calling for the dog. Autumn had brought Frankie’s metal food bowl with her. It was half filled with kibble, and she shook it as they walked, hoping that the promise of food would lure the dog out if their voices failed to do so.

  Her hope began to fade as they started back toward her house after looping around a couple of blocks. Was it possible that Frankie was gone forever? She didn’t know what she would do without the dog. Would she ever be able to stop wondering what had happened to her? She must be so frightened, she thought. She’s all alone, and it’s cold out, and —

  “What’s that?” Nick asked, putting a hand out to stop her.

  “What?”

  “I heard barking.”

  Autumn stopped shaking the food bowl and listened. Sure enough, she heard a dog barking, and she could have sworn that she knew that bark. “It’s her. Where is it coming from?”

  “One of the houses, I think.”

  She felt the bubble of hope that had risen inside of her burst. “It’s probably just one of the neighbor’s dogs. We’re making a lot of noise.”

  They walked another few feet, then she paused. She could swear that it was Frankie’s bark.

  “I think it’s coming from that house,” Nick said. “Do you want to check it out?”

  “All right,” she said. “I
know the guy, though. He’s my neighbor — the one who saw me run into that guy when I was coming out to your car last night. He knows I have Frankie, so why wouldn’t he return her if he found her?”

  “Does he have a dog?” She shook her head. “It’s worth checking, at least,” he said.

  She nodded. He was right. It was the first lead they’d had so far, and it didn’t make sense to ignore it. The handful of times she’d thought she had heard Frankie’s barking before came back to her. She had dismissed it then, because the barking had always stopped after a couple of seconds, but it was as clear as day now.

  She led the way, marching up her neighbor’s driveway and following the walkway to the front door. The closer she got to the barking dog, the more she thought that it had to be Frankie, but she tried not to get her hopes up too high. If he had found her, he would have brought her back. He’s probably just watching a family member’s dog or something.

  She knocked on the door, and the dog on the other side of it went crazy. She heard the deadbolt turn, and the door was pulled open. A small, furry missile shot out and began jumping up and down by her feet, yapping more loudly than ever.

  “Frankie!” She bent down and scooped the dog up, laughing as the terrier kissed her face. “Where did you find her?”

  Her neighbor, a middle-aged man she knew only in passing, said, “She showed up at my back door a little while ago. I tried to bring her over, but you weren’t home.”

  “I’ve been staying at a motel. I’m so glad she’s okay. Thank you so much, Mr. …”

  “You can call me Dean,” he said. “And I’m glad you got her back. I saw the police there a few nights ago. Is everything okay?”

  She gave him the short version of what had happened, too distracted by the squirming dog in her arms to go into more detail. When she was done, she thanked him again, then she and Nick walked back to her house. Once they were inside with the door securely shut, she put Frankie down and set the bowl of food on the floor next to her. The dog dug in.

  “You must be relieved,” Nick said.

  “I am.” She couldn’t stop smiling. She could hardly believe that her dog was safely home at last.

  “How well do you know that guy?”

  “Not well at all. I mean, we wave to each other when we pass on the street and when the mail person puts my mail in his box on accident, he brings it over, but I’ve never had a real conversation with him before. Why?”

  “Well, doesn’t it seem a little odd that he had your dog?”

  “You heard him, she just showed up. She probably heard us calling, then just went to the first door she found.”

  “Okay.”

  “What? You don’t seem to believe him.”

  “It just seems odd. I’m sure he heard us walking around and calling for her. Why wouldn’t he have brought her out sooner? Or why wouldn’t he have called your number? It’s on her tag.”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter? It’s not like he was going to steal my dog. It all ended fine, that’s what’s important.”

  He shrugged. “You’re right. I’m glad you got her back. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Yep. I’ll be at work. Thank you again, Nick. I guess you have to get going now?”

  “I do. Let me know if you need anything else. I hope you get all of this resolved soon.”

  “So do I,” she said. Now that she had Frankie back, the most important thing to her was figuring out who had broken into her house and killed Amelia. Until that person was behind bars, the entire town was in danger. There was no telling who the next victim might be.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  “I really don’t have much time, Uncle Albert,” Autumn said. “I have to get started on lunch soon.”

  “Your aunt heard what happened, and she wants to make sure that you’re okay. It won’t take very long. Please? She is so worried about you.”

  “All right,” she said. “But no tea. I can only stay for a few minutes.”

  She followed her uncle down the hall, toward the room that he and her aunt Lucy shared. She should have expected that they would want to talk to her after the news about the break-in at her house had spread. It was all that anyone had talked to her about all day. I’m sure Nick knew how much people were gossiping about the break-in. Maybe this is why he suggested that I stay home.

  Still, she didn’t regret her decision to come back to work. It felt good to be surrounded by her friends and family. She still didn’t feel completely safe in her house, though having Frankie back made it a lot easier to deal with. Luckily, the little dog didn’t seem any the worse for wear after her little adventure. Autumn knew that she would probably never know where the dog went or what she had done while she was loose, but besides being hungrier than usual, she seemed perfectly fine.

  “Hi, Aunt Lucy,” she said as she went into the room. “Uncle Al told me you were worried. Don’t be. I’m perfectly fine.”

  She gave her wheelchair-bound aunt a hug, kissing her on the cheek before standing back up. She loved being able to see the two of them almost every day. She felt bad that the rest of her family rarely visited, although she could understand it, since everyone lived at least a few hours away. When her aunt and uncle had first moved to the nursing home, she had taken it upon herself to visit them a couple of days a week. She had known them relatively well before the move, but had quickly grown to depend on them and love them as she got to know them better.

  “We can’t help but worry. The police still have no idea who did it?” her uncle asked, taking a seat across from her aunt.

  “It happened on Saturday, Uncle Al. It’s only been a few days. Trust me, I want them to catch the guy who did it just as badly as you do, but these sorts of things take time. For Amelia’s sake, I really do hope that he gets the justice that he deserves.”

  “Who’s Amelia?”

  “She’s the woman who was killed,” she replied.

  “Did you know her? I was under the impression that she was a stranger. I thought that she must have been the burglar’s partner, and he killed her when things went badly.”

  “No, she’s Brandon’s ex-fiancé. I was supposed to call her on Saturday morning because she wanted to talk to me about something, but I forgot. I think she must’ve come to my house to look for me, which is when the burglar killed her.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t know that you knew the victim personally. You shouldn’t have come into work today. You should be at home, mourning.”

  “I didn’t know her that well. I’m very sad for her, don’t get me wrong, but I think I’m better off being here at work than I would be at home on my own.”

  Her aunt made a noise, and her uncle looked over at his wife. They seemed to communicate with a glance, and her uncle turned back to her.

  “What does Brandon think about all of this? It must be quite hard for him to lose someone that he knew so well.”

  “I… well, I haven’t actually spoken to him about it yet. I’m sure the police have, though. I told them how I knew Amelia, and I think they were going to question him.”

  “I’m sure he would like to talk to someone about it besides the police,” her uncle said. “I know the two of you broke up, but he was a nice man, and I thought the two of you were still friends.”

  “Well, I went out for coffee with him a couple of times, and I definitely still care about him as a friend, we haven’t been close recently. Maybe I should call him, though. You’re right. This must be pretty hard for him. I hate to admit it, but I’ve hardly even thought about that.”

  She said her goodbyes to her aunt and uncle and left the room. They had left her with a lot to think about. Should she have called Brandon? Would he even want to talk to her about this? She knew that he did have other friends, but she couldn’t imagine him having a meaningful conversation about how he felt with the guys he drank with on Friday nights.

  When they broke up, he had told her that he wanted to remain friends.
She had thought that it was just the usual “let’s be friends speech” that people gave each other, but he had come through surprisingly well. They had gone out to coffee together, and when they ran into each other at the store, they always stopped to have a nice little chat. If he did consider her a friend, then maybe she should call him. She didn’t know why he and Amelia had split up, but regardless of the reasons, you didn’t get engaged to someone if you didn’t care about them quite a bit, and one thing was certain; he had known Amelia a lot better than she had.