Against All Odds

Chapter Twenty-Seven

With a shaky hand, I pull my phone out of my back pocket. Ollie is looking at the door with squinted eyes, hand moving up to push it open even more. Before he can do anything, though, I grab his hand.

"Leave it as it is," I tell him when he looks over at me. "The police will like to see it how we found it."

"Why isn't the alarm going off?" Ollie mumbles in response but allows me to pull him back over to the car. "We set it before we left. It should be going crazy, especially since the door is cracked open."

Nico answers the phone just as I am sitting back in the car. "Hungry again already, Milo?"

"Still not funny, Nico," I say, words coming out strained, no matter how hard I try to keep my voice neutral.

He instantly turns serious, shifting into big brother mode. "What's wrong?"

"I-I think someone's in our house." Ollie moves closer to me, twining his fingers with mine. "We just got home and our door is open. Our alarm isn't even going off. Something isn't right."

Nico curses, rustling coming over the phone as he moves quickly. "Stay right where you are. I'm on my way." He hangs up the alone then, obviously in a rush to get here as soon as possible.

Dropping the phone away from my ear, I squeeze Ollie's hand. "He is on his way."

Nodding his head, Ollie brings our hands closer to his face, kissing the back of mine. "I hope whoever broke in didn't steal everything." He sits up straight then. "Oh God, Emmie." Faster than I thought possible, he climbs out of the car and runs over to the house.

"Ollie!" I call out, trying to climb out of the car after him.

He stops by the front door, crouching down and calling out the cat's name. With every second that passes he is getting more stressed, voice getting more frantic as he calls the cat's name. I have just managed to pull myself from the car when the door creeks open a few more inches.

Emmie runs out of the house, and Ollie immediately scoops her up, carrying her back over to the car. "Thank God she wasn't hurt."

Nodding, I give her a few pets but don't dare to take her away from Ollie. It seems that both of them need the comfort right now.

"Why would someone even break in?" I ask, leaning against the car. It just seems like too much work to get myself back in the car, when I am going to have to haul myself back out once Nico gets here. "It isn't like we have a lot of expensive stuff."

"People break in for less than what we own," Ollie says, sidling up next to me. "Who knows what they decided to take."

Nico is pulling up then, his car screeching as he pulls up alongside us in the driveway. He throws the door of the car open, clambering out with no grace at all.

"Good, you guys stayed out." He pulls me into a hug. "For once, you actually listened to me." He pulls away looking over at the house. "The door was just open like that when you guys got home?"

"Yeah," Ollie says, "The door was just cracked. But we always double check that it is locked and that the alarm is set. The weird thing is that the alarm wasn't going off when we got here. It should have been blaring if someone broke in."

"Does anyone else know the code, besides the two of you?"

"Of course not," I say, leaning against Ollie's side. "We changed it, just like the guy who installed it said to do."

"I'm just asking, Milo," he says, "Don't take out your frustration on me."

His words have me tensing up, wanting to argue with him. But the tenseness of his face belies his worry. Sighing, I force the argument that was building from my mind. "I'm sorry."