Dancing With The Devil

Chapter 2

I felt sick to my stomach when Agent Kingsley finally offered to walk through my home with me. I didn't want to go back into my house at all, even if every police officer in the city told me it was safe and I certainly didn't want to go back into my house with Agent Kingsley of all people. I was still unable to get over his casual get up when we were being swarmed by fully uniformed officers. I thought that his choice of clothing fit the crime scene just as well as my pencil skirt and funky blouse did. But I couldn't keep my mind on his outfit choice for very long when he walked into my house and I followed closely behind.

"Is anything missing from here?" he asked, gesturing to the mangled foyer.

I carefully stepped around broken glass as I moved towards my jacket closet. My hands were shaking madly and I felt my heart beat all throughout my body. I already knew the answer to his question, but I forced myself to check anyway, just in case I was hallucinating or convincing myself of something that wasn't real. Maybe Agent Kingsley had lied and that oddly specific safe had been untouched, the key never found at all. But when I dug around the closet, going to the very back where I had poorly mounted a small shelf to the back wall, I felt a wave of panic and grief wash over me when I realized the small container resting on the shelf was empty. The keys for everything in my possession were gone.

"All of my keys are gone." I said, my voice coming out surprisingly flat and unemotional considering the storm that was wrestling with me from the inside. I wanted to throw my head back and scream in frustration, maybe punch something, or maybe I could just curl up on the floor and cry.

"What kind of keys?" Agent Kingsley pushed, his eyes sharp and focused, but he didn't pull out a notepad to document my words which I found strange. Every other officer was walking around with hundreds of notes scribbled on various pages. This seemed to be quite a high profile break in that puzzled everyone. Then again, the officers didn't bear a title like 'agent', so maybe he had other concerns than my belongings and was only doing this as a courtesy.

"My car keys for the Subaru and the Volvo." I sighed, "But they also took the spare house key I kept in here and keys for the safes I have around the home and my mail key. I don't think they knew what they were for, people just equate keys with things of value or things worth hiding." Another lie. They took the keys, but they had only been looking for one of them.

"The cars are still here." He pointed out, but I couldn't tell if he was trying to comfort me or concern me. His voice was very official and had little to no emotion in it. His sharp green eyes were assessing everything in the foyer, and though they were very calculated they were calm as well. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. "I don't think I had to tell you that changing your locks and upping your security would be a good idea as well, but come, let's go take a look at the safes."

We moved through the house slowly and the sadness and dread that had already filled me became more concentrated, intensifying. The lovely leather couches- the first pieces of furniture I had bought for the condo- were badly damaged like someone had slashed them with a knife. My custom made coffee table was turned over on it's side. My books about everything from romance to business sense were strewn all over the floor, many with random pages torn out, leaving my peaceful living room a disgusting mess. Utensils were spilled all over the floor in the kitchen. The glass on the oven had been shattered, presumably by the same object that had badly dented my eco-friendly fridge that had cost me more than it was worth. My dining room was almost all turned over and upside down, the stunning vase of floors I had on the table was shattered and the lilies were already wilted. All of the individual pieces of furniture and trinkets- that I had handpicked to fit my condo and to fit my personality- had been destroyed or badly damaged for seemingly no gain.

But what hurt me the most was probably the least expensive to fix. Through the hallway between my office, my guest bedroom and my master bedroom I had lined with walls with my photos. There were photos of the amazing museums in Saskatoon, the stunning waterfalls in Waterton, the massive Redwoods, and the mini world in Hamburg and a tiny print out of the advertisement for the first charity gala I was planning. All photos of my new life and the wonderful freedom I had achieved by myself. The places that I had adventured to by myself and grown my self-esteem and confidence back up from the shambles they previously had been. All of the frames had been smashed, leaving glass all over the thick carpet. Some of the photos had been yanked out of the frames and torn to pieces, showing that this had bothered the intruder more than any other room as he had put more effort into aggressive destruction here. It was a more personal attack.

"Are you sure you're okay to continue?" Agent Kingsley asked, clearly seeing my distraught expression, though I had felt like I was doing a great job of hiding it.

"Yes, I'm fine." I said tightly pushing on past my office- where the computer had been obliterated- passed my guest bedroom- where the furniture had been dismantled- and to my own bedroom.

Though I had told myself to expect this, it was still very difficult to actually stomach. I wanted to cry more than I thought I would and I wanted to hurt whoever had done this to my home. I braced myself briefly at my bedroom door, fearing the worst damage would've been inflicted on my personal space, my safe haven.

Surprisingly, my own room was relatively untouched. My bed was untouched, my closet had been opened, but it didn't seem any less full or organized than it had this morning. My dresser drawers were shut, and my small desk had no documents missing. However, the single canvas painting that I had bought from a charity auction had been impaled several times with something sharp before the intruder had simply taken it off the wall instead. And the safe that had been tucked away behind it was left open and completely empty.

"And the other safe?" Agent Kingsley asked.

I just mutely pointed at the closet, not believing my eyes. All of those documents, the ones I couldn't get rid of, the ones that completely identified me as I had been before I was Celeste Davidson were gone. Vanished. After years of me thinking that I was so safe and so smart and impossible to catch. I had been found. They knew what my name was now, where I lived, and perhaps hundreds of other things. God knows how they had found me or how long someone had been tracking me.

"This safe seems untouched." Agent Kingsley mused, look at the small safe I had for my jewelry stashed away in my closet.

"That's good." I whispered, feeling like I had all the air knocked out of me. I wished so deeply that the thieves had just been thieves and that they had taken the thousands of dollars' worth of jewels instead of the worthless pieces of paper.

As Agent Kingsley moved around the room, explaining things to me I pretended to listen but I felt like my world had just crashed down and the wreckage was beginning to ensue.

Two hours later I was tucked away in a hotel room. Agent Kingsley told me that I would be fine staying at the house once the locks were changed. The thieves had taken what they wanted and were unlikely to strike again so soon. A kind, young police officer even offered to spend much of his nightly patrol around my neighborhood. But my home had been broken into in the middle of the day on a busy street, what would one cop cap roving the streets do to prevent these heathens from coming back?

And unlike the police, I knew this wasn't just a break in. I knew what he was after. And it wasn't all the gems in the world. It was me.

***Please vote and comment if you liked it!***