Be With Me(40)

“What’s going on, Reggie?”

She put her hand on his arm. “Birdie’s house was broken into this morning. I’m going over with Jeremy now.”

“What? Is she al right? I’m coming with you.” She planted her hand on Hutch’s chest. “Birdie’s at the station. You should go over. She’s probably very upset, and I know she’d like for you to be there.

You’d only be in the way at the house. This is a police investigation.”

He looked as though he’d protest, but she turned and walked away before he could speak. She hurried to where Jeremy had parked his car, her sore muscles whining the entire way.

She slid into the front seat, and Jeremy turned on his lights and backed out.

“Do we know anything yet?” she asked.

“No. I just got the cal a few minutes ago. Brett was going back in to do a more thorough look through.” Jeremy reached into the pocket of his door, pulled out a napkin and handed it to Regina.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“You’re bleeding,” he said and gestured to her forehead.

She yanked down the visor and stared at her reflection in the mirror. A thin rivulet of blood ran down her forehead and into her eyebrow. There was a gash at her hairline from God knows what. She couldn’t remember that exact injury when her whole body felt like it had taken a beating.

She dabbed at it and winced when she brushed across the wound.

“At the rate I’m going, I’l be cast in the next Frankenstein movie,” she muttered.

“There’s some weird shit going on around here, Regina,” Jeremy said in a somber voice.

“Sometimes we go days without anything more than a few traffic tickets, and suddenly we have a murder, an explosion and breaking and entering? What the f**k is going on?”

“I wish to hel I knew. I have a hard time believing al this is connected to my father’s politics. I mean why not just take him out if this guy has such a beef with him? Seems more expedient.”

Jeremy shot her a look of surprise.

“I’m not advocating that he kil my father,” she said impatiently. “I’m just wondering why he’d go to al this trouble to make a point. If he hates Peter Fal on so much, why not go after him?”

“Good question.”

Jeremy whipped into Birdie’s driveway and parked beside Brett’s police car. He and Regina got out as Brett walked out to meet them.

“Glad to see you’re al right, Regina,” Brett said with a nod in her direction.

“Thanks. What have we got here?”

Brett turned and motioned them inside.

When she fol owed Brett and Jeremy in, she looked around but didn’t find anything out of place in the living room. Birdie’s place housed an impressive col ection of antiques, yet none of them were disturbed.

“It doesn’t get weird until you get back here,” Brett said as he motioned them down the hal way to the bedrooms.

As they passed each room, Regina looked in and again saw nothing that seemed to be out of place.

When they reached the end of the hal way, she saw a large red smear on the bedroom door. It looked like blood.

When she walked into the room, she gasped. It was in shambles. There was more blood on the wal s. And on the bed. Large spatters. Pictures lay in broken frames on the floor. Pictures of Hutch, Cam and Sawyer with Birdie. More pictures of the boys.

Hutch’s high school prom picture.

A feeling of foreboding settled hard into Regina’s chest.

“This isn’t about me,” she said. “It’s about Hutch.”

“Not sure I fol ow,” Jeremy said.

She blew out a shaky breath as she tried to come up with a more plausible explanation than what had just hit her square in the face. Jeremy and Brett both looked at her with questioning gazes.

“The murder victim. Misty Thompson. Hutch took her to his prom. The kil er, when he attacked me, said it’s time to make him pay. He failed to kil me, hence the bomb in my SUV. Now he’s broken into Birdie’s home and trashed Hutch’s room. This was his room when he lived here with Birdie. These are his things. I don’t think this has anything to do with my father at al . This guy is trying to make Hutch suffer by going after the people he cares about. People he’s had a connection to. And probably Hutch is his ultimate goal.”

Jeremy stared back, his expression stunned. “Shit.

You could be right.”

“I know I’m right. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Her stomach turned and twisted into knots.

Somehow it had been easier to deal with when she thought she was the intended target. But to know that someone was after Hutch? That the kil er could go after him next or even Cam and Sawyer?

“But why?” Jeremy asked. “What could Hutch possibly have done to piss off someone this badly? It doesn’t make sense. I’m not sure we can rule out your father as a motive yet.”

“I’m not saying we have to rule him out, just that we have to consider that none of this is coincidence and that Hutch could be the ultimate goal.”

“Has it occurred to you that this could be linked solely to you?” Brett spoke up. “Birdie’s important to you, as is Hutch. You’re a police officer. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time some whack job a cop arrested has gone off the deep end and retaliated.” Regina frowned. “Maybe.” She closed her eyes.