Planned.
His phone rang with a call from Carter.
“We saw it,” the guy muttered. “Matthew, Mac, and a few others are on their way.
Everyone okay?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell was it?”
Bennett stared at the large chunk of mortar. “A piece of concrete.”
He narrowed his gaze on it. Not just any piece. Wrapped inside the concrete was a twisted fragment of metal. A lock.
Or what was left of one.
“Shit…”
Recognition hit hard.
“What? What is it?” Carter urged.
“Remember that lock you removed from the back entrance earlier in the week?” he asked, shoving a hand through his hair.
“The one that was bent and half smashed? Yeah, I tossed it in a scrap bin out back. Why?” Carter asked, his tone serious.
“It’s embedded in the mortar,” he replied.
Carter’s muttered curse rumbled in Bennett’s ear. “That isn’t good. I’m going to go through the outside feed and see if it picked anything up.”
“Roger that.” He ended the call and straightened.
Carter was right, this wasn’t good. The lock was vandalized then tossed in the trash.
Now, it was here, thrown through Laurel’s window.
No note. No words. But the message was loud and clear.
“I’ve been inside. I know what you’re doing. And I’m not finished.”
Bennett’s jaw clenched as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and turned toward Laurel.
She’d gotten to her feet and was drinking her water with shaky hands. Her face was pale, though her gaze was steady. The woman was amazing. Still standing. Still strong. But the look she gave him held a different kind of intensity now.
Not fear. Not anger.
Trust. And maybe something deeper.
“Whoever it was…they were fast,” she said quietly.
He nodded, moving toward her, careful to stay outside the glass radius. “They’ve done this before.”
Her gaze dropped to the shards of the broken window, then to the embedded lock in the mortar chunk. “They wanted to rattle us.”
“They did more than that,” Bennett muttered, stepping close. “They sent a message.”
She met his eyes. “You’re not letting me stay here alone after this, are you?”
