Page 3 of Out of the Shadows (Angelhart Investigations)

Jack arrived at the Barrett house at five in the morning. The sun had already broken over the McDowell Mountains and the eighty-degree

morning would turn to triple digits before noon.

Logan Monroe’s sister lived north of Phoenix, where every house was on a couple acres and many people owned horses. Jack had

always wanted a spread out here, but it was beyond his price range. After paying off the debt his ex-wife had amassed, he

was still in the rebuilding phase. His goal was to buy a place with elbow room before Austin started high school. The little

house he’d bought last year should appreciate with all the work he was doing on it, and he hoped to sell it for a good profit

in three years.

Logan hadn’t given him much detail, only that his sister’s house had been broken into and he wanted to hire Jack. Jack didn’t

think that was necessary—Phoenix PD, though understaffed, had a unit dedicated to property crimes. They had a decent clearance

rate.

But Logan had become a good friend over the last couple months and his business had Angelhart Investigations on retainer,

so if Jack could help him with a personal matter he was happy to do so.

Logan answered as soon as Jack knocked. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. “Thanks so much for coming,

Jack.”

“Not a problem.”

Two Labs greeted Jack with wagging tails, but they were well-trained enough not to jump on him. He put his hand out for them

to sniff, then he pet them.

“Seriously, I woke you in the middle of the night and I really appreciate you coming up here. Laura finally went to bed after

the police left.”

Jack looked around. Standard ranch-style house with a lived-in, homey feel. “What did the police say?”

“They took prints from Laura’s office and the back door, where the burglars broke in. Pictures—a decent boot print was visible

on the door where it was kicked in. But one of the officers—Tom Degas—said he didn’t find much. Whoever broke in didn’t even

take anything!”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jack said as they walked back to the kitchen. A long center island provided ample counter space for

food prep, herbs grew in a picture window that looked out back, and an amazing Spanish-tile backsplash behind the Wolf gas

stove added color to the large, functional space.

The kitchen was L-shaped, and the short part of the L was a cozy sunroom with a couch, extra storage and a solid wood shelf

that had been knocked over. Someone had swept broken plates and bowls into the corner. The door was lopsided, unable to fully

close.

“They knocked over the cabinet after they broke in,” Logan said. “The police pushed it back enough to close the door, but

it won’t close with the broken frame. I’ll get someone over to fix it today.”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose then ran his thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “Someone ran Laura and the kids off

the road last night. Totaled her car, so I picked them up and then we came home to this.”

“Are they related?” Jack asked.

“What?” Logan asked, confused.

“They were run off the road and then came home to a break-in—it’s a logical assumption that the two events are connected.

What did the police say?”

“They were vague, said they’d look at the report and get back to us. You really think the hit-and-run is connected to this?”

He waved his hand toward the broken door.

“It’s worth considering. Your sister’s a veterinarian, right?”

Logan nodded. “She has a practice in Carefree.”

Vets didn’t make natural targets.

“Does she keep drugs or valuable equipment here?”

“Laura doesn’t do drugs,” Logan snapped.

“I meant for her practice,” Jack said. Logan was certainly tired and not thinking clearly. “Ketamine, other animal pharmaceuticals

that might make her a target for thieves.”

“Oh. Right. No, she has a clinic, never practiced here.”

It was worth the ask. Jack went down his mental checklist. Enemies, work, family, exes.

“Any problems with her ex-husband?” he asked.

Logan rolled his eyes.

“You don’t like him,” Jack guessed.

“I like Charlie, and I’m not going to say anything bad about him.”

“You like him, but . . . ?” Jack pushed.

Logan glanced toward the hall, lowered his voice. “I don’t want the kids to overhear.”

“Nutshell.”

“Charlie’s not a bad guy. But he lost all their money and their house in a get-rich-quick scheme. It wasn’t the first time,

but this time Laura left him. It wasn’t easy. They were high school sweethearts back in Texas. The Barretts and the Monroes

have been longtime family friends. But Laura grew up, and Charlie didn’t. He took out a second mortgage on their house and

cashed out their kids’ college funds to invest in a scam. A golf resort in Lake Havasu. He was defrauded, lost four hundred

thousand dollars. They lost everything, but his apologies were too little too late. Stealing from the kids was the final straw.”

He paused. “She wouldn’t let me cover it. She found out I’d covered for Charlie once before. It was all I could do to convince

her to let me buy this house for her. And still, she pays me every month, which I don’t want or need.”

Jack respected both Logan’s desire to protect his sister and her kids and Laura’s desire to be independent and self-sufficient. Logan had money and was happy to spend it on those he loved, but most

adults wanted to forge their own path without relying on others. Jack’s parents had offered to bail him out when Whitney,

his ex-wife, got them so deep in debt that Jack considered bankruptcy. Instead, he cashed out his retirement, took the hefty

tax hit, worked hundreds of hours of overtime—which meant losing time with Austin—and was able to save the house his ex now

lived in with their son. But Austin needed stability and security. Jack wouldn’t have done it any other way, and he wouldn’t

have respected himself if he’d taken help from his parents.

What hurt worse was that after he saved their house, Whitney left him. He’d begged her to go to counseling, to help him make

their marriage work, and she’d said she didn’t love him anymore and there was nothing he could say or do to fix it.

Then he learned she had cheated on him. While he’d been working overtime to get them out of debt, she had slept with another

man—but blamed Jack for not being around for her.

Jack didn’t know why Whitney had been on his mind lately.

Don’t lie to yourself. You damn well know why. In two days it will have been three years since your divorce was final.

Jack had never wanted a divorce. He’d loved Whitney even though she’d broken his heart. But she’d demanded it. Fortunately,

she hadn’t argued with him on joint custody—he would have gone scorched earth on her if she had.

As Jack looked around the living areas of the house, he noted that aside from the cabinet in the kitchen only the den had

been disturbed—drawers askew, papers on the floor, files tossed.

“They didn’t take anything?”

“No,” Logan said. “At least we didn’t discover anything missing. Computers, television, jewelry, nothing’s gone.”

“They were looking for something specific,” Jack said.

“Laura is an animal doctor . She has thousands of dollars in horses and equipment in the barn—all still there. She was more concerned about her horses

than her things. She has a gun safe they didn’t even attempt to access. She has a shotgun under her bed—still there. So what

did they think they’d find?”

“Whatever it was, they didn’t find it,” Jack said.

“How do you know?”

“The cabinet.” He gestured to the solid antique that had been knocked over. “That was done as they left, a sign of frustration.

They focused on the den, which suggests they were looking for information. I worked a case a couple years before I left the

force where two thieves broke into expensive homes in Central Phoenix and didn’t take anything from the house, except photos of financial information and passwords. Too many people leave their passwords near their computer.

People lost a lot of money before we caught them.”

Logan hit his head with his palm. “I didn’t even think! I’ll have Laura change all her passwords and contact her bank right

when they open. She has fraud protection, but it’s better to prevent the fraud in the first place.”

Finances were Logan’s strength, so Jack didn’t give him a list of accounts to check.

“Has she received any threats?” Jack asked. “Written, verbal? Someone who seemed suspicious at the clinic?”

“Nothing she’s mentioned.”

“We need to ask. It might not be something she’s thought about.”

“I don’t want to wake her up,” Logan said.

“That’s fine. We’ll talk to her later this morning.”

“Jack, I need you to stick to my sister until we find out what’s going on. I don’t know that the police are going to take

this seriously, or if they do that they’ll even be able to find answers. If there are no prints and the truck that hit them

doesn’t turn up, what can they do?”

“A lot. Look into like crimes, dig into Laura’s past, her associates, talk to the kids—”

“That will take weeks . I want you and Margo on this. Your entire agency if that’s what we need. I don’t want Laura and the kids looking over their

shoulder, afraid all the time. Their car was totaled . The kids were in there. It could have been so much worse.”

Jack motioned to the fallen cabinet. “Is there a reason you’re keeping it like that? The police already took pictures, right?”

“Yeah, they said we could clean up, but the cabinet is solid.”

“You’re not that much of a wimp, are you?” he teased.

Logan sighed. “You have no idea how heavy this is.”

Jack tested the cabinet. It was eight feet wide and about six feet tall, the bottom wider than the shelves. He noted the doors

on the cabinet hadn’t opened and whatever was inside might be salvageable.

He made sure there was nothing behind the cabinet, then instructed Logan to grab under the lip of the heavy bottom piece,

squat, and they would push it up from the center to avoid further damage to the lighter top half.