Page 57 of Skin Game

Still, something didn’t feel right, and he wasn’t sure what it was. For one thing, he couldn’t imagine Gabe sitting around with all the lights off.

“Huh.” Reaching down, he set the Wagoneer’s parking brake and leaned forward, peering at Gabe’s front door, which was illuminated by his headlights.

Casey narrowed his eyes, squinting at the house. Was the door slightly ajar?

It was. Gabe would never leave his door open, especially not this time of year. Just the other day, he’d scolded Casey for not making sure it latched because Keith was a bit of an escape artist and “no way was he chasing the damn cat around the RV park in this fucking cold.”

Behind him, Bowie stirred and sat up to see what was going on. Casey could almost hear him asking why they weren’t getting out of the car.

A gust of wind blew up. The door slammed with an audible bang and almost immediately swung outward again.

“Stay,” Casey ordered Bowie, then elbowed his door open and got out.

“Gabe?” he yelled.

There was no answer. The tiny glimmer of hope Casey had that the open door meant Gabriel was inside and was about to pull it closed flickered out. A second gust of wind blew across the park grounds. Another weather system was moving in fast, and the next few hours promised to be wet and windy. Not an ideal time for Gabe to disappear.

Casey moved closer to the house, the unease in the pit of his stomach becoming a snake pit. An acid-producing snake pit. Hisfoot landed on something that crunched against the gravel. Stepping back, he looked down and saw a glint in the darkening evening light.

“Shit.” Bending down, Casey hooked one finger around the sparkly Hello Kitty keychain Gabe had picked up from Norskland General Store. Another of Mercy’s failed purchases for her daughter when Brooklyn had been a tween, one that Gabe had found amusing to add to his collection of sparkly things.

The acid roiled. What was he going to find inside?

“Gabe, are you there?” he called out again, pocketing the keys and forcing himself to move toward the door.

Under normal circumstances, Casey did not allow his imagination to run wild. Imagination was just that—not wholly perceived reality. However, Casey’s brain was churning out unwanted images. Gabe injured. Gabe dead. Charming Fucker, gone forever.

Life with Gabriel Karne, he’d learned, was never going to be normal. But this was even less normal than Casey was accustomed to.

Gabriel Karne was Casey’s personal basket lightning. The phenomenon was something he’d only seen once in his life. Instead of striking the earth, one and done, a bolt of lightning bolt struck, then appeared to twist up and roll along the ground like a ball, sometimes for miles, wreaking havoc in its path. Casey wasn’t sure he could revert to a havoc-less, Gabe-less life.

“Fuck.”

Tugging the sleeve of his coat over one hand, Casey pulled on the handle and held the door open with his shoulder, then reached inside and flipped on the interior light.

Casey didn’t know what he expected to see, but it wasn’t this.

“Holy shit.”

The front room was utter chaos, completely trashed. Ignoring the rubble, Casey hastily searched for signs of Gabriel. In the bedroom, he discovered Keith hiding under the bed but no Gabe.

“Good kitty for staying inside,” Casey said to the pair of glowing eyes.

Leaving the cat there for the time being, Casey peeked into the closet and bathroom. Nothing. No Gabriel. No Charming Fucker.

At least he wasn’t lying on the kitchen floor. Was the fact that Gabe wasn’t to be found a good thing? Had Gabe decided to walk somewhere in this weather? Or had whoever was responsible for this mess taken him?

Gabe’s standard level of mess was a stack of dishes in the sink and dirty laundry sitting in a pile on the bedroom carpet beside the bed. And, yes, the over-the-top selection of toys he’d purchased for Keith were often strewn about. What Casey was looking at now was far beyond that.

From the confines of the Wagoneer, Bowie started barking, demanding to be let out. “Sorry, doggo, no can do,” Casey said, even though he knew Bowie couldn’t hear him.

Before he tried to make some kind of sense of what might have happened to Gabriel, Casey made two calls. The first was to the Sheriff’s Office to report a break-in, and the second was to Elton.

“I’m heading over,” Elton said grimly. “I was just sitting around wondering when you two were planning on getting here.”

“Were we supposed to come over? Eagan’s sending someone by. Maybe we should let them do their job?” Casey suggested. Not that he wouldn’t welcome moral support in the form of Elton Cox.

“Areyouwaiting around for them to get their act together?”