Page 3 of Wild Wolf

“Aren’t you going to talk to my neighbors? See if they saw anything?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ll canvas the area. Hopefully, someone has doorbell footage that captured the perps coming or going. I noticed you don’t have a video doorbell. You might want to get one as well as a security camera for the driveway and back door.”

“What are the odds of getting my stuff back and catching these guys?”

“Until you tell us what’s missing, slim to none.”

She didn’t like that answer. “I don’t know what’s missing yet,” she said in a huff. “Is that all you do? Come out, look around, and say, oh well?”

“I know this is a frustrating experience. I’m sorry you’re going through it, but there’s only so much we can do. To be honest, this kind of thing happens all the time?—”

“It doesn’t happen all the time to me,” she snapped, cutting me off.

I continued, “Unless we catch them fencing the goods or in the act, the odds are pretty low. Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch a print. If the guys have priors and are in the database, we’ll get a match.”

“How are you going to catch a print if the forensic team doesn’t come out?”

“Like I said, I’ll notify them, but I’m not sure when they’ll be out.”

Her lips tightened, and a frustrated exhale escaped her nostrils. “This used to be a good neighborhood, you know? Crime seems to keep getting worse around here. Thank God, I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?”

“I took a teaching position overseas.”

“What do you teach?”

“Occult studies at Vanden.”

JD and I both looked impressed.

“That sounds interesting,” I said.

“What would be interesting is if you could catch the people who broke into my house.”

“We’ll do everything we can, ma’am. But to be honest, this is not our area. We’re Special Crimes. Like I said, the department is short on manpower at the moment.”

“Well, this is a special crime to me.”

I dug into my pocket and handed her a card. “That’s my direct number. Call me if you need anything.”

“What I need is for you to actually do something.”

I gave her a flat look. “We’ll do everything we can.”

She wasn’t impressed.

It was a little late to start banging on neighboring doors, but we did anyway. Unfortunately, nobody had seen anything, and none of the cameras in the area captured footage of the burglars.

We hopped into the Porsche and headed back to theAvventura.

“She wasn’t too friendly,” Jack muttered.

“Would you be friendly if your place just got broken into?”

“I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds.”

The small party was still in full effect when we returned to the superyacht. The guys in Jack’s band had done an acoustic set before we left, and our guests were eager to hear more Wild Fury songs when we returned.