Guarded Secrets

Penny hugged her with a desperate intensity. “You won’t leave me, will you?” She looked up, her huge brown eyes glistening with tears.

Lilly’s heart broke. She wiped the wetness from her daughter’s cheeks. “No, I won’t.” Although she and Peter had been divorced almost since Penny’s birth, they had come to terms with their failed marriage and had become friends. Peter’s recent salvation had changed all their lives. “I can take you home and do this by myself.”

Penny wiped away her tears and stepped back. “I want to help.”

Lilly pushed the door all the way open and peered inside. The condition of the apartment shocked her.

Penny gasped. “Mom, what happened?”

Lilly’s gaze swept the living room, dining room and kitchen. It looked as if a tornado had ripped through the place, throwing things everywhere. Chairs and end tables had been tossed on their sides. The sofa had been turned over, and the cushions ripped and thrown around the room. The kitchen cabinets stood open; boxes of cereal and spaghetti spilled out from the shelves. Broken dishes and glasses littered the countertops and floor.

“I don’t know.” Three days ago, when she’d been inside this apartment to get one of Peter’s suits for the funeral, everything had been fine.

“I wonder if Dad’s bedroom is this way.” Penny started down the short hall.

A loud noise came from the bedroom.

Penny froze. When she turned her head, her frightened gaze met Lilly’s.

Lilly motioned for her daughter to come toward her. Penny turned and ran to her mother. Lilly rushed them out of the apartment and down the stairs. They retreated to Lilly’s car, and Lilly whipped out her cell phone.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“I need to report a burglary.”

Detective Jonathan Littledeer greeted Lilly outside Peter’s apartment door.

“Ms. Burkstrom, can you tell me what happened here?”

She recognized the Albuquerque police detective and his partner, David Sandoval. They’d come and told her about Peter’s death. Had it only been two weeks since that happened? It seemed like it was yesterday when they announced the grim news.

Stepping inside the apartment, Detective Littledeer stopped and scanned the area between the front door and the living room.

“Someone did a job on this place,” Detective Sandoval murmured, walking around the living room.

Detective Littledeer looked around the living room and kitchen. “It looks like they did a thorough search. What do you think they were looking for?”

Detective Sandoval nodded. “Good question. I’ll take a look in the bedroom.” He disappeared into the bedroom.

“Where’s your daughter?” Detective Littledeer asked Lilly, who was standing in the doorway.

“She left with my cousin. She didn’t need to be here. It upset her.” Lilly had called her cousin Allison and asked her to come and pick Penny up. Allison was one of the few family members left in town after her parents moved to Florida. Alison had a child younger than Penny. They’d been friends all their lives, and Penny needed a friend to help her redirect her thoughts.

Spying a digital picture frame on the floor, Lilly picked it up. “Peter bought this for Penny so she could see pictures of the two of them having fun.” She placed the frame on the coffee table.

“Can you think of why anyone would do this to your ex-husband’s apartment?”

“A couple of months ago, when Peter dropped off Penny, he told me that if anything happened to him, it wouldn’t be an accident.”

“Did he tell you what he meant by that?” Detective Littledeer asked, pressing her.

“Later, when I tried to question him about it, he simply shook his head, kissed my forehead and asked me to pray for him.” She looked down at the floor. “I tried to get him to explain a couple of times after that, asking him exactly what he meant, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He acted like I had imagined it.”

“The bedroom’s in the same shape as the rest of the place,” Detective Sandoval informed them as he joined them in the living room.

“Was someone in there?” Lilly asked.

Detective Sandoval glanced at Detective Littledeer before turning to her. “Yeah.”

She stumbled to the sofa. “Penny almost went in that room.”

Detective Littledeer squatted in front of Lilly. “But you didn’t let her, did you?”

“No. I didn’t,” she replied.

He covered her hand with his. When she looked at him, he smiled. “A mother’s wisdom is from above.” He stood. “Ms. Burkstrom might have an angle on this,” Detective Littledeer told his partner.

“What’s that?” Detective Sandoval asked.

“Her ex had been threatened.”

Detective Littledeer motioned Lilly toward the kitchen table as the crime-scene people arrived and started taking prints. “Is there anything you can think of that your ex-husband was involved with that was risky?”

Lilly tried to come up with something suspect that Peter could’ve been involved with. “I really don’t know of anything. After we divorced, he started drinking and running around. He’d show up sporadically at the house and want to see Penny, and then he would disappear again for six months.

“About four years ago, he found a job and seemed to straighten up his life. He saw Penny regularly and paid his child support. Eighteen months ago, he started coming to church again and gave his life to Christ. He seemed very happy until—”

“Until when?” Detective Littledeer quizzed.

“It was last April. I remember when because it was right after tax time. He’d glanced at my tax return and got a funny look on his face. He turned to me and gave me that warning.”

Detective Sandoval walked into the kitchen and sat down next to Detective Littledeer. “The evidence team’s finding lots of prints.”

“How will you know if they are Pete’s or someone else’s?” asked Lilly.

The detectives looked at each other. Detective Littledeer met her eyes. “Your husband’s prints are on file.”

She paled.

“It was a drunk driving charge from four years ago,” he explained.

Lilly wondered if they were telling her everything. “Is that all?”

“Also, the company he was working for at the time of his death requires prints of all its employees,” Detective Sandoval added.

Frowning, Lilly asked, “Why would they do that?”

“Armored car personnel have to have their prints on file,” Detective Littledeer explained.