Within Reach

This could be the end of her business.

“Has someone called the police? How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. I need to go….” She started to leave, her thoughts racing ahead of her.

“Angie.”

Michael’s hand caught her arm as she was opening the front door. “Drive carefully, okay? Any damage has already been done, so you speeding there isn’t going to change anything.” His voice was calm and steady. Grounding.

She took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right.”

“Keep us in the loop, okay?”

“I will.” She gave him a small, grateful smile before exiting the house.

The moment she was in the car all her worries rose to the surface again but she resisted the impulse to floor it, Michael’s words still echoing in her mind. There was no point adding a speeding fine—or worse—to tonight’s woes. Whatever they might be.

She found a parking spot around the corner from the building and ran the half block to the entrance. Her footsteps sounded loud in the stairwell as she climbed to the fifth floor. She could see evidence of the break-in as she climbed—graffiti and broken glass—and there was more when she arrived on her floor. Glass glinted on the tiles in the corridor, and every door along this side hung open drunkenly, regardless of the security measures the individual tenants had in place. A couple of police officers stood at the far end of the corridor, talking. One of them started walking toward her the moment they saw her.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, miss. This is a crime scene.”

“I’m a tenant—studio twenty-three. My neighbor told me my space has been broken into.”

The policeman consulted his notebook. “Number twenty-three. That makes you Angela Bartlett.”

“That’s right.”

“You can go in to assess the damage and tell us what’s missing, but I need you to not touch anything until our crime-scene people have finished collecting evidence.”

“Okay. Sure. Whatever you want, I just need to see my studio.”

She was aware of the anxious pounding of her heart as she followed him around the corner. She could see her door hanging open.

“They hit every studio?” she asked, her gaze darting left and right as she inspected the damage to her neighbors’ spaces as they passed. What she saw only increased the anxiety tightening her chest—smashed furniture, toppled bookcases.

“On this level, yeah. Downstairs they were a bit more discriminating.” The cop halted. “Okay, here we are. Remember, no touching anything until the team’s been through.”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on the doorway. She sent up a prayer to the universe.

Please let them have not broken into the safe.

She stepped over the threshold.

The first thing she registered was the black paint sprayed across the wall, a huge, furious four-letter word six feet high. Paint had dribbled down to the floor, which was covered with broken glass from the framed artwork they had torn off the walls. The mid-century sideboard that had housed her books and keepsakes had been tipped over, spilling its contents, and her table and chairs had been smashed.

Her gaze zeroed in on the safe. Relief pounded through her as she saw that while the dull gray metal was scarred and pitted around the locking mechanism and it had been dragged a few feet from its position in the corner, the door remained closed.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, closing her eyes for a brief second.

That was one disaster averted, at least. She turned to inspect the rest of her space and sucked in a dismayed breath when she saw her workbench. The intruders had sprayed black paint over all her tools—the leather hammer she’d used for more than ten years, her vernier caliper, her flexi-drive drill, all the drill bits and mops and burrs… Again, she reached out but caught herself in time.

Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes. She didn’t understand why anyone would be so destructive. She was a stranger to the intruders, yet they had made a concerted effort to maliciously destroy her creative space.

Her phone rang. She pulled it from her bag. Michael’s number showed on the screen.

“Everything okay?” he asked the moment she took the call.

“Yes and no. They didn’t get into my safe, which would have pretty much been the end of my business. But they’ve absolutely trashed everything else they could get their hands on. Including my tools.”

“Shit. I’m really sorry, Angie.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Stupid assholes.”

“I take it you’re insured?”

“Yeah, but I think it’s mostly going to be cleaning up, not replacing stuff. Apart from what’s in the safe, most of the things I had here have value only for me, you know. They’re hardly worth claiming on insurance.”

“Anything I can do?”

Despite the situation, his offer warmed her. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so alone or overwhelmed.

“Thanks, but there’s nothing anyone can do at this stage. The police won’t let me touch anything until their fingerprint people have—” Her roaming gaze fell on a spray of dirt on the floor near the window.

The burn of tears intensified as she saw that her Japanese maple bonsai tree had been thrown to the floor and stomped on. The pottery base was shattered, and half the tree’s roots were exposed and broken.

“Angie? Are you okay?”

She sank to her knees and reached for the fragile tangle of leaves and tiny branches.

“They smashed my bonsai.”

There was a small silence. She knew Michael understood the significance of the loss. Billie had given her the tiny tree as a gift to brighten her workspace, even though Angie had what could only be described as a black thumb. At the time, Angie had given Billie her word that she’d keep it alive, and so far the bonsai had survived almost three years of benign neglect.

She lifted the tree gently. It was crushed, the main trunk almost completely severed. Utterly beyond saving.

“If you want, I can be there in half an hour. I’m sure Mrs. Linton could look after the kids for a few hours.”

She sniffed back her tears. “I’m okay. Just angry. It’s so destructive. And completely pointless.”

“You sure you don’t want some company?”

“I’ll be all right. But thanks for the offer.”

It wasn’t until they ended the call that it struck her that ten months ago, Billie would have been the one on the phone, insisting on helping. It was hard facing a crisis without her best support and cheerleader, but it was also nice to know that Michael cared enough to have made the call.

Of course he cares. He’s your friend. Just as you’re his friend.

She heard footsteps in the corridor and the policeman stopped in the doorway.