Free Guardian of Justice by Carol Steward

glare.
    Dallas followed as they went inside. “This doesn’t look good. Why’d she dump out her purse and leave it here?”
    Garrett looked in the closet off the front door. Nick went to check the bedrooms, and Garrett went to the attached garage, while Dallas and the street cop searched the kitchen and living room.
    “No sign of her in the bedroom,” Nick yelled down the stairs, “but it looks like she went somewhere in a hurry. Her dresser drawers are hanging open.”
    “Is her suitcase gone?” Officer Richards asked.
    “She doesn’t have one. She borrows Mom’s,” Garrett answered as he came out of the garage with a puzzled look on his face. “Her car’s still here. Maybe she’s out on a date.”
    Dallas opened the microwave, surprised to find an overcooked and dried-out chicken pasta dinner. “With a broken window and a cooked, uneaten dinner in the microwave?” He couldn’t imagine the woman he’d met the other night living in a mess like this. Jackets and shoes were scattered about.
    “This isn’t like Kira at all,” Nick stated as he examined the other windows and the back door. “I’m going to call Mom, see if she knows anything.”
    “Who was this guy? The one that attacked her?” Garrett asked while Nick talked into his phone.
    “Attacked the car. He didn’t touch her. Drug dealer, goes by Mickey Zelanski. He had a stash of coke as big as Kira’s kitchen.”
    Garrett started with the attitude again. “So he attacks the car she’s in and you let him go? Nice work.”
    Dallas felt the hair on his neck tingle. “She sounded the siren and scared him away. He was gone by the time I got out there. Crazy me, I wanted to make sure your sister was okay.”
    “Why didn’t she call you on the radio?”
    “She did, but it didn’t sound anything like your sister, trust me.” Dallas didn’t need this. “You want answers, Garrett, get Kira to come fill out a statement. Then we’ll both know what she went through out there.”
    That wasn’t good enough, apparently. Though the attitude mellowed, Garrett kept pressing for information. “And why didn’t she fill it out that night?”
    “Knock it off, I can’t hear Mom,” Nick yelled.
    “What about Kira?” Garrett asked.
    Nick gave a thumbs-up. A couple of minutes later, he joined them. “Kira’s okay. She’s been at Mom and Dad’s the last few days.”
    Dallas let out a deep breath, along with her brothers. These two might not be Kira’s blood, but there was no doubt how they felt about her.
    “Mom said she seems okay, but it doesn’t sound like Kira told them anything, either. Dad’s bringing her over to confirm whether someone else has been in here, or what in the world got hold of our neat-freak sister.”
    Dallas appreciated that his first impression of her was accurate, but that didn’t sound good for her emotional state of mind right now. Her sarcasm echoed through his head: I’m fine, they’re fine, everyone is fine. That’s what you want, right?He had hoped she was strong enough that the incident wouldn’t have bothered her. Looks like he was wrong. He should have followed Shaline’s suggestion and come to see her right away.
    While the brothers talked to the officer, Dallas wandered the room, trying to understand Kira a little better. She had a lot of family pictures mixed in with simple decorations. Candles, bowls with dried flowers and leaves in them. Very few trinkets, he noted.
    “Look at this,” the street officer said. “What was this burglar looking for?” In the hallway, books had been knocked off the shelf, videos tossed into the trash. The pictures on the wall were crooked, but nothing of any value appeared to be missing. The television and computer hadn’t been bothered.
    Dallas kept quiet, allowing the brothers to determine what was out of place.
    If it was Zelanski, what had he been looking for? Why would he bother Kira? Unless he thought she had taken something besides the kids’