Free The Summer of Lost Wishes by Jessa Gabrielle Page B

you know?”
    He turns on his signal to pull into the
building on our left. The dimly lit parking lot is empty.
    “You think they said the hell with my mom?”
I ask.
    Rooks laughs. “There’s a light on,” he says.
“If they think she’ll be good for business, they’ll accommodate
her. I mean, she’s Coral Sands’ new eye for design, right?”
    And he’s right. The owner rushes to the door
to unlock it and allow my mom and Mr. Carter to come inside. Rooks
and I trudge behind, less than thrilled about picking up more
supplies for my house.
    A few minutes later, I help Mom put the
paint cans and smaller bags into the trunk of her car while Mr.
Carter and Rooks do the heavy lifting and hauling. Mom better pay
them well for all they’ve done to help her. I vote she take them
out for an expensive dinner too. They’re not even a third of the
way done with the work, and they’ve already put more time into the
Calloway Cottage than Mom has. She shows me paint swatches of
different neutral shades that she’s debating using for the living
room while Rooks and his dad load the last items into the beds of
their trucks.
    “You riding back with me?” Rooks calls
out.
    “Sure,” I say.
    I wait for Mom to intervene and insist that
I ride with her instead so we can talk about which paint matches
the new floors best. But she doesn’t. She just tells us to go
around to the back door off of the kitchen so we don’t scuff her
floors.
     
    The streetlight doesn’t give much attention
to the backyard. A mild orange glow falls hazily over the yard, but
I still have to use my cell phone as a light source to find my keys
in my purse. Rooks leads the way through the grass.
    “Piper, I don’t think you need your keys,”
he says. He stops halfway across the yard, reaches over, and grabs
my arm. Then he steps closer to me. “We need to go get my dad.”
    I glance up to question him, but even in the
sliver of light, I see why. The glass window pane on the back door
is completely shattered. The door itself is cracked open. My heart
pounds, echoing in my ears. It thuds in my throat, like it may
rupture out of my chest and explode any second.
    “C’mon,” Rooks says, tugging on my arm.
    The dark isn’t much of a factor anymore. We
rush back through the grass and around the house, just quickly
enough to stop my mom from entering through the front door. Rooks
tells his dad about the back door while Mom calls the police
station in a semi-calm panic. Mr. Carter doesn’t wait for law
enforcement to arrive, though. He takes it upon himself to search
the house.
    In the two minutes it takes him to search
upstairs and in the closets, I stand in the driveway with Mom and
Rooks listening to my heart thud rapidly.
    “Whoever it was didn’t stick around,” Mr.
Carter says, as he exits onto the front porch. “Doesn’t really look
like they took anything either. You ladies will have to look around
to make sure, but aside from a few extra holes in the closet wall,
I didn’t see any damage.”
    “ My closet wall?” I ask, trying not
to sound overly panicked, even though that’s exactly what I am –
especially now.
    Mr. Carter nods a confirmation. My closet wall.
    “Probably some kids, if I had to guess,” Mr.
Carter says. He shakes his head, as if he’s disappointed in them
although he doesn’t have a clue who they are. “This place has a
history, and now that it’s occupied, people are curious. That
doesn’t justify breaking and entering, but it looks like they were
just snooping around.”
    “Then why would they put holes in my wall?”
I ask.
    I know why. I know exactly why. This wasn’t
some kid snooping around or wanting to leave their mark on the
historic home. Whoever broke into our house was on a mission. They
knew exactly what they were looking for, and now they know that it
isn’t there.
    Mr. Carter shrugs. “Your guess is as good as
mine,” he says. “The wall was already being torn down, so they
probably just