Thank you to all who have read, favourited and/or reviewed the story! And the characters belong to Janet Evanovich. I'm just playing with them. Today's chapter will be a short one, but the next is due in two days.
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Chapter 6. More visitors
After they left Stephanie locked the door bolt, and did her usual nighttime routine. She put on one of Ranger's t-shirts, that she had nicked from him, and went to bed. She didn't fall asleep right away, which was unusual for her. Instead she lay in bed reading. It was a somewhat trashy romance novel gifted to her by Edna. Around one o'clock she heard some strange noises. She got up and grabbed her cell phone before she tiptoed out of her bedroom. She could hear the strange noises coming from her door. She very carefully went to the door and looked through the peephole. She could only see that it was someone with dark, unruly hair bent down trying to manipulate the lock. Unfortunately she couldn't see the person's face, and she absolutely didn't want to open the door to confront them. That said, she was about 98 percent sure who the would-be burglar was. She tiptoed away to her kitchen and called the police.
After leaving her name and address and telling the operator that it was an attempted burglary in progress, she was promised a police patrol as soon as possible. While she talked to the operator she could hear that the noises from the door had stopped. After the call she put on some clothes.
A couple of minutes later someone knocked on the door.
"Police, Ms. Plum," someone announced.
"Please hold up your identification so I can see it through the peephole," Stephanie said.
After checking the ID Stephanie opened the door, but kept the chain on. There were two men in police uniform outside her door.
"And if I can please see both of your ID's again," she said.
She didn't recognize either of them, and considering how often she was at the TPD that made her uncomfortable.
"I thought they usually paired up rookies with more experienced personnel?"
"Well, miss, I'm the rookie. Kenney Jones." the younger man said.
"And I'm John Entwistle," the man in his early forties, said. "I'm an experienced cop, but have just recently begun at the TPD. I used to work in Seattle, but my wife wanted to move closer to her elderly parents. And right now we're short staffed, so they paired us up."
"I see," said Steph. "It's just that I know most of the cops at the TPD, and after the attempted burglary I'm feeling a bit on edge."
"I understand," Entwistle said. "Why don't you call the station and ask them to verify? In the meantime we'll take a look at the door and locks."
Stephanie made a quick call to the TPD who verified both Jones and Entwistle. Entwistle tried to find fingerprints on the door.
"There are so many different fingerprints here that it will be impossible to say if they are connected to the break in attempt or not," he said. "But someone has definitely tried to open the locks, first with a skeleton key or something similar, and then with force. I'm not sure if your key will still fit, they have damaged the lock quite badly."
Stephanie sighed.
"I'll call a locksmith tomorrow," she said. "Do you think that you could try to get photos from the fingerprints anyway? If something else happens maybe multiple clues can work together?"
"Of course," Entwistle said. "And if you have some cleaning utensils we'll see to it that the door will not have any old prints on it. That way if something else happens, you can at least verify that they were put there efter this day."
"Thank you very much," Steph said and fetched some cleaning utensils and a pair of rubber gloves. The rookie, Jones, had quite small hands, and could use the gloves and after Entwistle had finished processing the prints Jones thoroughly cleaned off the door. By now Steph had taken off the chain, and stood talking to the police men.
"Did the call to you go out in a different way?" she asked. "Usually when my name and address is mentioned on the police radio I get some extra people."
"Yes, they've had some problems with the new system, and actually called on our cell phone," Jones said.
"That explains it," Steph said.
She thanked the policemen, and went to bed. Even with a lot of thoughts whirling around she managed to fall asleep.
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The next morning Stephanie woke quite early. She called a locksmith, who helped change the lock. He said that the old lock was high quality, and that it would be expensive to install something of the same quality. On the other hand, the fact that even the high quality lock had been so brutalized, probably meant that she needed it.
Steph didn't argue with that, just paid with some of the money from Edna. She knew that Hector or any other Rangeman would be glad to help her, but then she would have to tell them what had happened to the lock in the first place⦠She didn't want the Rangemen to get involved with Joe. The odds were that he would either disappear, or be hurt, and he would do everything he could to frame Rangeman. Honestly, if she told them about his stalking and behaviour the blame would most probably be justified...
