Here's an extra Sunday bonus chapter for you. Enjoy!

Usual disclaimer applies.

10. Explosive Restraint

When Molly and I walked into the police station the following morning, Detective Carter was standing in the hallway waiting for us. "You're exactly on time Miss Plum. Please follow me to my office."

Once inside and seated, Detective Carter looked at me and said, "Miss Plum, I have the paperwork for your restraining order against Ryan Preston. Unfortunately, the Judge didn't think that there was enough evidence to warrant the second restraining order against Ryan's father. It was a long shot, but at least you have the one against Ryan ready and waiting to be filed."

I signed the necessary paperwork and collected the new keys to my apartment, including a new master set for the super. I walked back to Molly's place with her, collected my things and headed over to my place.

Before we said goodbye, Molly asked, "Steph, why don't Christie and I come by after lunch and help you get things cleaned up?"

"Sure, we can order some pizza to make up for the other night."

Molly laughed and waved as she I walked down the hall and got on the elevator.

I got back to my building and saw my father standing in the lobby. When I opened the door, before I could say anything, my mother came rushing over to me and started ranting at me. "Stephanie Michelle Plum, how could you embarrass us by telling all these lies about poor Ryan? He's absolutely beside himself with grief because of the callous way you broke up with him.

"I promised him we'd come here and bring you back so you two could work things out. Now go on upstairs, pack your things and get a move on. We need to get home in time for me to make dinner."

I looked at my mother and then at my father. He was looking at my face very closely, but didn't say anything. I looked at my mother, took a deep breath and said, "Mother, I am not coming back with you to Trenton. I interviewed for a really exciting summer job yesterday and I was offered the position. I am staying here and working this summer.

"As for Ryan, I don't know what lies he's been telling you, but I refuse to be with a man who cheats on me and takes his anger out with physical violence."

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. Maybe you were too busy with your studies to provide him the attention he needed. You should quit this college nonsense and marry him so you can take care of him properly."

I laughed and said, "I will not drop out of college, especially to marry Ryan Parker. If I refuse to stay with a man who cheats, I definitely would never stay with a man who hits me. Look at my face. Look at the bruises he left on my arms. I will not stay with him. It is over, and if you don't like it, you can marry him. I am not now nor am I ever going to marry Ryan Parker."

My dad walked a little closer to me and looked at the cheek that was still badly bruised, but concealed quite well under makeup. He turned to his wife and said, "I don't want Steph to see this boy anymore Helen, look what he did to her. If he is treating her like this now, it would only get worse if they stayed together and got married."

My mother refused to look at me and started walking toward the door. She was mumbling about being embarrassed and worrying about what the neighbours thought. As she reached the door she called over her shoulder, "If she's not coming Frank, let's go."

My father looked at me, gave me a quick squeeze and said, "Call me if you need anything Pumpkin, I'm proud of you."

I watched my parents walk out of sight around the corner of the building and pressed the call button for the elevator. When the doors opened, I walked in and laughed at my mother. I was annoyed at her reaction, but I was old enough now that she couldn't force me to do something I didn't want to do, no matter how much she nagged. That realisation made me feel a lot better about my current situation, so I decided to forget about her negativity or how Ryan felt and just move on with my life.

I entered my apartment and sighed. It was one thing to decide to ignore my mother's rants. It was another to ignore the mess in my apartment. I dropped my bag on the sofa and went to make a pot of coffee. As the black liquid dripped into the carafe, I began to relax. In reality, the damage done to my apartment was limited, so it probably wouldn't take too long to clean up.

I filled a mug with coffee, milk and a little bit of sugar and walked through the rooms to take stock of all of the damage. The majority of the damage was done in my bedroom. A few trinkets that were in the lounge were broken, but nothing irreplaceable. Luckily, my roommate's room escaped all notice, and nothing was damaged in there. I would not have enjoyed calling her and telling her about her destroyed belongings.

I sat and enjoyed my coffee, letting my mind wander over the events of the last few days. I was finally able to fully appreciate how lucky I was the day the Carlos Manoso walked into my life. If it wasn't for him, my mother would probably have talked me into marrying Ryan, and then I'd be stuck in a marriage with an abusive and adulterous man that I didn't really like. Now, I had the chance to get some experience with a real accounting firm and move on with my life.

My phone rang and brought me out of my thoughts. It was Christie calling to tell me that she and Molly would be over as soon as they picked up the Pizza. I looked around my apartment and decided that I would clean up the broken glass and ceramic chards from the living room and leave the much bigger mess in my bedroom for the arrival of reinforcements.

I placed my mug in the sink and grabbed the broom out of the closet. I swept up all of the broken glass and broken trinkets and then swept the remains into a dustpan. I was still convinced that there were tiny shards of glass that were invisible to the eye, so I would need to do something more drastic.

I looked at the time and figured my neighbour down the hall might be home. Mrs Waters is a middle aged widower who is usually very friendly with me when we see each other in the hall. I have fed and checked on her beloved cats when she was out of town one weekend, so I hoped she would be willing to lend me her vacuum cleaner.

I was a little bit more security conscious than usual, so instead of leaving my door ajar, I grabbed my keys and locked it before heading down to knock on Mrs Waters' door. The door was pulled open a few seconds later by Mrs Waters who was holding one of her cats. "Stephanie, how nice to see you dear, please come in." She backed into her apartment and waved me inside.

Once inside, she turned to me and said, "I'm glad to see that you are alright. We all saw the police in your apartment the other night. They even came to ask us some questions."

"Thanks for your concern Mrs Waters. Somebody broke into my apartment, so I had a little bit of trouble, but that's all over now. Actually, that's the reason I stopped by. As you know, my apartment has no carpet, so I have never needed a vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, the burglar broke some items in my apartment and there was glass everywhere. I swept it up as best I could, but I'm worried that there might be small pieces that the broom can't catch. I was hoping you might lend me your vacuum cleaner so I could be sure to clean up all the bits of glass."

"That's not a problem Steph. You can use my vacuum cleaner and anything else you might need in order to get things back to normal."

Mrs Waters disappeared down the hall and returned moments later with a cumbersome vacuum cleaner. She handed it to me and said, "She's old, but she works just fine." I thanked her and promised to return it shortly.

After vacuuming the floor and returning the vacuum cleaner to Mrs Waters, it was almost lunch time. Molly and Christie would be arriving soon so I put on a fresh pot of coffee and set the table in anticipation of their arrival.

Shortly after noon, the buzzer at the door in the lobby rang announcing Christie and Molly's arrival with pizza. After we had finished the pizza, the three of us went into my room and started discarding and recording everything that was destroyed. When we were finished, it was obvious that I would have to make an insurance claim. Almost all of the clothes hanging in my closet were shredded. The drawers in my dresser had been sprayed with some sort of dark blue ink, ruining anything exposed on the top layer of the drawer.

When we finally finished the list and filled several bags with my ruined clothes, it was 7:30. Both Christie and Molly had plans that evening, so they headed out and left me with the remaining pizza from lunch.

I re-heated the pizza in the oven, and ate in front of the television. There wasn't much on, so I settled on the news channel, and watched as the news anchor interviewed a zookeeper about a tiger that was about to give birth. When I was finished eating, I left the TV while I washed the plates and glasses from earlier.

By the time I finished the washing up, the tiger story was over. I picked up my remote to try and find something else to watch, but was saved by my ringing phone.

I looked at the caller id and saw that it was Carlos who was calling.

"Hey Carlos, what's up?"

"Hiya Steph, how did it go at the station this morning?"

"Pretty much as expected, I signed some paperwork that made Ryan's restraining order legal, picked up my keys, and came back to my apartment."

"I thought there were supposed to be two restraining orders?"

"Detective Carter was only able to get the Judge to agree to the one against Ryan. He said there was not enough evidence to implicate Ryan's father. He's a lawyer, so I doubt he will do anything to harm me."

"OK. I just thought I'd call and check that everything went smoothly today."

Carlos paused and said, "Were you able to get everything sorted in your apartment?"

I sighed and said, "Everything is cleaned up now. Molly and Christie came over this afternoon and helped out. I will have to file an insurance claim because I will need to buy a new wardrobe. Whoever broke in ruined almost all of my clothes. I don't really get why they'd do that."

"You sound depressed at the thought of replacing your clothes. I thought most girls loved to go shopping?"

I laughed and said, "I do like shopping. I just don't like the idea of being forced to go when I have little time or money to truly enjoy the experience."

"I get it, you're starting a new job on Monday, and that will likely take up most of your time for the foreseeable future. Do you need to go shopping before Monday?"

"Both Molly and Christie offered to let me raid their closets tomorrow. Unfortunately, I can't really borrow some things from them, so I will need to pick up a few things tomorrow."

I was about to ask Carlos how his drive home the night before was, but there was a knock at my door. I told Carlos I'd be right back, and walked to the door, still carrying the glass of water I was drinking as I talked to Carlos.

I looked out of the peep hole but didn't see anyone. I slowly unlocked my door and opened the door. Nobody was there. I was just about to close the door when something caught my eye close to the ground. I looked down and saw a bottle with a rag stuffed in the neck that had been lit on fire.

I squealed and threw my glass of water at the bottle. The fire seemed to go out, but seconds later it light up again. I didn't know what to do, so I picked the bottle up and ran with it into the bathroom and dropped it into the toilet, burning end down. As soon as I was satisfied that the flames were out, I walked over, picked up my phone and said, "I'm sorry Carlos, I'm going to have to call you back. Somebody just left a Molotov cocktail at my door. I've managed to extinguish the flames, but I need to call the police."

Without waiting for a response from Carlos, I hung up and dialled Detective Carter's number. When he answered, I said, "Detective, this is Stephanie Plum. A Molotov cocktail was just delivered to my apartment. I managed to put out the fire before the bottle exploded, but I thought you ought to know."

Detective Carter instructed me to lock my door and told me that he would be there shortly to start another investigation. I stood in my living room behind my sofa, thinking about who might have done this.

My first thought was Ryan, but I remembered that he was probably still in Trenton, with instructions not to leave town. My next thoughts leaned toward Mr Preston, but I had a hard time believing that he would do something as potentially harmful as a Molotov cocktail. Even if he was angry at the charges against his son, there were better ways to deal with it than by trying to harm me.

Detective Carter arrived about 20 minutes later and he was accompanied by a team of forensic scientists. He asked me a bunch of questions, got me to walk him through the events of the evening, and was just about to suggest that I find somewhere else to stay for the night when Carlos, closely followed by Ricardo came rushing in.

Carlos reached me and pulled me into a brief hug. He let me go and asked, "Are you OK Steph? You really had me worried when you hung up on me. When I explained what happened to Papa, he insisted that we come and make sure that you were alright."

I was surprised by their presence, but I was able to reassure them both that everything was fine.

Detective Carter looked at me and reiterated, "Miss Plum, I have to remind you that you cannot stay here tonight. You can pack a bag since there was not actual intrusion, but we want to keep you away from here for a few days so we can do some surveillance using a stand-in for you."

I looked at the detective without saying anything. I knew I could stay with Molly, but I was a bit annoyed by the inconvenience. "Is that really necessary?"

"It is Miss Plum. If the person responsible finds out that their first attempt failed, what's stopping them from trying again?"

I scrunched up face and sighed. "I'll go pack a bag and call my friend Molly."

A few minutes later, I was sitting on my bed beside a bag packed with what little of my clothing remained. I had my phone in hand, staring off into space. My mind was so occupied with my frustrated thoughts that I didn't even notice when Carlos and Ricardo walked into my room.

Ricardo cleared his throat and asked, "Are you OK Stephanie? You look a bit worse for wear?"

"I'm fine Ricardo. I just can't get through to my friend Molly. I forgot that she was out tonight with her family."

Ricardo walked closer to me and sat beside me on the bed. He looked at me, put his arm around my shoulder and said, "I've just spoken with the detective. We both think that it might be safer if you come home with us to Newark and stay with us for a few days."

I looked up at Ricardo and then at Carlos and said, "I couldn't possibly impose like that. You've both done so much for me already. I don't want you to cause you any more trouble."

Carlos squatted down in front of me so that we were at the same eye level and said, "Come on Steph, it's not safe for you to be here and you don't know when Molly will be back. If you come back with us, you'll be safe and you won't be alone.

"Besides, there are better shopping opportunities in Newark and the commute will be much easier come Monday morning."

I laughed at Carlos' comment and replied, "When you put it in terms of shopping and extra beauty sleep, how could any woman in their right mind refuse such a generous offer. I don't know how I'll ever thank you enough."

Ricardo thought for a moment, then smiled and said, "I do. You can take Isabella and Evelyn shopping with you. They have been nagging Maria and me for ages because they each have birthday money that they want to spend."

"I will gladly accept that challenge. This small task is the least I can do for all of your family's hospitality."

I walked back into the living room, followed by Ricardo and Carlos carrying my bag. Ricardo, Carlos and Detective Carter exchanged contact details, and Detective Carter promised to call me if anything turned up over the next few days. He'd let me know when he thought it was safe for me to return to my apartment.

I took one last look around my apartment and thanked the detective before following Carlos and Ricardo out to the elevator. Since it was almost 11PM, the trip back to the Newark took less than 30 minutes, which was just enough time for me to be lulled into a dreamless sleep.

More to follow. Thanks for reading.