Foster's

Burglary .3

Sheriff Jack Campbell was not happy to get another call out to Culverton House for another body.

He didn't like that this girl had only been in that house for a month and had some how managed to be the pivotal witness in two, now three, incidents.

He was assuming, when he got there, that she had found another missing owner. But no. This wasn't a mummy in some hidden nook no one else had found before her, this was a fresh body right out in the open.

Tommy Black had been as dark as his last name. If things went missing it was him you'd point your finger at. He was constantly being brought up on drunk and disorderly charges, or assault charges as he was always looking for a fight to pick.

The man was large, and he held grudges, so many of his victims didn't usually follow through with the charges, lest he got out and came looking for revenge.

It was odd, seeing him lying there like that, like a broken rag doll, his chest flat. Like something had pressed down on him until everything else came out.

He had never seen anything like that before. Not in a house, anyway. Car crashes, hell yes.

He clearly hadn't been killed by natural causes, but what in a house could do that?

He spotted Brett and nodded to him. He noticed right away that his deputy and the officer he had with him were nowhere near the house, despite it being the primary crime scene.

He needed to know more about what happened here, cause the call said, two missing persons, injured person, and dead person. So far he had only seen the dead, and he had a feeling he knew who was injured.

God he was hoping she wasn't one of the missing persons.

She had been there more than two months and she had been faring well so far. He didn't want the house to have taken her down now.

"What happened?"

"Pretty straight forward B and E," he said. Except obviously not because two people were missing, someone was hurt and Tommy Black was dead. And he was a big son'of'a'bitch. Whoever took him down had to be just as strong... or maybe they were just lucky.

"Who's missing?"

"His crew," Brett said with a nod towards the body being carted into the hearse. Yes the mortuary had been called again to come out here, because someone else was going to go into the ambulance. And since the doors were open and Mickey wasn't in view Jack was assuming that he was in the house with the victim.

Tommy's crew wasn't as bad as him. Dan McCallum was probably a close second, he too was also punch happy and light fingered. Sloan Martinez was different, he was softer spoken, less decisive, easy to push around and bully. Add in a dug habit and Tommy managed to sucker him into pretty much anything to help him get his next fix.

It was Dan and Sloan that were missing.

"What does she say?" Campbell asked, cause he knew Brett had questioned her.

"Not gonna lie, she's pretty out of it. She must have startled them in the process, she got a pretty bad knock to the back of her head. Woke up to a dead body at her feet and only one item missing..."

Only one? That was pretty good considering the situation.

"So someone got away."

"Out of the house, yeah, who knows where they went after that... if they even got off the property."

"And she's claiming she didn't see anything?" Campbell asked and he nodded.

Campbell knew what was coming next.

He was going to have to do a search of the premises. Of the house and the property. None of his men were going to want to do that and he knew it.

"We're going to have to coordinate a search..."

"I've already had Robbins and Guiterez tell me they're not going to. They'll quit first."

"We could have them in a buddy system..."

"That has never worked, especially in the maze."

He was right, of course, but that didn't change that they were going to have to do a search. They were going to have to confirm that the two men were no longer on the property.

"I'll do the maze. I'm going to stay and head it up," he said, because he knew, from experience that he would have to lead this search as he always did. If he showed his men that he wasn't afraid they would follow suit.

Brett nodded and turned just in time to watch the EMTs wheeling Angelica out of the house.

He moved over to her and looked down at her. He could see exactly what it was that Brett was talking about. Angelica Foster was wide eyed and clearly panicked.

It was the first time he had ever seen fear on her face.

"Miss. Foster, I want to assure you that we're going to do all we can to find the men who did this," he told her and those wide green eyes found him immediately.

"Yeah... sure... whatever. They... they took something of mine. My clock," she said.

"Yes, Deputy Fernsby mentioned that something had been stolen..."

"No, no, you don't understand, the clock... they took my clock... I need it back..."

Wow, she was really riled up about that clock.

"Is it valuable?"

"Priceless... well priceless to me. I need it back. It's... a family... an antique... look, I just need it back!" she gripped the front of his shirt and, with a strength he wasn't sure she should have, she tugged him down to her so he could see the wild craziness in her eyes. "You have to find her. You don't know what she's like by herself."

"Who's the her? The clock?"

Angelica blinked her eyes and then sunk back into the gurney she was strapped to. "My head hurts."

Oh boy, this girl was truly out of it.

"Right, well we're going to have to search the premises."

"WHAT?!" she shouted bolting back up. The EMTs immediately moved to calm her down, Mickey at the forefront of that. "No, no, not good. Please don't. Not when I'm not there... I can't..."

"Miss. Foster," he said putting a hand to her shoulder. "It's alright. This is standard procedure. We're going to dust for prints, search the house and the surrounding area in case they're hiding and then we'll fan out. Okay?"

It wasn't okay. He could tell. She didn't want them in that house.

A sort of strangle groan broke through her teeth "For the love of god please be good. I'm serious. All of you," she called, though he could tell that she wasn't talking to him or anyone around him.

"We gotta get her to county," Mickey said. "She's not talking a lot of sense."

Yeah he could see that.

"I'll keep you posted on the investigation, alright Miss. Foster."

"Just please," she said again. "Please don't do anything while I'm gone."

Campbell wasn't sure she was still talking to him, in fact, if he followed her eyes it sort of felt like she was talking to the house.

Yeah. Wasn't that creepy?

"Don't worry, I have this under control."

Except he wasn't certain if that was true. While nothing had ever happened to him personally while at the Culverton house, he did get a bad feeling. Like something was watching him.

Like right at that moment, he was more than positive that something was directly behind him. He could feel it the awareness raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

But he shrugged it off.

He had no choice, he had to be the brave one and that was exactly what he was going to do.