Sacrifice Love: Saints Protection & Investigations by Maryann Jordan Page B

nails!”
    Laughter sounded from the doorway and when her eyes looked at the men standing behind Chad, she lifted her eyebrow in question.
    Marc threw up his hands in supplication, saying, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Turner, but you are no damsel in distress, are you?”
    Taking Chad’s hand as he helped her down from her stool, she cocked her head to the side as she approached the wall of men. Big men. Wow. Are all the Saints this big?
    She saw their eyes assessing her living room, seeing it appear normal. “Before you ask, no, I did not touch anything. But someone has been here and I’m the only one who would have noticed.”
    A tall, bearded man approached, his hand outstretched and shook hers firmly. “Jack Bryant, Ms. Turner. I own the Saints. This is Marc, Jude, and Bart.”
    She nodded at each man and then turned her eyes to Chad. “I didn’t know who else to call. I knew the police would blow this off.”
    Chad walked over, pulling her in into an embrace. Resting his head on the top of hers, he felt the warmth of her body close to his. “Okay, Dani, tell us what happened.”
    “This is not actually the first thing that has occurred…it’s actually the second.”
    “What the hell? And you’re just now telling me—”
    “Whoa, buddy,” she said, pulling back away to look at his face. “Until a couple of days ago, we weren’t even speaking.”
    Taking a deep breath, he nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. Please tell us what’s going on.”
    “I’ll start with today. I confess that when I got home from work, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, so I didn’t realize anything untoward until I entered. One of the things my husband used to say was that I always hung pictures crooked on the walls. I never really thought about it, but he was right. My pictures always hang a bit crooked. I notice it now, but still never straighten them. Every picture in this house is straight. Every single one. As though someone looked behind each one and then without realizing they were crooked to begin with, they straightened them when they finished.
    She watched as the men’s gazes roamed the room…and the doubt they had. “Your reaction is exactly why I didn’t call the police.”
    Tiptoeing over to the sofa, she pointed down. “The sofa was moved and not placed back exactly where it had been so the dents in the carpet show.”
    Chad and the others moved into the living room to see what she was talking about and she saw the dawning in their expressions.
    “In the kitchen, my drawers and cabinets are not exactly the way I left them. I went to the grocery store today because I was low on some items. I was looking in my cabinets this morning to check my canned goods. I had the vegetables in the front because that was what I was focusing on. If you care to look, you’ll see that my soup cans are closer to the front.”
    “Every room the same?” Chad asked, anger pouring off of him at the idea of someone in Dani’s home.
    “Yeah. I armed myself and searched the house first. Once I knew it was secure, I did a more thorough search and discovered that whoever was here, did a good job of covering their tracks…but not to me.”
    “You did an armed search?” Bart asked, a grin of admiration on his face.
    Dani looked at him, seeing his panty-melting smile. He would turn many heads, she guessed, but had a feeling the big guy was now spoken for. She often found herself thinking of what people’s lives were like…especially after several of her unwise decisions.
    “Dani?”
    Startling, she jumped then guiltily looked at Chad. “Sorry, my mind wandered.” Be professional, girl, and stop daydreaming! “Uh, what did you say?”
    “You said there were two incidents,” Chad repeated, taking her hand and leading her to the table and ushering her into a chair. The five men sat down, as well, and appeared to be ready to listen to whatever she had to say.
    “I was handed this letter on Friday when I went to the storage