Chapter Twenty-six

“We’ve got to go back to Pittsburgh,” he had said as soon as she’d gotten out of the shower that morning.  She’d looked at him questioningly and he explained. “Your place was broken into.”

“What?”

“I don’t have all the details, but we have to go back now. The plane is waiting.”

“Oh, my God, Brooks!” she exclaimed, worried about her pup.

“He’s okay. Max took him home the night that we came up here. He wasn’t even there.”

She wrapped her arms around him and he hugged her. “Come on, get your stuff. We’ll go see how bad it is.”

With the tailwind, the flight was actually shorter than normal, but it still seemed to take forever.  Now they were finally standing at her door.  She put her hand over her mouth in shock as they entered the studio.  Max was struggling with a large piece of heavy plastic to cover the hole left by the shattered glass door. He turned as they entered.

“Pate, it’s gonna be okay,” he said quickly, crossing to them and placing his hands on her upper arms, “I have a new door coming in a couple hours. I just wanted to keep the cold out.”

“Oh, Max,” she said and hugged him. He held her for a minute.  Sid offered his hand and his thanks. Max just shrugged it off as if to say he knew Sid would do the same for him. 

“Did you bring Brooks?” she asked.

“No, he’s still at my place. I just stopped by here to get that extra dog food and I found it this way. By the way, that pup eats like a horse.”

Payton smiled weakly. It was the first time she’d managed one since last night. Max could always find a way. She found herself loving the jokester in front of her all the more.

“The officer said he would be back when you got here if you would just call him. He wanted you to see if anything was missing,” he continued. “I wanted to clean up a little, but I was afraid to throw anything away.”

“Thank you Max,” she said, squeezing his hand.

She turned and look over her studio. “What about upstairs? Have you been upstairs, Max?”

He shook his head no.  She felt Sid’s strong hand in hers and he moved with her up the staircase. She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob.   Sid stepped forward and opened it for her.  She walked through the door openmouthed.  Then she let out a soft moan and buried her face in Sidney’s chest.  The room was completely trashed. All of her books were ripped from the shelves and pages were torn and tossed on the floor. The frames holding her personal pictures lie broken across the room.  The bedding was crumpled and ripped and joined all the other debris on the floor.  The canvas portrait of the forest above her bed still hung on the wall, however, it had been slashed with a knife, probably the same knife that the villain used to rip her bedclothes.  There were broken pieces of shell all over. It looked as if some came in swinging a bat and didn’t stop until everything had been destroyed.  Payton pulled away from Sidney, wiping the tears from her eyes.  She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up a broken frame from her nightstand. It was the photo that she had taken of Sid, the one that he had autographed for her, Always your captain.  The tears streamed down her cheeks again. Sidney sat down next to her and took her in his arms.  He held her close and let her cry, running his fingers across her hair. 

“It’s going to be okay, baby.  I’m going to make it okay.”