Page 60 of Caffeine & Chaos
“Just a coffee for me, please. I won’t be eating, just doing a bit of quick work on my laptop,” he said politely.
Ryan’s mind raced with unsettling possibilities. Was Nadia’s silence a result of her involvement with this man? Did her eagerness to return to Miami have anything to do with him? Was she with him at this very moment? His heart pounded in his chest.
She couldn’t be. His men had tracked Nadia all the way to Mandy’s house. On the other hand, Mandy could be helping her conceal the truth. Was he already there, waiting for her? The uncertainty gnawed at him, feeding his rising sense of dread.
He opened another image file, revealing a grainy still shot from a security camera capturing a moment on Il Gabbiano’s outdoor patio. The sight twisted his stomach into knots. There was Nadia, locked in an intimate gaze with Travis, seated at a table alongside Nadia’s mother and stepfather.
Furious and unable to endure another second, he slammed his laptop shut and bolted up from his seat. Needing some air, he tossed a twenty-dollar bill onto the table for the coffee he hadn’t yet received and stormed out into the cool evening breeze.
The mountains were painted in a blend of fiery reds, oranges, purples, and deep blues as the sun scraped the horizon. It should have been a serene evening, but all Ryan could feel was the scorching fury pulsing through his veins.
How could he have been so utterly fooled by her? Ryan seethed with anger; his fists clenched tightly at his sides. Picking up a rock, he flung it with all his might into the field across the highway.
Walking briskly along the fence line, his mind raced with thoughts of her betrayal. As he distanced himself from the restaurant and his car, his thoughts whirled, replaying their relationship timeline over and over again. Every expression, every interaction—her authenticity had seemed unquestionable.
Despite the mounting evidence, a sense of unease began to develop. The whole situation felt wrong somehow. Maybe he was clinging to a fantasy, but his instincts told him otherwise. If Nadia was a liar, she was a damn good one.
Ryan pivoted sharply on his heel and strode purposefully back to his car. He had to look through the rest of those files, if only to silence the nagging feeling in his gut that something was amiss.
Just as he got back to his car at the restaurant, Nadia texted him. She was going to the apartment tomorrow, and the police had footage of the suspect for the break in, so she didn’t have to go through questioning. She was tired and at Mandy’s for the night, so she would call him tomorrow.
Tomorrow Ryan would be on his way back to Miami.
16
Her.
With each step, Nadia navigated cautiously through her kitchen, the broken glass crunching beneath her shoes. The scene before her was one of chaos and confusion. Drawers lay open, their contents strewn haphazardly across the floor, while streaks of bright orange spray paint marred the once pristine walls.
As she moved further into the apartment, Nadia’s gaze swept over the devastation. The living room was in disarray, cushions torn from the couch and tossed aside, their fabric slashed open. A sense of violation settled over her as she took in the full extent of the damage.
Despite her efforts to keep it together, Nadia found herself wrapping her arms around herself for comfort. The sanctity of her home had been shattered.
Oddly enough, the crystal vase her mother insisted she display was left undisturbed on the sofa table, a stark contrast to the chaos around it.
“It’s not a pretty sight,” Detective Aldana remarked from the doorway.
“Why didn’t they take the vase?” Nadia pondered aloud, her fingers absentmindedly tracing its contours.
“I don’t know,” the detective replied, jotting down notes in his pad. “Maybe the perp was too stupid to know it was real?”
Nadia’s mind drifted back to the grainy images the detective had shown her earlier. The man in the footage wore a large, hooded sweatshirt with a hat pulled low over his face. ‘Stupid’ wasn’t the word that came to mind when she thought of him.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Nadia said, tears welling up.
“Can we get this cleaned up yet?” Mandy stepped in to take charge, sensing her friend was losing her composure.
“You can, our guys have already been through the place. Just be on the lookout for anything missing, or anything that stands out to you as odd,” he said.
“Like a crystal vase sitting untouched in an obvious place, in an expensive building, presumably full of rich people to rob?” Nadia answered.
“Yes, like that,” the detective cracked a jaded smile, appreciating Nadia’s observation while silently acknowledging the unsettling revelation. With a nod, he turned out the door to leave them to it.
“Detective Aldana,” Nadia called, beckoning him back into the apartment, “how did this end up getting reported? I mean, with me gone. How did anyone know the place had been broken into?” She wondered.
“One of your neighbors reported it,” Detective Aldana explained, glancing around the disarrayed apartment. “They noticed the door left wide open.”
As he turned to leave, he hesitated, then added, “This doesn’t seem like a typical robbery, Ms. Moore. It might be worth considering a move.”