The Conduit The Gryphon Series - By Stacey Rourke Page 0,59
opposite corners of the room. Grams’ curio cabinet leaned precariously against the arm of her leather chair, all its contents broken and embedded in the cushions. The ceramic angels that lived on a shelf above the couch did not survive the fall. Their ceramic limbs and assorted body parts were scattered around the room. Framed pictures of our family laid on the floor crushed beyond recognition. The wall that divided the foyer and the living room—where Grams measured us when we were little and marked our growth with a pencil slash—sported a deep hole in the plaster. I cringed at the dimensions of the hole. It matched a human body. I prayed that was a coincidence.
Uniformed strangers milled around. They dusted for prints, took photographs, and collected evidence in little baggies, jotted down notes and all that other CSI stuff. A grey haired man in a tan sport coat stood in the middle of the room, barking orders.
“I want this entire place dusted for prints. Mess like this, he couldn’t have been careful about what he touched.” The crunch of glass under my shoe spun him toward me. His moustache matched his hair. A hefty paunch around his middle strained the buttons on his shirt. His thick eyebrows drew together when he saw me. “Why isn’t anyone patrolling the perimeter? I got people just wandering in!”
“Captain Cooper, my name is Celeste Garrett. I live here with my grandmother, Gladys.”
His expression softened. He pursed his thick lips and inhaled deeply. I followed his gaze as he glanced around for a place for us to sit and talk. The living room window had also been demolished. There wasn’t an inch of the room that wasn’t decorated with glass shards.
Captain Cooper noticed my pained expression. “Why don’t we go sit out on the porch?” He placed his hand on my shoulder and steered me back out the door.
Robotically, I sat in my usual rocking chair and gazed around at the vastly different scenery. It looked like one of those cop shows Grams loved so much. Gabe played the role of the angry family member. He took out his frustrations on a rookie cop that held no answers to Gabe’s bombardment of questions. Kendall sought solace in the arms of a former love. Keith comforted her, our tragedy reuniting them. Alec, the steadfast reporter, nosed around eager to get to the bottom of this. The gawkers watched out of equal parts concern and morbid curiosity. The rocking chair next to me squeaked under Captain Cooper’s weight. This was no show. I couldn’t change the channel or turn it off. Like it or not I had to sit here and wait for the good captain to tell me if my grandmother was alive or dead.
“Celeste, someone broke into your grandmother’s home today. We think it started off as a simple robbery. A rarity here in Gainesboro, but sometimes people get desperate.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “It seems the intruder didn’t know your grandmother was home. Realizing she was must’ve startled him and he panicked.”
“What do you mean he panicked?” I asked somberly.
He ran a hand across his mustache and then over his mouth. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. “She was attacked.”
The way he was tiptoeing around the details grated on me. “How bad is it?”
His bleak expression caused a lump in my throat I had to choke back. “It’s bad. He roughed her up pretty severely. I don’t know to what degree just yet. But we put her in an ambulance and rushed her to Nashville General. The last update I got was that she was slipping in and out of consciousness. She’s in the ICU.”
Tears threatened to spill from my eyes. I fought them back. I couldn’t cry. Not here. Not now. Instead I rose from my seat and started down the stairs, headed for my truck.
“Wait, Celeste!” He called after me. “I have a couple of quick questions for you.”
“I have to go,” I barely got the words out. He nodded, the possibility I may never see Grams alive again loomed between us.
“Just tell me,” he pushed on. “Did your grandmother have any enemies that you know of? Anyone that would want to hurt her?”
Besides the three hundred year old demon hell—bent on killing me and destroying the world? Nope, that’s about it.
Of course I couldn’t say that out loud. Instead I told him what he already knew. “This is a small town, Captain. I’m sure