by Unger, Erin;
The dispatcher tried to calm her. “Police should be there in three minutes.”
Maddie begged her breathing to slow down.
The dispatcher told her she was checking something on her screen. “OK, a patrol officer is on your street.”
She thanked the lady and hung up.
The doorbell resonated through the house, matching the beating of her heart. Maddie pushed a strand of hair out of her mouth and clambered out of the chest. She didn’t loosen her grip on the knife. Taking the steps two at a time, she hurried to the door. Up on her toes, she stared through the tiny hole. Joze? What was he doing here? Then Officer Tuttle appeared behind him.
She checked around the foyer and decided to thrust the knife under the coats. He didn’t need to know how dumb she was being. And for a second time in less than twelve hours. She shook her head.
Maddie rubbed the sweat off her palms onto her pants leg and opened the door. “What’re you doing here?” Her gaze landed on the mid-sized box in his hands and her stomach dropped like a rock. The word Official was emblazoned on the lid, along with her aunt’s name. Everything slowed around her. The buzzing of a neighbor’s lawnmower seemed to die away. The patrol car lights paused in their flashing. Why’d Joze have it? It wasn’t big enough to hold a full suitcase.
The officer talked into the radio mic at his shoulder then spoke to her. “Ma’am, are you OK?”
She couldn’t look Joze in the eye. “Yes. He…he spoke through the door and said I shouldn’t have talked.” Another skitter of breaths shook out of her. “He went around the side of the house.”
Tuttle nodded and took off in that direction.
Joze pulled her away from the door, the box balanced between his hip and left hand. His fingers went to her wrist. Was he checking her pulse? His gaze roved over her before he stared into her eyes then ran light fingers over the back of her head and neck almost as if on autopilot. “I guess it’s confirmation he was here last night and saw us together.”
She pulled back a fraction and put her hands to her temples. “Yeah. He was checking all the doors and windows.”
Guiding her to the living room, he placed his hand at the small of her back as they walked. Oddly comforting coming from him. “I should’ve been here.”
How could he have known the guy would return in broad daylight?
Her gaze went to the windows and then the box again. It was all too much. “My aunt’s? I…I don’t understand why you have it.”
He paced back and forth, clutching the box. “I can’t believe I missed the guy again. Did he say anything else? I can’t believe this.”
A shiver ran through her. She told him the rest of what the assailant said.
At that Joze stopped. “That’s a threat. Something more has to be done.” Joze went to the window and took a look.
“The trees are so close he could hide in seconds.” Maddie pressed her hands against her sides to get them to stop shaking.
The officer returned and listened to her stilted tale. “Well, he’s gone. I don’t see any evidence to show he’d been back there, though. I’ll file a report. Phone if you need us.”
He hurried away to another call from dispatch.
File a report? What if…
She repressed a second shudder and shook her head. The bad guy was gone. For now.
Joze stood stalk-still, watching her.
Her gaze returned to the box. Maddie didn’t know what to focus on. But the box would keep her from thinking about the stalker. And right now, she wanted to do anything but think about him. She looked at Joze, brows knit together. “Why do you have something with my aunt’s name on it?”
He winced and stopped shifting back and forth. “I work for the recovery team near the airport where the crash occurred. I…wanted to do the honors of bringing this to you. It probably should’ve come up last night, but with all that was going on,” he waved a hand, “I didn’t think it was an appropriate time.”
Wow, what could she say? It was hard to remain mad at him when he’d been so thoughtful. She reached for the box. “Can I have it?”
He handed it over, and she took it with care. The slight odor of burned paper came through the cracks. This was unreal.
If he wasn’t standing there, she’d let the tears rip again. Why was this happening to her?
He moved to sit in one of the easy chairs. “Didn’t your mother let you know they were releasing Lonna Selby and her belongings today?”
“No,” she faltered and fought the sting of tears. “I knew it was going to be sometime this week, though.” She held in a curse against Mom. Didn’t she know how this would affect Maddie? Didn’t she care?
“Any problems last night?”
“Nothing.” She stared at the box. Wasn’t today enough?
The house phone rang. Maddie carried the box into the kitchen and set it down then took the phone off the base unit, Joze on her heels. “Hello?”
“Masterson Locks and Keys. We were called about an install today for a security system.”
“Yes. That’s right.” Mom didn’t even wait for her to send the info she’d asked for. At least she was taking the situation somewhat seriously. And now there was proof how much they needed the system.
The security guy gave her general information. She tried to push away the dream quality of the moment. The haziness slowed her brain. “Thanks. See you around two.”
She hung up. Too many things bore down on her. Her head spun. “I need to sit down.”
Joze followed her to the living room. She worked to look normal. Sucking in a few breaths, Maddie rested against the back of the couch. In spite of his effort to look casual in jeans and a polo shirt, Joze had an air of prestige. That was just like him to show her up with his cool attire while she looked dumpy in a big sweater. She glanced away. It wasn’t a fair judgment. He didn’t deserve meanness. Not after bringing her aunt’s precious things to her, and possibly being the reason the stalker ran off.
He studied her from across the coffee table.
She broke eye contact after a second.
“Want me to get the box?” he asked.
“Sure.” Wake up, girl. She shook out her hands.
He returned and set it between them. “I’d leave and give you some privacy, but until the security guys come, I’m staying.”
She didn’t have the strength to argue. Opening the box, Maddie peered inside. A scorched bag remained closed. She pulled it out. Aunt Lonna’s carry-on with the nametag somewhat singed but intact. She unzipped it with care, avoiding the black burn marks on the edges. The back began to disintegrate onto the coffee table.
Joze knelt by her. “Want me to hold it while you pull the stuff out?”
She nodded, biting her lips. Her insides turned to mush. These were the last things Aunt Lonna had touched. She stroked each item as she pulled them out. The papers against the back were unreadable, black through and through. But other things were only burned a little. A sweater managed to survive mostly intact. She brought it to her nose. Aunt Lonna’s smell was covered by a singed plastic odor. She set it down.
The last item, a small book, was missing the top corner. She flipped through it. Not a book, a journal. Her chest tightened. Aunt Lonna still wrote in a journal? Hadn’t she given it up years ago? Maddie held the book to her heart. Joze scrutinized her. “What’s that?”
“Aunt Lonna’s journal.”
12
Joze stared Maddie down. He wanted to fly over the coffee table and rip the book from her hands for a quick look but stayed in his seat out of respect. “There could be information in it to explain this crazy stalker situation.”
He drummed his fingers on the table and squinted at the cover, his body buzzing. This would be the perfect time for X-ray vision.
“I wonder.” Maddie opened the cover again. Then she closed it and put it back in the box.
“So you don’t want to find out—like right now?” Joze inspected the box that wreaked of fir
e and aviation fuel.
She also bent to get a better look inside. Why was she holding back? “We need a name. And we need it now. Come on, let’s read it.”
She pulled back. “I want some privacy, if you don’t mind, before I read my aunt’s intimate thoughts.”
Oh. “But keeping you safe is more important.” Didn’t she get it? “Can I at least take a quick look? I promise to skip anything…you know.”
Maddie’s words were clipped. “My aunt wasn’t like that.”
He held his hands up. “I didn’t mean to suggest anything. But—”
“No, Joseph. I’ll read it.” There it was again. The formal use of his name. Which he hated.
He grabbed his head and groaned. “Whatever. It’s not like a stalker isn’t out there somewhere. Close.”
She frowned. “You’re right. What am I thinking? Things are getting serious.”
Yeah, enough that she’d be hard put to get rid of him until things were figured out. Good thing he’d brought his gun this time.
She stood. “You know, I haven’t gone to my aunt’s office in the back. What if he got in there?”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. “Come on. Let’s see if anything was disturbed.”
She headed to the kitchen and took a key from a drawer. “Should we take a knife with us?”
He put his hand to his back pocket. “I have something better.”
She let her head fall back. “I’m going to have to get one of those for myself.”
They moved to the backyard. A white building matching the columned front of the house took up the right corner of the property. There were a lot of amenities to this place. He guided her in front of him as he scoped the yard from side to side.
She tried the door handle. “Whew. It’s still locked. That’s a good sign.”
He put his back to the wall by the entrance and waited for her to go in. At her elbow, he made sure he remained close.
Cabinets and shelving lined the room on every side. A staircase at the far end headed to an upper level. White walls. Beach getaway feel. A huge table took up the center of the room. “What’d your aunt do for a living?”
Maddie dipped down to look under it. “She just partnered with another company to expand her homemade, natural soap business. That’s why she was…on the plane.” She stood up and wiped at her eyes. “She’d met with them in Chicago.”
“Anything going wrong with the merger?”
“Not that I heard, but I was at college. I’m sure there’s plenty she didn’t tell me.”
He circled the table. “You said you’d talked to her right before she died. She didn’t mention any issues?”
“No. She seemed excited about the business. Said everything was going better than she hoped. It was later in the conversation she sounded upset.”
Don’t take a break now. “And?”
She checked a closet in the corner. “Something about the reunion she’d been helping to set up.”
A new factor. If it wasn’t the business, did it have to do with the reunion? “You mean a class reunion or what?”
“Yeah, her thirtieth.”
He went up a couple steps. What if the guy was still there? He tried to peek over the ceiling beams to the floor above. Nothing. Another wide-open room with the exception to a door in the corner. Papers littered the floor. A cabinet lay on its side. “Any relationships or issues with them?”
“I don’t know. I bet it’s in the journal.”
Another reason to hurry up and get the thing read. Maybe Maddie didn’t know her aunt as well as she thought.
They went upstairs. “I imagine your aunt wouldn’t leave it like this?”
She grunted as she thrust her hands to her sides. “Oh, no.”
Maddie bolted through the room. “Why would he lock the door when he left?”
“To throw us off.” Joze stood at the window that started at floor level and stopped at knee height. A spatter of rain hit the window. “See, we didn’t even get the police to check in here.” He went to the large office desk. All the drawers were open. “I think we shouldn’t touch anything. Take pictures and I’ll call the officer back.”
Maddie moved away from the turned over cabinet. “True.”
He dialed Tuttle. “Hey, man. This is Joze Evans. We were checking things out after you left and found the office in the backyard had been broken into. You want to come back?”
They waited in silence for the officer to return. Joze eyed Maddie across the table in the downstairs room.
Officer Tuttle pulled up to the garage across the yard. Maddie and Joze watched him run through the rain to the tiny porch.
Another officer pulled his patrol car behind Tuttle’s and followed him in.
Maddie sighed. For a second, he wished he could hold her up, bolster her through this, but he kept his distance. She gestured around the room. “When we first came in, everything seemed to be in its place down here. But upstairs, the place is a wreck.”
The officers advised them to stay downstairs.
Joze moved to Maddie’s side. “You doing OK?”
She put the tough act mask on. A warning not to get too close. “Yeah. I deal with this every day. What’s to be worried about?”
Was she like this when he was in college with her? Not that he could remember. Sure, she had a little edge to her but nothing like this. Hmm. “Ha-ha.”
Tuttle came back down. “If you don’t mind, you can go back to the house. We’ll deal with this then come see you before we go. By any chance, have you noticed anything missing?”
She puffed out a breath. “My mom might be able to tell you, but I’ve been away at college. I wouldn’t really know.”
Tuttle nodded.
They returned to the house, running through the rain to get to it. Joze held the door open for her to go in front of him. Would Mrs. Clare be any help? It didn’t seem like she kept up with much other than her business.
Maddie dropped onto the couch. “This nightmare’s never going to end.”
He reached for the journal and pulled it out of the box. Dare he sit beside her, or was it a safer bet to take one of the lounge chairs? At least by her side he could peek at the book as she read if she refused to give him access to it.
Maddie pulled it out of his hands. “Please. Respect.”
Let it go. “Start at the back.”
She dropped the book against her chest. “You act like you have some vested interest in this. You don’t.”
Oh, he did. Should he tell her? “You don’t—”
She rested her head on her palm, elbow propped on the arm of the couch and watched him.
What should he say? He bit off another reply. How should he go about this? He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “I didn’t want to scare you even more after what you’ve been through…but the guy went after me at the carnival, too. When I went to find your cotton candy.”
She sat straight up. “No way.”
“Yeah.” He scratched an itch on his cheek. “So now you know why I have to help you. It’s me, too.” Did that sound selfish? “I mean I’m a part of this mess.”
Her gaze bounced between the journal and him. “I’m sorry.” Hands went to her face. “I didn’t know. Never even guessed. This makes me so angry.” Then she studied him. “Is that what you were telling the officer last night back at the ambulance?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. If this guy’s willing to go after both of us, this has to be about something big.”
True. “So are you going to let me help now? Without shutting me out?”
She finally sat back. “I don’t have a choice. I want to know what’s going on.”
There was an element he couldn’t believe he’d left out. God. Their safety, the whole thing needed to be bathed in prayer. What did he remember about her faith? He sat forward, forearms on his knees. She hadn’t been remotely religious back then. It hadn’t bothered him in college, but now? Maybe that would explain the c
hange in her. She didn’t have any faith to turn to when it was scary in this world.
Joze played with the idea of asking her. It’d put her through the roof for sure if the answer was still no. But…God deserved a place in this mess. “Look, we should pray about this whole thing.”
She bounced away from him. “Don’t get all religious on me. Since when did you believe in any of that stuff?”
“It’s a long story.” One he didn’t want to repeat. It’d show her how far he had fallen before Jesus picked him up. “But we need Him right now.”
She snorted and opened the journal, pretending to read it. But her eyes jumped around. She couldn’t fool him. He lowered the top of the book. “OK, fine. You want to be in rebellion, have it your way.”
She sputtered. “You want to see the journal, leave Him out of it.”
So she blamed God? For what? Todd? Something else? “I’m giving this situation to God, one way or the other.”
13
The drizzle outside the window matched Maddie’s mood. She rested her forehead against the cold glass of the sidelight. Joze wasn’t telling her what to do again. And he certainly wasn’t bringing God into things, either.
But should she feel bad about throwing him out? This day had spiraled so far left field.
An inkling of regret tried to wheedle its way to her heart. No. He’d pushed her last button. She wasn’t on speaking terms with God. And never would be.
And the stalker-slash-attacker could be waiting for the very moment the cops and Joze left her in the dust for all she cared before she’d accept His help again.
How ridiculous was she? And there were two hours before the security company was due to install the system.
The phone rang. She flinched. In the living room, she lifted the phone off the arm of the couch. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mad, it’s Jocelyn.” Her cousin’s clear voice held tears in it. “I have a test to take today. Then I’ll be heading to the train station. Aunt Sassie called to tell me the funeral is Sunday.”
The old nickname Aunt Lonna had given Mom rang true on many levels. And none of the cousins had reverted back to her real name as they became adults.