It was as if he had stepped into the house.
Dread sifted over him. Surely Missy didn’t leave the front door unlocked. In fact, he knew she didn’t. He’d heard the dead bolt click into position before even leaving the porch. And it wasn’t likely that anyone had broken in. Nothing looked damaged...at least from where he stood.
He cast another glance around the yard, then stepped from the shadows and onto the porch. The door was solid, the jamb intact. And none of the windows along the front were broken. He grasped the doorknob. As expected, it was locked.
He stepped from the porch with a discouraged sigh. He had been so close. How could the creep have eluded him so easily? Ron’s words echoed in his mind: “He’s apparently pretty slick because they’ve never caught him.” Was Missy’s stalker Eugene? If so, he understood why he had never been caught.
He scoured the front and then the back, knowing it was an exercise in futility but not yet ready to admit defeat and return to his room. But after a twenty-minute search of the entire yard, he had no choice. Whoever he saw was gone.
Disappeared into thin air.
* * *
Melissa pointed her toes and stretched, drawing in a full, deep breath. She’d slept better than she had in weeks. Maybe it was because she was too exhausted to do otherwise. But more likely, it was the thought that soon Chris would be right next door. He would make his move as soon as possible, maybe even later that day. The sooner, the better.
Learning Eugene had been seen in Florida knocked the foundation right out from under her. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he’d done whatever he was doing in Lake City and had gone back to Atlanta. But there was always the possibility that he was on his way to find her. And that thought was too terrifying to face alone.
She stretched once more and rolled onto her side. Smudge was curled up on the spare pillow. For once he wasn’t hiding under the bed. Evidently she wasn’t the only one who felt more secure with the bedroom door closed and locked.
She glided a hand down his back several times, then climbed from the bed. It was time to get up. Multiple slashes of sunlight shone through the gaps in her miniblinds, announcing the dawn of a new day. Her first deposition wasn’t until eleven, but she had transcription to do.
When she padded down the stairs, Smudge followed. He knew the routine. The first order of the day was breakfast. She stepped into the kitchen, and the next instant, strength drained from her limbs. A chair was pulled away from the table. But her gaze was locked on the envelope lying there, plain white and not addressed. It waited for her—ominous, menacing and downright terrifying. He had been in her house! No, that was impossible. Just to prove it, she checked the doors. They were locked. So where had the envelope come from?
Chris! He was there all evening. She had no idea when he’d left it, but it had to have been him. There was no other explanation.
Laughter bubbled up and overflowed, a welcome release of the tension coiled inside. Smudge waited beside his food dish, looking up at her quizzically, but he could wait. First she wanted to read Chris’s note. They used to start, “Hello, beautiful,” and proceed with whatever thoughts he was having at the time, romantic with an edge of silly. Or sometimes it was goofy poetry. What she wouldn’t give for some of that again.
She picked up the envelope, and the last traces of tension slipped from her shoulders. There was no block print on its front, further proof that it wasn’t another creepy note. It had to be from Chris. Probably words of encouragement and support that she could read and reread when he wasn’t around. Smiling, she removed the contents and unfolded the single page.
The next instant, a cold blade of fear swept away all the warm, happy thoughts. Bold, black letters screamed back at her, horrifying in their familiarity. Dear God, no! Not inside my house!
Terror stabbed through her. It shot up her spine and lodged in her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Her brain shouted panicked commands. Drop the thing and run. Get away from the house and all its ghosts. But fear held her in its paralyzing grip. And though she didn’t want to know what was there, her eyes roved back and forth over the words, seemingly of their own accord.
Melissa, I love watching you sleep. Your long lashes against your cheeks, your slightly parted lips, your luscious hair flowing over your silk pillowcase. Aphrodite could not be more beautiful, or more perfect. But tonight your door is closed and locked. Why are you keeping me from your beauty?
Our time is growing ever closer, but it is not yet here. I know that. The other man does not. Someday we will face off. And I will win, because fate is on my side. I do not know what will be required of me. If I must spill the other man’s blood to be deemed worthy, I will do it with joy, because you are a prize worth fighting for.
The letter slipped from her hand and fluttered to her feet. No! She released the chair she held on to for support and stumbled backward. He’d been inside the house. Touching her things. Watching her as she slept.
Bile rose in her throat, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. This couldn’t be happening. Everything was locked. No one had come into the house.
But proof to the contrary was lying at her feet, demanding acknowledgment. Either someone had found a way inside, or she wrote the note herself. Was she actually losing her mind?
She closed her eyes and hauled in a deep breath. Nothing made sense. Her whole life felt off-kilter, her surroundings unfamiliar. She had been picked up and plunked down in the middle of a nightmare.
She snatched up her phone. The police were just a call away. Let them figure it out. They would take prints and do their investigation and maybe in the process prove she wasn’t crazy.
When she answered the door several minutes later, Chief Branch stood on her porch. Tommy Willis, the other third of the Harmony Grove police force, disappeared around the side of the house. Tommy was back from vacation. Maybe now she would see less of Branch.
She didn’t mind placing her safety in Tommy’s hands. In his mid-fifties, he had been a police officer for as long as she could remember and did most of his chief’s legwork. He was a fixture in Harmony Grove, the one always driving around, visiting businesses, checking to see if he was needed anywhere. He would be the next chief when Branch retired, which wouldn’t be anytime soon. Without his title, Branch would have to lose the conceited swagger and air of self-importance he always carried around town.
“Seeing things again?” His tone held bored indifference. He stood with his hands on his hips and back arched, putting his center of gravity over his heels. The pose made his gut even larger.
“You tell me.” She handed him the note. “This was on my kitchen table this morning.”
He skimmed the note, expression unreadable. “I’ll take this into evidence.” Then he checked the doors and windows. As before, everything was locked.
“Can you try to get prints from the table and chair?” Maybe she was grasping at straws. But there had to be something to prove she wasn’t crazy, if he would just make the effort to find it.
“I’ll send Tommy back in to do it,” he said, and stepped out the back door.
She took a box of cereal from the pantry, then put it back. No way would she be able to eat. For the good it did her, she could have skipped the call to the police. All she had was another note to add to the ones they already had. Actually, she had two; the one from last night was still lying on the chest in the foyer. She snatched it up and headed out the front door.
When she reached the driveway, hushed male voices drifted to her from around the corner of the converted garage—Branch’s slow Southern drawl, interspersed with Tommy’s deep baritone.
“I don’t know.” The words belonged to Tommy. “That doesn’t sound like Melissa.”
She stopped just shy of the corner. They were talking about her!
“People do all kinds of things for a
ttention. Besides, those Langstons—I think the whole lot of ’em are a little off. I mean, the old man dumped the lady and carried on with his girlfriend right in front of everyone, until he had the decency to move away. And look at the mother, bouncing from one man to another, gallivanting off who knows where.”
Melissa’s eyes widened and her jaw sagged as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. Branch was judging her for her parents’ mistakes. It was so unfair! She was just about to march around the corner and tell him so when Tommy’s stern tone stopped her.
“That has nothing to do with Melissa.”
“Look, you haven’t been here. While you were off enjoying the mountains, Alan and I were getting called out here every few days. First it was someone in her bedroom in the middle of the night. Then someone looking in the window. And all these notes, the last one left inside. But the house is always locked, and no one has a key except her and old Mrs. Johnson next door. So we have a burglar who walks through walls, watches her sleep and leaves love notes. And he never takes anything.”
Tommy was silent. And she could hardly blame him. When he laid it out like that, she sounded like a total nutcase.
Branch continued. “She wants us to try to lift prints from the kitchen table and chair. So I guess we ought to appease her. Go through the motions. Just don’t spend a lot of time on it.”
Melissa spun around and stormed back up the sidewalk. She had heard enough. Branch was letting his prejudices stop him from doing a thorough investigation. Chris was right to be concerned about the protection she would get from Harmony Grove’s finest. Branch couldn’t care less about her. And Tommy and Alan couldn’t go against their chief. Chris would be happy to protect her, but after the threat in the latest note, she wouldn’t even consider it. Which left her one choice.
She walked through the kitchen and into the garage. The boxes from her move were still there, broken down and stored flat in the corner behind the exercise bike. She needed to get away from Harmony Grove, with its two traffic lights and intimate atmosphere. In a big city, she could disappear into the masses and stay hidden for years. She would have to give up her job. But it was a small price to pay for peace of mind. Before nightfall she would be gone.
She had just headed upstairs lugging three of the boxes and a roll of packing tape when the front door swung open.
“Melissa? Is everything okay?”
Great. It was Chris. She stopped midway up the stairs. “No, everything’s not okay. I had another note this morning. This time it was on my kitchen table.” She spun away to continue her ascent. By the time she reached the top, he was beside her, concern etched into his features.
“He got into your house? How?”
“I have no idea. No one has a key except Mrs. Johnson and the Tylers up in Washington. A couple weeks ago, when I was so sure I saw someone in the doorway, I called the Tylers and asked.” She opened one of the boxes and drew a piece of tape across its bottom.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere big where I can get lost in the crowd and just be another nameless face.” She scooped out the contents of one dresser drawer and dropped them into the box.
“Missy, give me a chance. I’m going to catch this guy.”
The contents of another drawer joined the first. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need anybody’s help.” Whenever she relied on anybody else, they let her down—her dad, her mom, Chris and now the Harmony Grove police.
“You can’t keep running away.”
“Wanna make a bet? I did it once. I can do it again.” She snatched up the roll of packing tape lying on the bed and stretched a length of it across the closed top of the box.
“Look, Missy. If you run, he’ll find you. We need to end this now.”
“You do what you want. I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not.” His eyes dropped to her purse sitting on the nightstand.
She realized his intent a moment too late. She dove for her purse just as he unclipped her keys from the D-ring on its side and dropped them into his pocket.
“Give me my keys.”
“No.”
She stopped her packing to glare at him. How dare he treat her like some rebellious teenager he was putting on restriction! He had definitely overstepped his bounds. “I could go downstairs right now and tell Chief Branch. He’d make you give them back. So why don’t you just return them and save the scene.”
He didn’t respond, just stalked from the room in three long strides.
She chased him into the hall. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m having a look around. And I don’t want you sneaking off before I get back.”
“Fine.” Let him enjoy his sense of being in charge. She didn’t need her keys until she was ready to go. She strode back to her room, and a moment later his voice drifted up to her.
“You are planning to lift prints from the area where the note was found, right?”
She tensed. Now he was giving Tommy a hard time. He needed to just butt out, go on home and stay out of her business.
But it wasn’t Tommy who responded.
“Look, sonny. How about I don’t go up to Memphis and tell you how to do your job, and you don’t come down here and tell me how to do mine.”
Chris didn’t respond, but the door slammed so hard it jarred the pictures on the front bedroom wall, announcing exactly what he thought of Branch’s haughty comeback. The whole exchange would have given her some satisfaction if she didn’t dislike Branch so much.
She returned to the task at hand, first phoning the office to get her day’s work covered and let them know she wouldn’t be back. She would mail any transcripts that hadn’t been done yet and leave her tapes and steno notes for the others. She hated to do it—she loved her job. This creep had taken too much from her. At first it was her peace of mind. Now it was her home, her livelihood and her whole way of life.
She grabbed another box and emptied the last dresser drawer. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, but she didn’t slow her pace. The closet was next. She swung open the doors and had just started to pull clothes from hangers when Chris’s voice stopped her. It was low, tense, filled with dread.
“Missy, you’d better take a look at this. And bring a flashlight.”
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she turned slowly to face him. She didn’t want to know what he had found. She just wanted to escape, to run as far away as possible and forget about Harmony Grove and all its ghosts. But even as her mind screamed its objections, she lifted her gaze to meet his.
And the fear she saw there turned her blood to ice.
FIFTEEN
She followed him out the back door and across the yard at a half run, then hesitated at the open door of the stable. It was worse than she remembered. The roof was sagging even deeper, ready to cave in with the next heavy rain. The wooden panels that made up its walls were rotted through in several places, and the metal rolling door rested at a cockeyed angle, well off its track.
She looked at Chris with raised brows. “You expect me to go inside?”
“I wouldn’t try to take up residence there, but I think it’ll hold up another few hours.”
He stepped over the metal track, and she followed him into the dingy interior. Two bales of hay sat against the far wall, covered by a horse blanket. Wasn’t there a third bale at one point?
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Check the stalls.”
She moved deeper into the shadows. The heavy wooden awning at the back of the first stall was dropped in an effort to keep out rain—an effort that was futile considering the state of the roof. Rusted-out panels had pulled apart, and narrow slashes of sunlight pierced th
e gaps. She clicked on the flashlight and swept its beam around the compartment. It held odd sizes of plywood and varying lengths of two-by-fours. The second stall was empty.
When she shined the light into the last stall, a wave of goose bumps cascaded over her skin. The roof was in better shape there—at least the back portion of it—and someone had set up housekeeping. A low platform stood in the left rear corner, covered in blankets with a pillow at one end, likely her third bale of hay. Short lengths of two-by-fours topped by a small piece of plywood formed a makeshift table that occupied the opposite corner. Several objects littered its top.
“Dennis.” The name was a hushed whisper.
Chris looked at her sharply. “Who’s Dennis?”
“Mrs. Johnson’s grandson. He asked if he could stay in the stable. I told him no, but I guess he decided to move in anyway.”
“Do you think he has anything to do with what’s been going on?”
“No, I don’t. I mean, he’s a major mooch and has a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder, but he doesn’t seem crazy.” She stepped into the space and studied the items scattered about the table—a pair of rubber gloves, a flashlight, a box of matches, a single-burner propane camp stove, a variety of pencils, a sketch pad lying haphazardly across a book...and an MP3 player identical to the one she had misplaced. Her eyes widened, and her heart pounded an erratic rhythm in her chest. Was this her MP3 player, taken from inside the house?
She touched the corner of the sketch pad, careful not to disturb any fingerprints that may have been left, and tried to flip back the front cover with a single finger. The pad slid over and exposed the book underneath—the same book that had disappeared from her bedside stand. Her heart beat harder. It was a bestseller, with thousands of copies in circulation. But both the MP3 player and the book? It was too far-fetched to be mere coincidence.
She spun around and threw back the blanket covering the platform. The familiarity of the pillowcase barely registered before something else caught her eye: a piece of lavender silk. Her missing nightgown. She gasped and stumbled backward. Now there was no doubt. She wasn’t crazy. Someone had come into the house.
Midnight Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense) Page 15