“Arthritis,” Alex said.
“Thank you for the invitation, Emily, but maybe another time,” Brittany replied.
“That sounds like a plan,” Emily replied.
Alex checked his watch. “And we’d better get over there if we’re going so we can get you back home and in bed on time for school tomorrow.”
When they reached the door Emily gave her another hug and Alex thanked her once again, the heat still lingering in his gaze.
She felt that heat long after they’d left and she was once again alone. She picked up her hairbrush and comb and carried them back into her bathroom, her head filled with thoughts of both Emily and her daddy.
The fact that Emily had even offered to brush Brittany’s hair let her know that Emily was kind and thoughtful, and Brittany knew that was a testimony to Alex’s great parenting.
But it wasn’t his parenting skills that coiled heat in the pit of her stomach and made her think about rumpled sheets and his scent lingering on her pillowcase.
She somehow felt as if she were on a runaway train where he was concerned, powerless to halt the careening forward motion. But do you really want to stop it? a small voice whispered inside her head as she turned on the television and settled in on the sofa.
Would it be so terrible to follow through on the desire she felt for Alex? To have a wild and passionate relationship with him? It didn’t have to mean anything. It didn’t have to lead to some attempt to build something lasting.
She wouldn’t actively pursue a physical relationship with Alex, she decided, but if it happened spontaneously she wasn’t sure she would try to stop it.
As far as Emily went, there was no reason she couldn’t be friendly with the little girl. It wasn’t as if she was auditioning to become a stepmother. They were neighbors and there was no reason they couldn’t share an occasional trip to Izzy’s or maybe even have lunch together.
A feeling of peace swept through Brittany, a peace that had been missing for a long time. For the first time in months she felt as if she were finally returning to the land of the living and it felt wonderful.
When Alex looked at her she didn’t feel like a freak—she felt like a desirable, normal woman. He didn’t treat her as if she was a fragile victim of a horrendous crime. He appeared to only have an interest in the woman she was now, and that was definitely more than a little bit heady.
She watched TV for an hour, then bored with what was on the tube, she went back into the kitchen where her laptop was still on the kitchen table.
The computer work would always be a hobby she enjoyed, but her true calling had been working the streets of Black Rock with a badge on her chest. It was one more thing The Professional had taken away from her. She no longer felt competent to wear the badge.
In the darkness of the shed, with the chilling voice of The Professional taunting and teasing her with promises of such heinous things, she’d contemplated what no deputy should ever contemplate.
Shoving these thoughts aside, she logged in to her social-networking page and for the next hour read innocuous messages from people she had never met. She rarely posted on the page, instead just reading messages and posts from friends and friends of friends.
Reading the mundane tidbits of those lives helped fill the hours before bedtime and made her feel a little connected to the outside world.
She surfed the internet until just after nine, then powered down her computer and got up to carry her soda glass to the sink. As she gazed up at the window her heart slammed against her ribs and the glass crashed to the bottom of the sink.
It was him!
The Professional.
He stared at her through the window glass, his face covered with the familiar black ski mask. His eyes glittered the way she remembered, with evil intent. This was the way she saw him in her nightmares.
For what felt like an eternity she was frozen, locked in a hellish gaze with the man who had nearly taken her life, the man who had stolen her innocence and sense of self.
The moment lasted only a moment, broken by the scream that crawled up her throat as she reeled backward and crashed into the table.
She went down hard on her butt on the floor, skittering backward like a crab on hot sand to escape. He was back! The face. That masked face. She had to get away.
She managed to get to her feet and half ran, half stumbled into the living room. Terror gripped her by the neck, trapping the scream as her throat constricted painfully.
Grabbing the phone from the end table, she sobbed as it took her two times to punch in her brother Tom’s phone number. She found her voice when he answered and sobbed his name. “He’s here. The Professional is here. Please hurry…hurry!”
Someplace in the back of her mind she knew it would take him too long to come. She needed help now, before The Professional somehow got inside the house, before he had the party he’d promised and hadn’t had a chance to deliver.
There was only one other phone number in her head, the one that had been on the contact information Alex had given her earlier in the day to aid her in building his web page. She punched it in, and gasped in relief as he answered on the second ring.
“Alex, can you come to my house right now? There’s somebody outside. I’m scared.”
“I’ll be right there,” he replied.
She remained clutching the phone after he’d hung up, listening for the sound of a shattering window, a broken door that would indicate that The Professional had gained entry into her home.
It wasn’t done. It wasn’t over. She’d known in her heart, in her very soul that it wasn’t finished yet. Now all she could do was hope and pray that somebody would get here before The Professional had his final party with her.
Thankfully Emily had decided to spend the night with Rose, and Alex was still dressed when he got Brittany’s call. He grabbed his house keys and tore down the sidewalk, keeping an eye on his surroundings as he looked for a possible intruder in the area.
She’d been terrified. He’d heard it in her voice. Whoever she’d seen had positively scared her to death and the fear in her voice had sliced through him like a knife.
He saw nobody and when he reached Brittany’s house he knocked on the front door. There was no reply. He knocked again, harder, and called out her name. “Brittany, it’s me, Alex.”
The door flew open and she launched herself into his arms, her slender body trembling uncontrollably as she began to weep. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay now.” He moved her into the house and closed and locked the door behind him, but she refused to leave his arms.
“He was here,” she said between sobs, her voice slightly muffled as she buried her head in the front of his shirt. “He came back for me. It’s not over. I thought it was over, but it’s not.”
“Who? Honey, tell me what happened.”
She shook her head and burrowed closer against him, her sobs ripping from deep in her throat in despair. He didn’t try to talk to her again. He just held her until her sobs became softer and finally stopped altogether.
He’d just led her to the sofa to sit when the doorbell rang. “That should be my brother Tom,” she said as she swiped the last of the tears from her cheeks.
Alex answered the door to a tall, dark-haired man who had the same coloring as and, although bolder and more masculine, similar features to Brittany. “Alex Crawford,” he said in introduction. “I’m Brittany’s neighbor.”
“Tom Grayson,” he replied. “Sheriff Tom Grayson.” He walked in to where Brittany remained on the sofa, her arms around herself as if seeking some sort of warmth. “What happened?” He eased down next to his sister as Alex stood nearby.
“He was here.” The words were a bare whisper as they left her lips. She looked up at her brother, her brown eyes wide and still filled with terror. “The Professional.”
Tom exchanged a dark glance with Alex. “Brittany, you know that isn’t possible. Larry Norwood is dead. Larry was The Professional and he’s no long
er on this earth. He died in that shed. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
She shook her head. “He’s back. I saw him. He was staring at me through my kitchen window just a few minutes ago.” Her voice was filled with vehemence.
“What did he look like?” Tom asked.
“He was wearing a black ski mask, just like Larry used to wear. His eyes…his eyes glittered with that sick excitement, with that horrible evil.” A shiver worked through her and she tightened her arms around her shoulders.
Tom got up from the sofa and for the first time Alex noticed the man had his gun strapped to his waist even though he wasn’t in uniform, clad in a pair of worn jeans and a short-sleeved navy shirt. “I’ll go out and take a look around.”
Without waiting for a reply he left the house by the front door. Brittany began to tremble once again and Alex moved back to the sofa to take her into his arms.
“You’re okay now,” he murmured against her sweet-smelling hair. “Nobody is going to hurt you.”
“I just looked up and he was there, staring at me through the window. It was like a vision from a nightmare, a horrible nightmare.”
He tightened his arms around her. He had no idea what had happened, but he knew true terror when he saw it, when he felt it trembling in his arms, and whatever Brittany had seen had definitely terrified her.
Within minutes Tom was back, his gaze inscrutable. “I didn’t see anyone and there are no signs that anyone was back there.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at his sister, who sat up and moved away from Alex’s embrace.
“Are you sure maybe you didn’t see your own reflection in the window and freak out?” he asked.
Brittany’s back went rigid. “My own reflection usually doesn’t scare me.” She shook her head. “I know what I saw and it was a man in a ski mask.”
“But it wasn’t The Professional,” Tom countered.
Brittany hesitated a moment. “Of course, you’re right. Larry Norwood is dead, but somebody was outside my window, somebody wearing a ski mask just like Larry used to do when he came into the shed.”
She got up from the sofa and walked over to her brother. “Somebody is after me, Tom. I feel it. I know it in the very depth of my being. It’s not over yet for me and I’m afraid.”
Tom hesitated a moment and then released a deep sigh. “Maybe you should talk to somebody about post-traumatic stress.”
“I’m not crazy. I saw what I saw,” she exclaimed with rising anger in her voice.
“Well, there’s nobody out there now and if it will make you feel better I’ll have Caleb do extra drive-bys through the night,” he replied. “Or if you’d feel better you can come home with me.”
“No, thanks,” she said stiffly. “I’ll stay here, but I would appreciate the extra patrols.”
Alex could tell Brittany was angry and she remained so as she ushered her brother out the front door. She whirled back around to face Alex. “I suppose you think I’m crazy, too?”
Alex wasn’t sure what he believed, but he was a smart man and knew what she needed just now was somebody on her side. “Of course not,” he replied.
She stared at him for a few seconds, then her shoulders sagged forward and she returned to the sofa and sank down. “I know what I saw,” she said more to herself than to him. “I’m certain of what I saw.” Her hands clenched into fists in her lap.
“I believe you saw somebody,” he said as he sat next to her. “And I believe he was wearing a ski mask, but we both know it wasn’t The Professional.”
She drew a deep breath and nodded. “In that first moment of fear when I saw him, that’s all I could think about, that somehow he’d returned from the grave to finish what he’d started. But I know that’s crazy.” Her hands had relaxed in her lap and he took one of them in his.
“Maybe somebody is playing a very sick joke on you,” he suggested.
“Maybe,” she admitted as a tiny frown appeared in the center of her forehead. “There was the balloon the other day.”
It was Alex’s turn to frown. “The balloon?”
“Remember, the day you came to see about the deck there was a red balloon tied to my mailbox.”
“I remember,” he replied. “But I’m not sure I understand what a red balloon has to do with all of this.”
She leaned her head back against the sofa cushion, her gaze suddenly distant. “On that last day, in the final moments before he was going to kill us all, he released a handful of red balloons to celebrate the start of his ‘party.’ They were like blood droplets floating upward.” She shivered, as if the memory chilled her to the bone.
Alex squeezed her hand in an attempt to bring her back from the bad place she’d gone to in her memory. “But you survived and Larry Norwood is dead and now we need to figure out who might be doing these things to you.” He squeezed her hand once again and then released it. “Is there anyone you can think of who might want to torment you? Or maybe somebody who might think something like this is funny?”
“No,” she replied immediately. “I can’t imagine anyone who would want to do something so cruel or would have such a sick sense of humor.”
“Who might know about the details of what happened with you and The Professional?” he asked.
She got up from the sofa and released a small, humorless laugh. “Only everyone in town. There are no secrets in Black Rock. I guarantee five minutes after we were all taken out of that shed every detail of what had happened in there was known to everyone in town.”
“But there’s somebody in town who apparently is using those facts to taunt you,” he replied as he also rose from the sofa.
Her features suddenly reflected a new horror. “Where’s Emily?”
“Don’t worry. She spent the night with Rose tonight.”
“Thank God,” she gasped in relief. “For a minute I thought maybe you’d left her at home all alone.”
He smiled. “She’s fine. And now I want to make sure you’re fine. Would you like me to stay here tonight? Spend the night on your sofa? Or maybe you’d rather come to my place for the rest of the night? I’ve got a spare bedroom where you’d be comfortable.”
She hesitated only a moment and then shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine here. I have good locks on the door and Tom said there’s nobody around here now. Caleb is going to do drive-bys so the excitement for the night is probably over.”
“Are you sure you’re okay here alone?” he asked. He still didn’t know if there was any real danger to her, but the last thing he wanted was for her to spend the night in fear.
“Yes, really, I’m fine now.” She looked better. The color was back in her cheeks and she’d stopped trembling. She offered him a tight smile. “It was nice of you to come running when I called.”
“Anytime, Brittany. Anytime day or night if you need me I’ll be here. The last thing I want is for you to be alone and afraid.”
Her gaze was soft as it lingered on him. She walked to where he stood and stretched up and kissed him on his cheek. “Thank you, Alex. Thank you for believing me and thank you for being here for me.”
She stepped back from him, precluding any idea he might have had of taking her in his arms for a deeper, more intimate embrace. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“If you need anything more tonight, just give me a call,” he said as they walked to the front door.
“Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fine now.”
A moment later as Alex headed back toward his house, he wondered about the truth of what had happened tonight. It had been obvious that Brittany’s brother Tom hadn’t believed there had been somebody at the window, that he thought his sister was suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Certainly the balloon he’d seen tied to her mailbox had been real, but there could be a dozen logical explanations for that and none of them included a killer rising up from the dead.
Was it possible that Brittany was much more fragile than he’d
initially believed? It had been her strength that had first drawn him to her, but was that strength merely a facade hiding a flaw that was the legacy of what she’d been through? Was she not the strong survivor he’d thought her to be?
With the feel of her kiss warming his cheek, he now felt as if his most important decision to make was if he should invite her into his life, into Emily’s life in a meaningful way or if perhaps the best thing he could do for himself and his daughter would be to cut his losses and run.
Chapter 5
“I’m not crazy. I’m not!” Brittany said aloud to herself as she locked the door after Alex left. She didn’t care what her brother thought. She didn’t care what anyone thought. It hadn’t been her own reflection she’d seen in the window and it hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.
There had been somebody there, and his eyes had sparked with malevolence. There had been somebody there, hadn’t there? She sank down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands, a wild despair sweeping through her. Maybe you are crazy, a little voice whispered in the back of her brain.
Tears burned at her eyes at the torture of that small voice. What if she truly had imagined the face at the window? What if the trauma that she’d suffered at the hands of The Professional had left her teetering on the brink of insanity?
Her brothers certainly thought that’s what had happened, that she was jumping at shadows and imagining danger behind every bush. They all thought she could use some therapy, and maybe she could, but that didn’t make her believe she’d only imagined that face at the window.
She’d hated the fact that what she’d seen in Tom’s eyes had been a touch of pity, more than a little compassion for somebody who might be sick. She hadn’t missed the look he’d exchanged with Alex.
She’d never felt as alone as she did now. Had Alex believed her or had he just been being kind? She wasn’t sure. When she’d asked him he’d replied that he believed she thought she saw something. That didn’t mean that he believed somebody had really been there.
One thing was certain. Although in those first moments of sheer panic she’d believed somehow, someway Larry Norwood had come back for her, now that some of the panic had worn off she knew it wasn’t possible that it had been Larry.
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