Darby Stansfield Thriller Series (Books 1-3 & Bonus Novella)

by Ty Hutchinson

  She woke a moment later, her call of nature answered. Falling asleep on the throne made her chuckle a bit when she realized what had happened. She sat there quietly for a moment rubbing her eyes. They were starting to adjust to the dark. She looked straight ahead out into the living room as she tried to blink something out of her eye. It was in between blinks that a dark figure passed in front of the bathroom. Unlike last time, when she was in the tub, Izzy was positive someone else was there.

  Naked on a toilet wasn’t the best position to be in, but Izzy had no choice. She got up quietly and tiptoed toward the door. Her senses were dialed up and her adrenaline had kicked in. She peeked outside the bathroom and saw it. A figure was standing near the entrance to the bedroom. A second later, it entered the room. Izzy stepped back into the bathroom. Part of her was hoping her imagination had been playing with her, but it was clear; someone was in the house.

  Izzy decided to stay in the bathroom. It was dark in there. If she stayed back in the shadows, she should be practically invisible. She hoped whoever it was would see that she wasn’t home and leave. Izzy stepped back and crouched in a low defensive position. She could hear the person walking back toward her. The footsteps grew closer. Izzy balled her hands into fists. Her heart hammered the inside of her chest. She drew a deep breath and waited. Seconds separated them.

  The figure passed in front of the door slowly and then disappeared. Izzy remained crouched, listening. The sound of the footsteps faded. Had the intruder left? She couldn’t tell. She waited, but still she heard nothing. With her fists still clenched, she stood up and took a step toward the door. That’s when the figure suddenly appeared back in front of the doorway.

  Izzy gasped and took a quick step back. The figure followed her right into the bathroom. The worst-case scenario had just happened; she was trapped in a small space. Izzy brought both hands up in a defensive position as the person closed in on her. Before she knew it, she had been hit but her arm had deflected most of the blow from connecting with her jaw. With the threat in her face, Izzy’s instincts took over. Years of kickboxing classes for physical conditioning would now be put to the test.

  Izzy reached out and grabbed the shadow behind the head, pulling in as she brought up her right knee. She delivered three quick blows to the upper body. The shadow groaned but countered with more blows to Izzy’s upper body. Deflecting two of them helped, but the third hit Izzy in the face. The sting spread quickly but she didn’t cower. She threw a combination of blows and two of them connected. The shadow took a step back but Izzy immediately followed through with a low kick to the thigh.

  The shadow moved and released another flurry of punches. Izzy covered up—ducking and swaying. As soon as the attack stopped, she countered with a straight punch but caught only air. She opened her eyes. The shadow was gone. Izzy ran out of the bathroom in pursuit, the fear in her replaced by anger. She felt violated and wanted nothing more than to kick someone’s ass.

  As soon as she stepped into the living room, she saw that the back door was open. Her attacker had escaped.

  Chapter 23

  My flight couldn’t get to Honolulu fast enough. When Izzy called to tell me someone broke into the house and attacked her, I felt helpless. I felt guilty I wasn’t there. I was pissed at Thorn for making me come back for a stupid meeting. All I wanted was to be there, comforting her.

  I hugged Izzy hard and long when I saw her at the airport. She had some mild bruising on the left side of her face and a scratch on her chin. I looked over her face for other signs of damage.

  “The bruising is the worse of it,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  On the ride back to the North Shore, she wasted no time filling me in on everything that happened.

  “So this person who broke in, was it a guy?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said. “I mean I guess it could have been a woman but there was muscle behind those punches, so I’m pretty sure it was a guy.”

  “And he broke in through a window?”

  “Yeah, one of the jalousies was removed from the window near the back door. He reached in and unlocked the door. The police said those windows are the worst for security. The slats can be easily and quietly removed.”

  “So what are we supposed to do, replace all the windows?”

  “That was one of their suggestions. They also suggested putting in light sensors around the house or iron grills on the outside of the windows if replacing them wasn’t an option.”

  “The light sensors are a great idea. I’ll call the owner and see if we can get someone to install that and the iron grills. So what did you do the rest of the night?”

  “Well, I couldn’t really sleep even though the police stationed a patrol car outside the house until morning.”

  “Thank God for that. I feel so bad I wasn’t here, Izzy.”

  “Darby, how on Earth were we supposed to know this would happen?”

  “I think I have an idea of who this person might be.”

  “Who?” Izzy asked.

  “Kalani, that guy from the Black & Blue.”

  “You think? Why would he want to attack me?”

  “He doesn’t like us. Plus I saw him hanging out on the beach in front of the house before I left.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he stared me down as he walked by the house. There’s motive; he hates that we’re surfing the breaks. He wants us gone. He knows where we live—”

  “Wait, do you think he was watching the house? I mean I wonder if he knew you’d be gone. I got the feeling whoever it was knew I was alone.”

  “Well, who knew I was going to be gone?”

  “I told Momi but I doubt she was the one who broke in and attacked me. This person took some good shots but also delivered. He had some training.”

  “Thankfully you had some training of your own.”

  “I know, right?”

  “I don’t think it was Momi either. Kalani get’s his name thrown in the hat just because of our history with him.”

  “Anybody else?” Izzy asked.

  I quickly did a mental check. The only other name that popped into my head was Souza. He was a known gang member and their gang was known to target tourists. Why would they do that if they want to work with me? It didn’t make sense. “I can’t think of any. Did the police check for fingerprints?”

  “Yeah, but it felt like the intruder was wearing some sort of gloves, so I’m not hopeful in that area.”

  I turned to Izzy, still blown away by her kickass performance. She fought off a stranger who broke into our place. What a tough chica she was. It appeared that island living didn’t include letting your guard down. “Tomorrow I’ll deal with windows. And let’s remember to always keep the windows and doors locked, even when we’re home.”

  “I just wish there was more we can do. It’s creepy knowing someone was in the house.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.” Time to talk to Souza.

  Chapter 24

  Later that day, Izzy and I were on our surfboards, bobbing in the water. The waves outside our place had died down and we were watching the sky change through various shades of yellow, orange and red. The sunsets were the best on the North Shore. I must have had a big smile on my face because Izzy asked what I was thinking about.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing really.”

  “Come on. Tell me. You had this huge grin on your face.”

  “It’s kind of corny. You know, being here with you, out here on the water with the sunset. It makes me feel good inside. It makes me feel like everything in life is perfect. We’re perfect.”

  “Aww, that’s so cute.”

  I laughed a little. “I was also thinking how far I had come with women.”

  “Oh?” Izzy inquired playfully.

  “Well, I was remembering my first kiss.”

  “Oh my God, please tell me. I want to hear about this.”

  “I’ll tell you on the condition that there is no excess
ive laughing, no thigh slapping, no whooping it up.”

  Izzy made the motion of crossing her heart. “I promise.”

  “Okay. It was the summer of eighty-seven and I was at Camp Wallabee. That was the summer I kissed Carrie Wilson, if you can call it a kiss.”

  “Go on. I want the whole story from beginning to end.”

  “Fine. Let me paint the picture. Carrie Wilson was taller than the average male sixth grader and she walked around with these large, hulking feet that pounded the ground. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Her arms, and I’m not kidding, resembled two tree trunks swinging back and forth. A formidable weapon if your head happen to pass in front of one.”

  Izzy’s eyes widened. “You sure she was female?”

  “Ah, yeah, she was female. Anyway, that’s not what Carrie Wilson was noted for.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. She was famous for the lusciously thick hedge that lived above her eyes, one that had not been groomed since its inception. Her monobrow basically separated her head into two properties: that of the forehead and that of her eyes. The two lived in harmony, so long as the hedge kept the natural boundary.”

  Izzy placed her finger against her forehead horizontally. “Like this?”

  I nodded. “It doesn’t stop there. Every now and then, depending on her mood, her facial expressions would transfer property back and forth between the two sides. Happiness would gain the eyes a few centimeters. Anger, Carrie’s favorite mood, would favor the forehead. The forehead, of course, was quite happy with said system of land appropriations. But that’s not really the point of the story. I have to paint the degree of difficulty I would be challenged with.”

  “Oh, it’s painted.”

  “So this one night at camp, I was tasked with a triple dog dare.”

  “Oooh. You can’t back down from that.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. It would end what little respect I had gained. Instead, I looked at it as an opportunity.”

  “A chance to stand out,” Izzy added.

  “Exactly. This was my chance to be accepted by the others. I thought if I could pull this dare off, I would command the respect of every fellow Wallabee, the camp counselors who spent most of their time making out with each other, and of course, the one person’s attention that I craved the most, Head Counselor Dave Kowalski.”

  Izzy’s head jerked back and her eyebrows signaled confusion. “Who?” she asked.

  “Dave Kowalski. He held the high score on the Donkey Kong at the bowling alley in town. It was kind of a big deal back then.”

  “Donkey Kong?”

  “Please, let me finish before you start judging. Now, as you know, a triple dog dare is the dare of all dares. It’s capable of making kids cry, even sending a few home. But I knew if I could succeed where others had failed, only greatness would become of me. I would be Darbytastic. All I had to do to achieve fame and greatness was to swap spit with Carrie Wilson.”

  Izzy laughed out loud. “Sorry. Go on,” she said making a motion that she was zipping her mouth closed.

  I maneuvered my board a bit closer to Izzy’s. “I remember the night it went down. A bunch of Wallabees had gathered around me, urging me to kiss Carrie. Bill Borgan, the brainiac who hatched the triple dog dare, leaned in close to my face. His breath reeked of Slim Jims and stale cola.”

  I put my hands on my hips and in a kids voice said, “Darby Stansfield, if you don’t walk over to Carrie Wilson right now and kiss her on the lips, the entire camp will know that you are a big pussy. A goddamn big pussy boy.”

  Izzy’s jaw dropped a notch.

  “I’m not kidding you,” I told her.

  “Pussy boy?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, so anyway, Borgan keeps on taunting me. ‘Come on Darby, what are you waiting for? Are you a pussy boy?’ he says. The next thing I know, the group of boys around me starts to chant, ‘Pus-sy Boy, Pus-sy Boy.’”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I did what I had to do. I marched straight over to Carrie Wilson, grabbed the nearest chair, swung it around in front of me, and climbed up onto it. I then reached around to the back of her head, gripped a handful of her mangy hair, closed my eyes, and pulled forward with all my might.”

  Izzy stared at me. Her facial expression said, “Don’t stop.”

  I leaned in closer and lowered my voice. “What happened next was probably a first for Camp Wallabee. It would never be repeated. Guarantee.”

  Izzy hit me in the arm. “Hurry. Spit it out.”

  “I had pulled Carrie Wilson’s head forward so fast, that when our mouths came crashing together, so did our braces.”

  The giggles were starting to surface on Izzy’s face.

  “I’m not kidding. What seemed like endless French kissing between to young, awkward lovers was nothing more than a metal mash of disastrous proportions,” I said, raising both arms. “It took five camp counselors, a pair of pliers, a bucket of ice, one stick of butter and an hour to separate us.”

  Izzy had lost it again. She was doubled over, letting out big belly laughs.

  I continued. “Hey, as far as I was concerned, that was one hour of sexual bliss. I loved every minute of that tangled lip lock.”

  “I bet,” she squealed.

  I started to laugh. “I’m not kidding. The way her plump, grape flavored lips slipped back and forth over mine, while hot snorts of air shot out from her nostrils. At the time, I thought that was the most romantic kiss ever.”

  Izzy started to calm down and looked at me with a big smile on her face. She finally asked, “Did you top it?”

  “I did. It was the day I first kissed you.”

  That’s all it took to release the floods from Izzy’s eyes. She maneuvered her board closer to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss. “I love you, Darby Stansfield.”

  I looked back into her eyes. “Then marry me, Izzy Weber.”

  Chapter 25

  I was convinced my eardrum had ruptured. Surely blood by the gallons was leaking from the side of my head as I cupped my right ear.

  Right Ear: Oh, God, I’m dying. I’m dying! I see a light. Should I go to the light?

  Left Ear: If I had fists, I would punch you right now.

  “I take that squeal to be a yes?”

  “Yes! Yes! I will marry you Darby Stansfield.”

  What is it with marriage that makes women go crazy? Sure, I was happy, but I don’t think I would paddle around and scream. In fact, Izzy had already begun to paddle in. She looked back at me, confused. “What are you waiting for? Hurry up. I need to be on solid ground to start thinking this through.”

  I followed her in. From now on, she was calling the shots.

  Twenty minutes later, we had showered and were drying off in our living room. Her mouth was on automatic. I didn’t dare try to add to the conversation. I just kept nodding, maybe a verbal acknowledgment every so often.

  Izzy stopped pacing and looked at me. “Okay, we have to do this all over again.”

  “What?”

  “My father is very traditional. You have to ask for his permission. If you don’t, it won’t be right.”

  “Okay, first of all, I haven’t even met your parents yet. Secondly, I already asked you.”

  “I know. I can pretend to be surprised and do it all over again. I don’t mind. But you have to ask.”

  “So am I supposed to call him and ask him on the phone? Seems kind of weird.”

  “I know. This sucks. I wish we were staying here longer. I would invite them and my sister to come visit us.”

  I grabbed Izzy’s hand and pulled her down onto the couch next to me. I gave her a hug and softly said, “Quit your job.”

  “I can’t. There’s no guarantee I’ll get it back.”

  “If not, you’ll find something else. I’ll take care of us if you have to look.”

  Izzy turned toward me. “Really?”

  “Yeah, inviting your family is a great idea. I’ll get Tav to come at the same
time, even my sister and her husband. We can have them all here to celebrate with us.”

  “Wait. You have a sister?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Devon.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I guess there’s a lot we’ll be learning about each other.”

  The excitement was back. “Yes! This is perfect! It’ll be great.” She stopped and maneuvered herself onto my lap. She threw her arms around me and lavished me with kisses. “This is why I love you. You’re so awesome.”

  “I know.”

  I loved basking in the goodness. The attention was great. Izzy made me feel like a man.

  I whispered in her ear. “So when do you think we should try and arrange this proposal event?”

  She jerked her head back and looked at me. “Good question.” She started chewing on her bottom lip.

  “Should we push to do it right away or take our time?”

  “I don’t want to wait long,” she said. “I want to do it as soon as everyone can get here.”

  “All right, let’s start making the calls. The story is we’re here enjoying ourselves and we want to invite some friends and family to come visit. I wonder how many we can put up here.”

  Izzy sprung from the couch and began pacing the room again. “I know my parents. They’ll want to get their own place. So add my sister in with them.”

  “Okay, then I’ll tell Tav, my sister, and her husband they can all stay here. That’ll make it easier.”

  Izzy nodded. “I think I want to invite Linda.”

  “Invite her. We have an extra room. We can double up in the guest room and the couch is a sleeper as well. We can also get a blowup bed or something. We’ll figure it out.”

  We both picked up our cell phones and started making calls. I did the Robot while I made mine. This was going to be an awesome time. I couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 26

  Secure the home.

  Project Safe House was my mission the next day. I had a running list of things I intended to do to secure the beach cottage. I had already called the landlord first thing in the morning. He was up to date on the break-in and agreed that making security enhancements to the house was a no-brainer. I didn’t want any delays, so I offered to pay for them right off the bat in exchange for a deal on the lease for the next five months. He agreed.