She left the bathroom and went directly to her bedroom window, peering outside to see if she’d catch a glimpse of Sawyer walking the grounds. There was nobody there, only the ghostly shadows of the trees and tall brush against the silvery moonlight.
Getting into bed, she tried to shove all thoughts of Sawyer and murder out of her head. Tomorrow she and Melanie would spend the day doing something fun, something that would keep her mind off everything else.
Maybe she’d been spending too much time doing all the things that weren’t in her job description and not enough time working with Melanie. Maybe a little art therapy would help unlock Melanie. Yes, they’d spend the day drawing, she thought with certainty.
Minutes ticked by and suddenly all she could think about was the leftover ham from the night before that was in the refrigerator. She’d only picked at dinner and now her stomach rumbled with pangs that she knew would probably keep her from sleeping.
She got back out of bed and pulled on her robe, then headed for the stairs. The downstairs was dark, and she didn’t know if Sawyer had come back from his walk yet or not.
She didn’t turn on any lights, familiarity making it easy for her to navigate her way across the living room and into the kitchen.
The refrigerator light flashed on as she opened the door, and she immediately spied the ham wrapped in cellophane. Just a few pieces, she told herself as she pulled the ham from the fridge and placed it on the countertop.
She had just unwrapped it when she heard something…an indistinguishable noise. She froze for a moment, then turned around. “Sawyer?” she whispered softly.
She waited for an answering reply, but there was none, nor did she hear the sound again. She turned back to the ham and picked off several slices.
The noise again. A rustling. Was that a faint footstep? She whirled around, the hairs on the nape of her neck rising. Nothing. Holding her breath, she listened but there was nothing to hear.
An overactive imagination, she told herself. And surely under the circumstances she was allowed a little flirting with jumpiness.
She picked up the platter of ham and opened the fridge door to return it to the shelf. A noise sounded behind her, and the air around her was suddenly displaced. She dropped the ham, the platter crashing to the floor as she started to turn to see who was in the room with her.
Before she could see who was behind her, something crashed into the back of her head and the floor rose up to greet her.
Chapter Ten
Sawyer walked the grounds of his estate, needing to work off the restless energy that pulsed in his veins. The energy was one part frustration and one part desire, the combination making him wonder if he was losing his mind.
As he’d tried to type in a list of potential suspects, all he’d really wanted to do was lose himself in Amanda. In her arms he knew he could find escape from his reality.
He was confused about his feelings for her, and in any case was wary of exploring them. At the moment he felt as if he had no future. He was having difficulty looking beyond the next minute.
He wound up on the dock where the moonlight found it impossible to pierce through the thick trees. He’d held on to Erica too long, unwilling to admit failure, hoping she’d change for Melanie’s sake.
“I should have let her go,” he murmured. He should have divorced her, given her a big settlement then shoved her out the door. If he’d done that, she would probably be alive today.
Funny, he hadn’t loved her, and even though he’d known deep in his heart she was running around on him, he hadn’t hated her, either. There had been flashes of goodness in her, but they’d often been overwhelmed by whatever demons rode her soul.
And now she was gone and Sawyer was in trouble and he didn’t know how to help himself. Jackson had assured him that he wouldn’t spend a day in jail, but that was Jackson’s job as a defense attorney, to reassure his client.
There was no way that he’d believe the killer wasn’t somebody he knew, somebody who lived in Conja Creek, who’d been to his home before.
The restless energy that had burned through him dissipated, leaving him exhausted. Time to call it a night. He turned to face the house, and at that moment a scream ripped through the night.
His heart constricted and he ran toward the house as the scream came again. Melanie. The distance between the dock and the house suddenly seemed like miles as he raced across it, the screams coming one after another in rapid succession.
These weren’t like her usual nightmare screams. These held a horror that echoed back to the past, back to the night that Erica had been murdered.
He burst through the back doors and immediately realized the screams weren’t coming from Melanie’s bedroom, but rather from the kitchen.
He ran into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway, for a moment the scene before him not making any sense. Amanda lay on the floor in front of the refrigerator, and Melanie stood next to her, eyes wide as another scream ripped from her throat.
For a moment he was frozen as his brain tried to work around a scenario that would make sense. The inertia broke as he saw the dark stain of blood matting the back of Amanda’s head. Oh, God, she looked as if she was dead.
He knelt down beside her, at the same time gathering Melanie against him with one arm. “It was the swamp monster,” Melanie cried. “I know it was the swamp monster who hurt Amanda.”
“Shh, it’s all right now, baby. Daddy’s here.” Sawyer moved the hair from Amanda’s neck and checked her pulse. Thank God there was a pulse.
He needed a phone and his gun. He didn’t know if anyone was in the house or not. He had a hysterical eight-year-old in one arm and a comatose woman with an apparent head wound on the floor. He needed help.
Although he hated to leave Amanda where she was, he wanted his gun in his hand, wanted something standing between him and the “swamp monster,” as Melanie had said.
With Melanie in his arms he raced through the living room and into his office, flipping on lights as he went so there were no shadows in which to hide.
It took him only a minute to unlock the drawer that contained his gun. He laid the gun on the desk, called 911 and told the operator he needed the sheriff and an ambulance, gave her his address, then hung up.
As he left the office, gun in one hand, Melanie in the other, she clung to him like a tick, her legs wrapped tightly around him and her hands clutched around his neck. She wasn’t screaming anymore, nor did she say a word, but her terror communicated itself through the frantic trembling that suffused her body.
They returned to the kitchen where Amanda hadn’t moved. He sat on the floor next to her, Melanie in his lap. He reached out and moved a strand of hair from Amanda’s face. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.
“Amanda, wake up,” Melanie said, her voice a childish plea that ripped at Sawyer’s heart. “Please wake up. I’m scared.”
Again Amanda’s eyelids fluttered and this time opened. For a moment she stared at them, obviously disoriented. “Oh,” the word whispered out of her, and she winced and struggled to sit up.
“No, don’t,” Sawyer said. Relief loosened the cold, hard knot that had been in his chest. He reached out and gently pushed her back to the floor. “Just lie still until the ambulance gets here.”
“Ambulance?” She repeated the word as if she’d never heard it before. “I don’t need an ambulance.” She winced again and reached up to touch the back of her head. When she saw her bloodied hand she forced a smile that more resembled a grimace. “Okay, maybe an ambulance isn’t such a bad idea after all.”
Her stab at humor did more to ease his worry that anything else could have. Still, the wound on the back of her head scared the hell out of him, and he had no idea what had happened and didn’t want to ask too many questions with Melanie sitting on his lap, obviously still frightened.
“Melanie, sweetie, I’m okay, so don’t look so sad,” Amanda said. Once again she struggled to sit up, refusing Sawy
er’s attempt to keep her down. “I just bumped my head too hard, that’s all.”
Melanie bit her bottom lip as tears welled up in her eyes. Sawyer tightened his arm around his daughter. “It was the swamp monster,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I saw it. The monster hit Amanda.”
“What do you mean, honey? What swamp monster?” Sawyer asked.
“The same one who killed Mommy. I saw the monster in the kitchen. It hit Amanda then it ran past me and out the front door.” Melanie hid her face in the front of Sawyer’s shirt. “I’m afraid, Daddy. I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sawyer assured her. “Daddy would never let a swamp monster hurt you.” He exchanged a confused glance with Amanda. Had Melanie really seen somebody in the house? Or was this just the hysterical imagining of a little girl who had already been traumatized?
Had somebody hit Amanda over the head or had she somehow tripped and smashed her head against the refrigerator or against the floor?
“Sawyer?”
Lucas Jamison’s voice came from the front door. “In the kitchen,” Sawyer called back.
Lucas entered with his gun drawn, followed by Maria Kelso, a female deputy and two EMTs. When he saw the three of them on the floor, he holstered his gun and motioned for the two EMTs to attend to Amanda.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible somebody came into the house.”
Instantly Lucas’s gun was back in his hand. “You know how to use that?” he gestured toward Sawyer’s gun.
“I do,” Sawyer replied.
“Maria, let’s clear the house.” Together they left the room. Sawyer watched as the EMTs began to check out Amanda. As one of them looked at her head wound, the other placed a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm.
“Do you know what day it is?” The one who looked at her head asked.
“It’s Thursday night,” she replied.
“And what’s your name?”
“Amanda Rockport. I’m fine, really. My head hurts, but other than that I’m okay.” As the blood pressure cuff came off, she pulled her robe more closely around her.
Sawyer stood, Melanie still clinging to him like a frightened monkey. The EMT with the name tag reading Ben held out a hand to Amanda. “Let’s get you off the floor.”
They helped her up, and by the time she was in a kitchen chair and they had finished checking her out, Maria and Lucas returned to the kitchen. Sawyer placed his gun in a kitchen drawer and joined them at the table.
“House is clear,” Lucas said tersely. “Amanda, how are you doing?”
“I have a headache and I feel a little woozy, but other than that I’m all right.”
“She might have a mild concussion,” Ben said. “The head wound looks worse than it is. Head wounds always look bad because they bleed so much.”
“Okay, so somebody want to tell me what happened?” Lucas asked.
“Maybe Maria would like to take Melanie into the living room,” Sawyer suggested pointedly. The last thing he wanted was to further upset her, although he knew eventually that Lucas would want to talk to her. However at this point, Sawyer didn’t know if she would speak again.
He rubbed down Melanie’s back. “Sweetie, why don’t you go with Maria and let the grown-ups talk for a few minutes.” Maria had a daughter who was in Melanie’s class at school. Melanie had been to Maria’s house before and so knew the woman well enough to not be afraid.
Reluctantly she slid off Sawyer’s lap and took the hand Maria proffered. “Come on, honey. The joy of having cable television is no matter what time it is there are cartoons on.”
When they had left the room, Amanda looked at the two EMTs. “You can go. I’ll be all right.”
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to go to the hospital and get checked more thoroughly,” Ben said.
“No, I’m fine.”
Lucas nodded to dismiss them. When they, too, had left the room, he looked at Amanda expectantly. “What happened?”
Now that some of the adrenaline of the past few minutes was passing Sawyer wanted to take her in his arms, ease the painful wince of her eyes, the faint darkness that resided there.
“I went to bed but I got hungry. I remembered there was some leftover ham in the refrigerator.” She looked stricken and glanced over to the floor where the broken platter of ham remained on the floor. “I dropped it, I’m so sorry,” she said to Sawyer.
“To hell with the ham,” he replied roughly.
She frowned. “I heard something. I’m not sure what it was, a faint rustle, a footstep…something that didn’t sound right. I turned but couldn’t see anything or anyone. I thought it was just my imagination. I got my ham and was about to put the remainder of it back into the refrigerator when I knew I wasn’t alone in the kitchen. I started to turn around to see who was there, but I got slammed in the back of the head and that’s all I know.”
A slow rage began to build in Sawyer. Somebody had come into his home. Somebody had attacked Amanda in his kitchen. Guilt tempered the rage. He hadn’t bothered to lock up the house when he’d gone for his walk. He’d always felt safe here, had never bothered much with the security system or locking the doors when he was home.
“Melanie found her,” he now said. “Melanie said it was a swamp monster, the same monster who killed Erica.”
One of Lucas’s dark eyebrows shot up. “Melanie is talking?”
“She did tonight,” Sawyer replied. His heart swelled. She’d talked. Not just a word, not just two, but really talked. “She said that the swamp monster ran past her and left through the front door.”
“I’ll need to talk to her,” Lucas said. Sawyer nodded and Lucas turned his attention back to Amanda. “Have you had any problems with anyone in the past couple of days? Any words exchanged or issues?”
“No, nothing,” she replied. Some of the color had returned to her face. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt me.”
“And you didn’t get a look at the person? Nothing that could help us identify your attacker?” Lucas asked.
Helplessly she shook her head, her lips pressed together as if in pain. “I don’t have a clue who it might have been,” she finally said.
“Let’s get Melanie back in here, see if she can tell us anything that will help,” Lucas said. He called to Maria, who brought Melanie back into the kitchen. To Sawyer’s surprise, instead of coming to him, she went to Amanda and got up in her lap. Amanda’s arms wound around her, lovingly, protectively.
“Melanie, we need you to tell Lucas what you saw tonight,” Sawyer said gently.
Melanie turned her face into the front of Amanda’s robe. “Melanie, honey, somebody tried to hurt me tonight and we need to know what you saw or heard so we can put the bad person in jail,” Amanda said.
Melanie looked up at her, then at Sawyer. Finally she looked at Lucas, as if assessing if it would be safe to talk to him. “It was the swamp monster,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“The swamp monster?” Lucas looked at Sawyer, then back at Melanie.
“The swamp monster that killed Mommy.”
“And what did the swamp monster look like?” Lucas sat up straighter in the kitchen chair.
“I couldn’t see good. It was dark, but the swamp monster is dark and scary and kills people.” Melanie’s voice trembled, and Sawyer saw Amanda’s arms tighten around her. “And it smells bad.”
“Smells bad? Like what?” Sawyer asked.
“It smells icky. I smelled it when it ran by me.”
“But how does icky smell?” Lucas asked, obviously wanting her to be more specific.
“It smells like a swamp monster,” Melanie replied. Although Lucas wanted more from her, it was equally obvious that they were going in circles.
“Why did you come downstairs?” Sawyer asked his daughter gently.
“I woke up and Amanda wasn’t in her bed so I came downstairs looking for her.”
Once again she turned her head and buried her face in Amanda’s robe.
“Melanie, can you tell me what you saw the night your mother died?” Lucas asked.
“The swamp monster stabbed mommy, then pushed her off the dock.”
“And could you see what the monster looked like that night?” Lucas asked.
“Big and dark and scary.” Her voice was just a bare whisper and she trembled in Amanda’s arms.
“Could you see the monster’s face?” Lucas leaned forward.
Melanie shook her head. “But I know it was ugly and bad.”
They weren’t going to get the answers they needed from Melanie. Sawyer had no idea what she’d really seen the night that Erica had been murdered or tonight with Amanda, but it was obvious that in her little-girl mind the culprit was a faceless, frightening monster.
“I’ll check around the outside of the house, see if I can find any evidence of an intruder,” Lucas said, apparently coming to the same conclusion as Sawyer.
“I’ll go out with you,” Sawyer said and stood. He looked at Amanda. “Will you be okay?”
“We’re fine,” she assured him. “I think maybe we’ll go back into the living room and watch some more cartoons. How does that sound, Melanie?”
Melanie nodded and got up from Amanda’s lap. They all left the kitchen and when they reached the living room Amanda sat on the sofa and Melanie stretched out with her head in Amanda’s lap.
Sawyer, Lucas and Maria stepped out on the front porch. “Maria, why don’t you go around back and check things out,” Lucas instructed.
When she’d disappeared around the corner of the house, Lucas turned back to Sawyer. “I know where Amanda and Melanie were in all this. What I don’t know is where you were while Amanda was being attacked in the kitchen.” There was no hint of friendship coming from Lucas. He was all business, and anything the two men might have shared in the past was only a distant memory.
“I’d gone for a walk.”
His New Nanny Page 11