A chill stole through Sophie as she stared at the empty pane of glass now a carpet of twinkling shards across the floor. She hugged herself as revulsion coiled up inside her at the very idea of someone standing there, watching them. How much had they seen? How long had they been standing there?
“Get in the kitchen!” Spencer was saying when she climbed out of her urge to be sick. “Call the police.”
“Where are you going?” Sophie demanded when he moved towards the hole in the wall.
In the process of running to the phone, Jackie also stopped and glanced back.
“I’m going to catch the bastard that did this!” Spencer growled, one foot already over the threshold.
“No!” Sophie grabbed his arm, yanking him back into the house. “It’s too dangerous! What if they’re armed? Or there’s more than one of them? You could get hurt or worse!”
His eyes were flashing with fires of rage. “I’m not letting them get away with this!”
“Sophie’s right, Spencer!” Jackie said, hurrying over. “Stay here. Let the police—”
“Let the police what? Catch him? Like they caught the sicko that left that present on Sophie’s doorstep? Like the guy that trashed our car? They won’t catch him.” He ducked through the hole once more. “Probably too busy chomping on donuts.”
“Spencer!” Sophie ran after him, but he was already gone and she was restrained by her bare feet and the glittering debris of glass.
Turning, she ran for the front door and her shoes. She stuffed her feet into her sneakers and ran back.
“Sophia!”
“Call the police!” She shouted over her shoulder as she bolted through the opening. “I’ll get Spencer!”
Her feet crunched on bits of glass as she hurried through the dark in the direction Spencer had taken around the side of the house.
She let him touch her! She had his hands all over her and she let him. She let him. The blizzard of fury whipped through him, a cyclone of anger so hot he could have sworn the rain sizzled upon contact with his skin. The disgust and rage clashed with the rational little voice urging him to think about what he was doing. He was acting careless and rash. The window incident was stupid of him, as was the incident with the car and that cat. Moments of weakness that could ruin everything if he wasn’t careful. He needed to remain in control. It wouldn’t be much longer.
Chapter Twenty
The police were no help whatsoever. They came, surveyed the crime scene, took their statements and promised to keep in touch. That was it. That was all. Sophie could almost feel Spencer’s frustration in their lack of commitment to the crime.
“It’s the same guys!” Spencer kept telling them. “It has to be! There’s no other explanation.”
To this, the police officer in charge, a burly man with far too much mustache and a red nose, lifted his unibrow, and said, “Son, we will look into it.” He patted his middle section while he jostled his belt higher up on the bulge. “No stone will remain unturned I assure you. Now, lock your doors—”
“What’s the point?” Spencer exclaimed, throwing his arms open wide. “They can just waltz in through the back.”
It was hard to tell with the cat tail over his upper lip, but he thinned his lips in impatience. “We’ll have an officer parked outside tonight. In the morning, get the window fixed and consider installing a security system. We will do everything we possibly can to find the person or persons responsible!” he shouted over Spencer’s irate snarl.
“Right, sure you will. All right. Goodbye!” Spencer waved the officer away as if he were a pesky fly.
“Spencer.” Sophie stepped into his path as the police officer grunted in annoyance and ambled away. “They’re really doing all they can.”
Spencer snorted. “No they’re not! They just want to get back to their coffee and donuts.” He was turning away before she could object the stereotype. “Can my mom spend the night at your place for the night?” he asked her mother.
“Spencer!” his mother protested.
But Spencer was looking at Sophie’s parents, waiting for a response.
Her mother blinked, looking surprised. “Yes, of course.”
Spencer nodded his thanks. He turned to his mother. “Go with them.”
“What are you going to do?” Sophie demanded, coming around to stand beside him.
“I’m going to stay,” he answered as if it made perfect sense.
“Then I’m staying with you!” Sophie said definitely.
“No!” four people shouted all at once, making her jump.
“No!” Spencer said again. “You can’t stay. They might come back.”
Sophie speared her hips with her fists. “Then you can’t stay either.”
“It’s my home!”
“Spencer’s right, dear.” Her mother stepped up, placing her hands gently on Sophie’s shoulders. “It’s not safe.”
“If Spencer’s staying, then so am I.”
“It’s not safe!” he said sharply. “I might not be able to protect you if they come back!”
“Well, who says I need protection? I can take care of myself!”
They were squaring off now, toe to toe, breaths mingling as they stood inches apart.
“I won’t let them touch you!” he hissed, his lips never moving around the words.
“Well, I won’t let you stay here alone!” she retorted hotly. “Do you think I’ll be able to sleep knowing you’re here by yourself?”
“Now isn’t the time to be stubborn, Sophie! This is your safety we’re talking about. I won’t mess around with that!”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t make that call for me. Maybe I can—”
“I’ll stay with him.” Her father stepped forward, his eyes level and intense, fixed on Spencer. “You three head back, get some rest.”
Sophie felt her mother’s fingers curl around her wrist, tugging her away from the crackling fire blazing behind Spencer’s gaze, as he bore down on her with an anger and frustration mirroring her own. She wanted so much to pull him into her arms and tell him it would be all right, while at the same time shake him for being so stubborn. But more than all that, she wanted to press the rewind button and take them back to the beautiful picnic he’d put together for them. She wanted to feel his arms around her again.
“You should come,” she whispered, feeling her temper roll off her the way the waves rolled back into the ocean. “It’s safer.”
Spencer shook his head. “It’s my home. I need to be here.”
There was no convincing him. She could see it in his eyes, in the firm set of his jaw. She wanted to reach for him, but she could feel the three pairs of eyes watching their every move, drilling holes into her back.
“You should go,” he murmured. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Their mothers moved towards the hallway. Her father took a moment longer to follow. Sophie watched them huddle around the foyer, talking quietly. Jackie left her parents by the door and hurried upstairs. To get her things, Sophie assumed.
She turned back to Spencer. “Please—”
He kissed her, silencing her final plea. His long fingers curled around her waist, drawing her close, but not nearly close enough. Then, much too quickly, he broke it, leaving her panting and gripping his shirt, although she had no recollection of ever reaching for him.
“Go,” he murmured. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She wanted him to ask her to stay, but knew he wouldn’t. He’d already made that clear. At least he wouldn’t be alone, she told herself, unfurling her fingers from his top. At least her father would be there in case something happened. Granted, she would have preferred if neither of them were there, but knew Spencer wouldn’t leave willingly.
“Please be careful,” she whispered. “This person or these people are dangerous. I don’t want—”
He touched her chin. “I’ll be fine.”
With a gentle nudge, he propelled her towards the door where her parents we
re standing, doing a horrible job of pretending not to have witnessed anything. Her mother kept smoothing out her top like there was a stubborn wrinkle that refused to fade and her father was staring at the wall, jaw tense as if he wanted to punch a hole into it.
Jackie appeared at the top of the stairs, an overnight bag in tow. She hurried to meet the trio at the bottom. She turned to her son, who had come up behind Sophie.
“We’ll wait outside,” Sophie’s mother said, wrenching the door open and ducking out into the chilly cold. Her father followed. Sophie gave Spencer a last glance before hurrying after them.
Whatever Jackie had to say to Spencer, it was quick, because the next moment, she was on the porch with them, looking exhausted and stressed. Sophie felt a spear of sympathy go through her. It had been a stressful month for all of them.
Her mother threw an arm around Jackie’s shoulders and guided her down the walkway.
Her father turned to Spencer who stood in the doorway. “I’m going to grab my things and be back.”
Spencer shifted, uncomfortable. “Thank you for the offer, sir, but you don’t have to stay.”
Sophie opened her mouth to argue, but her father beat her to it. “I said I would.” He marched off before Spencer could say anything else, muttering about being called sir at his young age.
Sophie turned to Spencer. “If you won’t let me stay, then at least let him. Please? It’s the only way I’ll sleep tonight.”
Spencer sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Sure, Blondie.” He reached over and gently tugged on a curl. “Go.”
She waved as she hurried down the steps. Her father waited for her at the end of the driveway.
“Thank you for staying with him,” she murmured as they made their way home.
“Boy’s crazy,” her father grumbled. “But I have to admire his ethics.” He made a face. “Except when he’s kissing my daughter.”
Sophie felt every ounce of blood rush up to her face, bubbling hot. “Dad … ”
He put his hands up. “I’m just saying. I’d like to see way less of that.”
“Well I like him!” And his kisses! She added silently.
“I can see that, which is the second reason I agreed to stay.” He turned his head so he was peering at her. “It’s my duty as a father to … chat with the boy that catches his daughter’s fancy.”
“Oh, Dad, come on! No! Don’t interrogate him. Not tonight. Not after this! It’s just cruel.”
Her father just shrugged. “Nothing brings out a man’s character like a little stress. Besides.” They turned into their driveway. “I have a feeling neither of us is going to get much sleep tonight anyway.”
Oh how right he was, Sophie thought later as she lay in bed watching the shadows creep across her ceiling. She kept darting anxious glances at the window, not sure what she was looking for, except something didn’t feel right. And then she wasn’t just turning her head to the glass, she was out of bed, pulling back the curtains and searching the streets.
The police cruiser remained vigilant across from Spencer’s house. The police officer inside never came out, but the pale glow from his laptop illuminated his silhouette in the dark.
In the distance, a shadow scurried across the road, dodging from one set of bushes to the next. Sophie’s heart leapt into her chest before she realized it was just a cat. She rubbed a hand over her sweaty face and pulled away from the window. She shuffled back to her bed and crawled beneath the sheets, but sleep never came.
She tossed and turned, twisting the sheets into ropes around her. During the handful of times she actually dozed, her dreams were riddled with images of masked demons creeping into her room and suffocating her with enormous hands. She bolted awake, breathing hard. Sweat plastered her clothes to her spine. Several times, she ran downstairs to double check the new security system bolted into the wall next to the door. She unarmed and re-rearmed the machine six times before her mother came down, disheveled and blurry-eyed.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, voice low.
“Making sure it’s working,” Sophie answered, feeling stupid.
Her mother sighed, rubbing the grit from her eyes with her knuckles. “Go back to bed!”
Sophie shuffled back to her room and crawled into bed. But instead of sleep, she grabbed the book off her nightstand and spent the rest of the night reading.
With the first splinter of dawn, Sophie dragged her achy body into the shower. She scrubbed the night’s events away and pulled on fresh clothes, twisted her hair up into a ponytail and considered it a good effort.
In the kitchen, her mother and Jackie looked up from their mugs of coffee. Neither was talking, but one look around told her the boys hadn’t returned.
“Any news?” she asked.
Both women shook their heads gravely.
“Have they called at least?”
Jackie shook her head.
Her mother got to her feet, mug in hand and walked to the sink. “Get breakfast. You’ll be late for school.”
Sophie grabbed a granola bar from the cupboard, stuffed it into her backpack and waved goodbye to her mother and Jackie. She swung her bag on and sprinted to the door just as it flew open. She squeaked, coming to a skidding halt.
Looking as exhausted as she felt, her father ambled inside. He disengaged the beeping alarm and shut the door.
Sophie tired peering around him as if expecting Spencer to be pressed right up against his back or something. “Where’s Spencer?”
Her father jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Then, without a word, ambled upstairs, zombie style.
It wasn’t raining. That was always a plus when the very idea of leaving the house was horrendous. She hurried down the driveway just as a slouched figure started up it.
“Spencer!” He raised his head and Sophie had to bite back the urge to wince.
There were black bags beneath his eyes and his hair was tussled. His face was pale, made paler still by the black shirt and jeans he wore under his jacket. He raised a hand, the effort looking painful and stiff, and swiped it back through his hair.
“Hey,” he said in greeting, his voice hoarse like he’d spent the night yelling.
“You look horrible,” she confessed. “Did you sleep at all?”
He scrubbed the heel of his hand into his brow. “Nope.” He dropped his hand and looked her over. “Did you?”
She offered him a small smile. “I look horrible, too, eh?”
The left corner of his mouth twisted upward. “Nah, just stressed.”
He was being nice. She’d seen her reflection before she’d left. She knew what she looked like. Not as bad as him, but pretty close.
When he reached over and hooked an arm around her shoulders and drew her into his side, she happily sagged into him.
“I’d suggest we play hooky and take a nap, but Mom’s getting the back window fixed today.”
Sophie sighed. “And my mom’s staying home.”
They started down the path towards school, neither making any real effort to lift their feet.
“How did things go with my dad last night?”
She felt his shoulder jerk beneath her head. “Fine.”
She tipped her face back to peer up at him. “He didn’t give you a hard time?”
He shook his head. “It was pretty quiet.”
Maybe it was because he was avoiding her gaze, or maybe because she knew her father, she didn’t believe him. But they reached the school and she wasn’t given a chance to press him. He walked her to her locker, which would have been sweet if he hadn’t spent so much time peering around them as though waiting for an attack.
“I think we’re safe in the school,” she teased him, swinging her locker open.
He leaned into the locker next to hers, resting his head back, but keeping his eyes open. “We should have been safe in our homes, too.”
She couldn’t argue that point with him. If anything, the reality of it made her shudder.
&
nbsp; Spencer took her elbow and dragged her towards him. He enfolded her in his arms, pressing her into his chest. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into the top of her head.
She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that everything that happened was just random occurrences. Like there wasn’t really some crazy person out there watching them through patio windows, or leaving dead animals on their doorstep. She tried to pretend that all of that happened to someone else, someone she’d read about in a book. That everything was all part of some other fictional world and not hers. Things like this didn’t happen to normal people. Did it?
“Sophie!”
Sophie drew her face out of Spencer’s chest to glance back. Behind her, Lauren, Jessie and Joe peered back at her, their faces anxious.
“Hey guys!” She forced what she hoped was a smile and not a grimace. But she wasn’t fooling anyone. One look into Jessie’s face and she knew. Her shoulder’s dropped. “Police radio?”
Joe nodded. “The police assigned to watch your house had to call in every hour.”
Sophie sighed. “I don’t know why this is happening.”
“I do,” Joe muttered, hazel eyes narrowed in on Spencer.
Against her, Spencer stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing!” Sophie said quickly. “Joe, stop it!”
But Joe wasn’t listening, looked ready to take on a charging bull. “Everything was fine until you showed up. You started this!”
“That’s not true!” Sophie exclaimed, turning to face her friends. “This isn’t Spencer’s fault. It happened to him, too! His mom’s car. His house—”
“No,” Spencer cut of her off, narrowed eyes fixed on Joe. “I don’t need you explaining me to him.”
Then, without a word to anyone or even a glance in Sophie’s direction, he stalked off.
Sophie turned to Joe. “What is your problem?”
“I don’t like him!” Joe hissed. “And I don’t trust him. The guy is bad news.” He looked to Lauren and Jessie for support. Neither met his gaze. Infuriated, he plowed on. “Am I the only one to see that all this started the minute he arrived? What do you know about the guy anyway? He’s good looking. Well, so are a lot of guys in prison.”
Games of Fire Page 23