Page 11 of Sweet Temptation

“What?”

“Is it someone you know, or a stranger?”

“It’s a stranger. How would I know?”

“Just try to keep calm. Tell me where he is.”

“He’s up there. I can see his feet,” I said, my voice breaking. “He’s standing on the glass roof of my sunroom. Should I leave?” Fuck, why hadn’t I grabbed my car keys? They were in my purse upstairs. I had an extra set somewhere, but in my panic, fuck if I could remember where.

“The police are on their way,” she repeated.

“How long…?”

“They’ll be there soon. You can stay where you are as long as the suspect is outside, if you feel safe. Is there a room you can lock yourself into if you need to?”

Holy Christ.

No. No, I did not feel safe.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Is he armed?” she asked me. “Can you see a weapon?”

I started to cry.

The next thing I knew I was in the kitchen, looking for a weapon, something to defend myself with. I grabbed a big, sharp-as-hell knife from the knife block on my kitchen counter, gripping it in one hand as I held the phone to my ear with the other.

“I can’t see anything,” I said, the hysteria creeping into my voice. “I see one foot. He’s climbing onto the balcony upstairs.”

“Is he getting into the house?”

“Not yet. He’d have to cross the balcony. I don’t know if I locked the doors—”

There was a soft knock on the front door, behind me, and I jumped. I almost screamed.

“Shit,” I sobbed into the phone. “I think the police are here.”

I looked through the frosted glass window beside the front door, and I could see an officer in uniform. I didn’t even hear her arrive. I didn’t hear a car approach or anything.

I opened the door, fumbling with the lock, completely forgetting the phone. There were two of them; they stood to each side of the door, hands resting over their gun belts, one female officer and one male, looking at me. They looked at the knife in my hand.

“He’s out back,” I told them before they could say anything. I pointed with the knife toward the sunroom, my hand shaking. “Up there. He’s climbing onto the upstairs balcony.”

“Is there a way through there?” the male officer asked. He was already stepping into the house.

“Yes. The sliding door, straight through the back.”

The female officer followed him inside. She gently touched my wrist, guiding the knife down. Then she took it from my hand and stayed at my side as her partner headed through my living room, into the sunroom.

What happened next was beyond surreal. Something out of a movie, not real life.

Not my life.

The trees in the backyard shifted in the dark, and I saw two men dressed in black, obviously police officers, slipping from the shadows… with a police dog. The dog started barking furiously.

The officer in the sunroom opened the sliding door to the backyard, at the same time the man on the balcony jumped down to the ground. He stumbled and fell.

The officer with the dog let the dog loose.

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