Page 42 of Not This Night

Next to the plate, a glass tipped over on its side, a dried-out stain marking its last serving. Leftovers adhered in clumps to porcelain plates, remnants of vegetables starting to wilt. The stench was rancid, meat decomposing under the weight of time.

Rachel's eyes swept over it all—the abandoned meal, the wasted food. It was as if one moment they were here and the next—poof. Vanished.

She pushed away from the table and continued deeper into the house. The signs of life abruptly ending were disconcerting. The turquoise bead gleamed from where she'd left it by the door—a chilling omen in this spectacle of abandonment.

She felt a sudden chill as she moved towards what looked like an office space—papers scattered on Miguel's desk, computer still humming softly as if waiting for his return. Her senses prickled with discomfort at this eerie tableau—the quiet too loud, the solitude too heavy.

Then, the silence interrupted.

A floorboard creaked upstairs, halting her in mid-stride. Rachel's hand went to the sidearm holstered at her waist. She was not alone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cautiously, Rachel moved up the stairs. The sound of the gated community’s guards had faded. She took the stairs two at a time, but moved softly, on the balls of her heels, trying to avoid any sharp sounds.

She could no longer hear the creak of a floorboard, but it had been there.

The house settling?

Perhaps, but this seemed a new construction. Then again, it was a large home, with far more hardwood than most she found herself in.

She reached the landing, her eyes darting across the hall, a stretch of open terrain that felt far too exposed.

She moved cautiously along the hall, glancing from one room to the next. Each was a snapshot of halted time—a bed unmade, a book opened face down preserving its place, a lamp still casting a pool of light on the floor.

Rachel edged forward, her senses keyed up to an impossible degree. She could hear her own heartbeat thudding in her ears like the heavy rhythm of drum, and it took all she had not to flinch at each echoing creak of the house shifting around her.

All the rooms empty. Not a soul to be seen.

Only one room remaining. She arrived at the door set in the far wall.

Locked.

She frowned, tried a gain.

No budge.

Plus, no keyhole. This door was latched from the inside.

She pounded her hand against the door. “Texas Rangers!” she called.

But there was no reply. Not even the distant call of the guards. Maybe they were still searching for her at the neighbor’s house who’d called her in.

Or maybe there was no neighbor, and the guards were responding to something else. It could simply be coincidence, if Rachel believed in coincidences.

“Hello?” she tried the door again.

Locked. But not impossible to enter.

The door wasn’t particularly sturdy. And if it was latched. Most latches were thin, affixed with little more than centimeter screws.

She took a step back and breathed slowly, like a bull before rushing a matador. She pushed her white hat back on her head, sweeping her dark hair under the brim, her fingers brushing the beads that looped through her locks.

And then she lunged at the door, heavy boot leading.

The door splintered under the impact, the lock giving way with a sharp crack. Rachel stumbled into the room, her boots crunching over shards of displaced wood, and burst into a sprawling master bedroom.

A king-sized bed sat in the middle of the room, blankets tossed aside, pillows askew. A breeze blew in from a half-opened window across the room, carrying with it a cold draft that set goosebumps along her arms.

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