Page 103 of Johnathan

“Alright kiddo. I think it’s time to call it for playing in the bath.”

“Nooooo! I not ready!”

Katy had the most adorable bubble beard splashed across her face and was about ten minutes into a mermaid play she insisted Abby partake in too. After the first night fiasco, their new routine fell into place and everyone seemed more settled as the days went on. But with John gone to his first night shift since Abby moved in, she was feeling a little more nervous as bedtime neared.

“I know it’s so much fun to splash around, but we need to get our jammies on, brush our teeth, and get tucked into bed.”

“No brush teef.”

“Katy.” She wasn’t above giving her a little incentive to follow the nighttime routine. Although Abby had put Katy to bed before, it had always been with John there. She was probably picking up on Abby’s nerves. “I tell you what. Let’s get our pajamas on, brush our teeth and then we’ll send a video to your dad of you being such a good girl all tucked in for the night before we read our bedtime story. How does that sound?”

“Otay!”

Thirty minutes later, Katy was tucked safely in her bed and Abby had sent off the video they’d made after bath time to John. She should probably work on unpacking the rest of her boxes. Things were moving fast, but that didn’t mean it felt wrong. Quite the opposite. She felt settled for the first time since coming home to Bell Ridge.

Abby glanced over at the living room and heard the couch calling her name. Eh, she could always finish unpacking and organizing in the morning. Abby grabbed the book she’d been reading off the counter and sat down on the sofa. All she needed was a bit of background noise and she’d be set to read for a few hours before heading to bed.

She landed on some cake decorating show. That was light and funny, nothing too scary should pop up. The last thing she wanted was to feel frightened or wake Katy up screaming from a nightmare when John wasn’t there to help.

The book kept her attention until her eyelids grew heavy and she let her eyes close for a moment.

A ringing pulled her from her sleep. Shit. She was still sitting up on the couch, the TV now scrolling through pictures of John, Katy, and his family, her book held tightly in her grasp. She set the book down and grabbed her phone off the arm of the sofa, answering without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

It was absolutely silent, except for rapid breathing on the other side of the line. What the hell?

Abby pulled the phone away from her face to see the name on the call, but there was no information. Had someone butt-dialed her? Was it a prank call?

“Is anyone there?”

She was about to hang up when a voice replied, sending her heart up into her throat. “You think you got away with it, whore? I’ll see you again soon.”

Abby ended the call and ran as fast as she could from the living room down the hallway to Katy’s room. Securing the door quietly behind her, she moved to the window, making sure it was locked. Then she checked on Katy, who was fast asleep in her bed.

God, she needed her heart to stop pounding. She should lock Katy’s door, too. What if someone was sitting outside the house? Or what if they were in the house already?

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Shaking hands were making it impossible to pull up John’s number.

Her fingers finally found the keypad and she held down the speed dial John had assigned to himself.

John had been assigned to patrol Silver Springs early in his shift, and that’s where he still was even though it was well past midnight. That was okay. The sleepy little down didn’t have anything on the radar over the last few weeks, other than that string of break-ins by local kids. He was parked on Ford Avenue watching the handful of stores that hadn’t been targeted yet. Hank wanted him there in case they caught the little shits who shredded Abby’s tires. So far, all he’d done was demolish half the meal Abby sent with him while he watched the video she’d sent of her and Katy at bedtime about a hundred times.

Closing his laptop, John rubbed his eyes. It was the first time in a really long time he felt pulled to be home instead of out on patrol.

As if she could hear him thinking of her, his phone rang with a call from Abby.

“Hey beautiful, everything okay?”

“John…” the fear in Abby’s voice had his senses on high alert.

“What’s wrong?”

“Katy’s okay.”

“Okay…”

---