Page 84 of I'm Watching You

Fear sharpened the haze in Saunders’s eyes. ‘What the fuck?’

The Guardian jabbed the Taser to the soft flesh of Saunders’s neck again. The man convulsed painfully. His eyes rolled back in his head and his chest rose and fell as he struggled to suck air into his lungs.

‘Retribution is mine,’the Guardian whispered, uncapping a syringe and shoving it into Saunders’s arm.

Within seconds Saunders’s eyes glazed over. The Guardian started the van and eased into the street. There was no hurry tonight. No nervous fear either, like the other night with Turner.

Lindsay couldn’t fall asleep. Today had started off as a good day. She had finished her first week in kindergarten and was excited about the day she’d just spent in school. Her teacher had shown the classhow to make paper butterflies. Lindsay had loved the colors and the way the crepe paper folded and made delicate wings.

But the joy she’d felt at school had quickly faded when she’d returned home. Her mother had been edgy and worried. When Lindsay’s father came home the tension had gotten worse. Her father didn’t like the dinner her mother had prepared and he seemed determined to find fault with everything.

Now Lindsay lay curled on her side in her bed with the covers pulled over her head. Her father was shouting at her mother and her mother was crying.

‘Who gives you the damn right to talk to him about our problems?I’myour family.’

‘He’s my brother.’

‘A brother who’s not been around for years. I’ve been here all along. I’ve been the one putting food in your mouth and clothes on your back. He hasn’t.’

‘He was just worried about me. And I missed seeing him.’

‘Well, if you think he’s so damn great, you go and live with him. But Lindsay stays with me.’

‘I’ll never leave her.’

‘She’s mine. Just like everything else in this house. So if you want to leave, you leave with the shirt on your back.’

Footsteps sounded down the hallway toward Lindsay’s room. Her mother was crying louder and her father was shouting more. Lindsay’s door opened and light from the hallway shone into her room.

‘Don’t touch my daughter!’ her mother shouted.

Flesh smacked against flesh and someone stumbled back. Lindsay peeked out from under the covers and saw her mother fall.

Lindsay started to cry.

*

Lindsay’s cell phone, perched on her nightstand, rang just after midnight and jerked her awake. Accustomed to being awakened in the middle of the night, she sat up and answered it. ‘Hello?’

No answer.

She shoved back her hair and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Sam had dropped her off over three hours ago and she’d fallen into bed exhausted. ‘Hello?’

There was breathing on the other end. Normally, when she got late-night calls, it was a frightened woman hiding out from her abuser, too afraid to talk. Often she had to coax the woman into speaking.

But tonight, she didn’t sense someone in trouble. She sensed danger. Her voice harsh, she demanded, ‘Who is this?’

There was a moment’s pause. And then the line went dead.

Lindsay checked the incoming number and discovered it was blocked. She closed the phone. Fully awake, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and clicked on the bedside lamp.

A chill slithered through her.

It wasn’t like her to be so easily spooked. She got out of bed, clad only in an oversized T-shirt. The air-conditioning chilled her skin.

Careful not to wake Nicole, Lindsay hurried past her roommate’s closed door and went down the carpeted stairs to check the lock on the front door. She peered out the peephole. Nothing. Then she went to the back slidingglass door. Locked. She moved from window to window checking them. All locked.

She flipped on the floodlight and it shone over her backyard garden. She stared into the yard looking for any sign of movement.

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