Page 67 of Ebbing Tides
He turned, aiming his bark toward the window above the desk. I laid a hand on Melanie’s lower back as I looked over my shoulder, peering toward the window. The cold outside conflicted with the heat within the office, causing a sheet of condensation to form over the windowpane so I couldn’t see anything.
“Do you think someone’s out there?” Melanie whispered.
“Probably not,” I said, but could I be certain? God knew I hadn’t been watching the cameras.
She had provided the most delicious distraction in the best and worst ways, and I hadn’t paid attention to what washappening outside these walls, caring more about what I could do with her.
Lido’s barking continued, and I checked the lock on the door, making sure it was secured before turning my attention to the computer monitor. I hurriedly scanned the screen, observing each smaller tile of video for a split second before moving to the next. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But Lido kept barking, the hairs along his back bristled and his teeth bared.
“What do you hear, boy?” I muttered, grabbing the mouse and enlarging the video footage of the office.
“Do you see anything?” Melanie asked from behind me, and I was ready to tell her everything looked perfectly normal, perfectly as it should be, until the footage scrambled and speckled, like an old TV from my childhood.
What the hell?
“Is that normal?” she asked, her voice pulled taut with fear.
I shook my head, backing away from the screen. “No.” I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and my handgun from the desk drawer, securing it in the holster at my waist, and threw the coat on as I went to the door. “Stay here.”
“Do you want to take Lido?”
I glanced behind me to find my four-legged friend sitting at her side. He’d stopped barking now, but he was on alert, ears perked and tongue panting. On a normal occasion, he would follow me, but tonight, he was making the decision to stay with her.
I nodded with approval. He’d made the right choice.
“Keep him with you. I’ll be right back.”
The world seemed colder the moment I closed the door behind me. I stilled. A muffled gloom lay over the earth, and I strained to hear anything peculiar but came up empty. It occurred to me that maybe it was a problem with the hearing aids, so I adjusted them, raising the volume a little with a tap of my finger, but … nothing.
There was a clear view of the malfunctioning camera from the door, and from where I stood, it seemed fine. But with feline precision, I walked toward it, keeping my hand positioned on the holstered gun. The tiny red dot on its front indicated it was on and recording, pointed right at me, and I wondered if, at any time, that little light had turned off.
Was it recording now, and the signal between it and the computer had gotten disrupted somehow?
Hmm…
With a hasty sweep of my gaze around the surrounding dark, I concluded with flimsy certainty that nobody was here. It was just me, alone, in the middle of an old cemetery on the outskirts of Salem.
And Melanie. She’s here too.
A smile tugged at my lips as an idea popped into my mind. I pulled out my phone and began to tap out a quick message to her.
Me:Hey, look at the computer screen. Is the video working again? Or is it all scrambled still?
I sent it and waited, watching as the message went fromDeliveredtoRead. Watching as the little dots jumped into action, indicating she was typing. My eyes were glued to the screen when the sound of a branch snapping in the near distance drew my attention away. I startled, glancing up from the phone to look in the direction from where the sound had come, my hand once again on the grip of the gun.
“Is someone there?” I called out, my voice reflecting a calm I didn’t feel. “This is security, and I am armed. If there is someone out there, make yourself known.”
As expected, there was no reply.
My phone vibrated in my hand, and with a deep breath, I took a quick glance at the screen to read Melanie’s message.
Melanie:Still can’t see anything. Are you okay out there?
Me:I think so. I’ll be back in a sec.
I pocketed the phone, narrowing my eyes at the camera with its little red dot, aimed toward me. Taunting me with the illusion that it was working normally when, clearly, it wasn’t. It was obvious something was interfering with the signal, butwhat? In the years that I’d been working here, only once had something like this happened, that I could recall, and that was …
A shiver trailed down my spine as I turned on my heel to face the office, relieved to not find the apparition I’d expected to see instead.
