Page 74 of A Lonely Road
The thought made me smile as I stood and stretched out my back. My gaze traveled across the Dude Lair before I wandered aimlessly toward the kitchen, cocking my head from side to side as I considered what decorative touches might be missing. A nice lamp, maybe, to put at the end of the leather sofa. Some artwork for the walls, reminiscent of the kind that hung at the inn.
I’d never put any effort into personal touches, but the thought of adding some to Jake’s house filled me with an odd sense of longing.
I’m going to ask you to move in with me, for real.
His words wafted around me while I tried to imagine myself living with him. He'd asked me to help him with finishing the guest bedroom renovations upstairs, but it was still hard for meto picture placing my own stamp on things. It had been a long time since I’d done that even to my own previous homes.
Then I closed my eyes and thought about paint colors, and suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to imagine anymore. How did he know just how to reel me in without ever exerting any pressure? The man certainly had a knack for drawing out the dreams I didn’t realize I was even harboring somewhere deep in my heart.
I turned, intending to set the table for Jake’s return, and caught sight of something on one of the deck chairs.
Probably just a leftover wrapper from this morning’s breakfast with the gang,I told myself as I moved to the French doors to squint at it through the glass. Though my pulse kicked into high gear as soon as I laid my hand on the door handle, I forced myself to take deep, calming breaths.
“After all this time, you’re still afraid of your own stupid shadow,” I muttered, annoyed with my response.
I’d come too far to let myself fall back into those timid habits that made me avoid Jake when I first arrived in Spruce Hill. The afternoon was still bright and I could see the entire yard from where I stood. There was no reason not to go clean up a coffee shop wrapper that had been left behind. The deck was in full view of the windows of the garage apartment, so if I screamed, my father would surely come running.
Jake had shown me how to disarm the security system, so I typed in the code and waited for it to blink green before I went out onto the deck, leaving the door open behind me. The heat of the day felt good after sitting in the air conditioned housefor so long. I let my gaze dart once more across the backyard, then bent to pick up the paper and froze before my fingers made contact with it.
It wasn’t a wrapper, I realized numbly.
On the deck chair sat the notebook that disappeared from my coffee table after the break-in, with a forget-me-not laid carefully on top. I leaned down to look closer and saw that it had been flipped back to one of the first pages I’d used nearly a year ago, a quick outline listing the salient plot points of the Spanish thriller I'd been translating into English.
Break-in.
Threats.
Vandalism.
Revenge.
The first three were crossed out in heavy black marker, but the last was circled in red.
“Shit!” I whispered, grabbing the notebook even as I reached into my pocket for my phone. The flower fluttered down to land at my feet. Jake answered on the first ring, but I didn’t wait for his hello before I said, “He was here, Jake. On the deck.”
“I’m leaving right now. Stay on the phone with me. I’ll have Bea call 911, tell them to get over to my place right away. Are you still out on the deck? Get inside now!”
“I thought it was just trash,” I said as I turned back toward the open door. “It’s my notebook, apparently he was using some old translation notes as a freaking guidebook. Therewas no one out here, I checked before I turned off the alarm, so I—”
The phone clattered to the deck as a hand fisted in my hair, yanking it tight right at the scalp. Tears blurred my vision, but before I could react, the cold edge of a blade pressed against my throat and held me frozen in place. Jake’s faint, frantic voice drifted upward from my phone until a low, sinister hiss swept over my skin like ice water.
“Miss me?” he asked, his breath hot against my ear.
With a sharp jerk that sent tears spilling over onto my cheeks, my head was forced far enough back to see a malevolent leer only inches from my face.
Shawn.
“Listen very carefully. You’re going to pick it up so I can talk to your boyfriend. Slow and steady. I wouldn’t want this knife to slip into your pretty neck, Nora.”
At first, my only coherent thought was that he and Frank Scarpella looked like funhouse mirror images. It was no wonder I’d mistaken them for one another, but the twisted light in Shawn’s eyes was what really set them apart.
I was right. Frank Scarpella was just a man, but Shawn Milton was a monster.
With the blade at my throat guiding me downward, I crouched, shaking, and picked up the phone. “Jake?” I whimpered.
“Ah, ah, ah. That’s not what we’re doing. Hit the speaker button. Can you hear me, bartender?” Shawn taunted.
“I hear you,” Jake growled in reply. A door slammed in the background like he was leaving his office in a rush. “Let me talk to her.”
