Page 66 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
TWENTY-SIX: Rude Awakening
“Leo. Leo, wake up!”
I groaned and rolled to my back as I pried an eye open. The room was dark but for the glow of the light outdoors, slipping through the sheer curtains on Roman’s bedroom windows. I could see the shape of him looming over me.
“What?”
“Your phone—it’s been alerting and—”
“Oh, shit! Wyatt!” I exclaimed before he could finish. I sat up so quickly I almost bonked heads with him. “Where’s my phone?”
He held it in his hand. “It’s not Wyatt. It’s your alarm system. I can see the preview every time it alerts.”
Still muddy with sleep, I couldn’t process anything but the fact that Wyatt wasn’t having an emergency. “What?”
Roman reached over and switched on a bedside lamp. “There’s an intruder at the Sea-Mist,” he said and handed me my phone. “Right now.”
I stared at him as he set the phone in my hands. My neck felt like a rusty hinge as I turned to look at the screen. Intruder? I woke the phone and opened the app for the security system.
INTRUDER ON PREMISES. Four alerts with those three words, time stamped about two minutes apart. As I studied those, my phone alerted again, chime and vibrate, and another identical message came up. Then a call came in.
I answered it. “Hello?”
“Am I speaking to Leonora Braddock?” a deep but young-sounding voice asked.
“You are.”
“This is Trident Security Systems. If you open your app, you should now see an identity code in your messages. That code should read 764B9X. That is your confirmation that I am a representative of Trident Security Systems, and it is safe to give me your passcode, so we can proceed.”
I saw the message, and the code, so I gave him my passcode, which was the month and day of Wyatt’s birthday. “What’s going on?” I added.
“Thank you, Ms. Braddock. We are getting intruder alarms at your property, and your cameras are picking up suspicious activity. Are you there right now?”
“No, I’m with a friend tonight. Nobody’s home.”
“Okay. Good. You should stay away for now. Police are enroute.”
“What kind of suspicious activity?”
“That’s for the police to determine. I’m not allowed to make conjectures. The police will be in contact when they’ve secured the scene, and they will have much better information than I can give you. But in the meantime, your app will give you access to camera footage as well as the live feed. It’s important to stay clear of the scene until you hear from the police. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, though I was having trouble processing what was happening. “Stay away until the cops say it’s safe.”
“Exactly. Do you have any other questions I can answer?”
I shook my head, then remembered I was on the phone. “Uh, no. No, none that I can think of right now.”
“Okay. Feel free to call if you do have questions. My name is Ryan. Feel free to ask for me, though any of our representatives can help you.”
“Thank you, Ryan,” I said.
“Good night, Ms. Braddock. I hope all is well.”
The call over, I dropped my phone.
Roman took my hand at once. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Intruders. The police are on their way. We’re supposed to stay away until we hear from them.”
