Читать книгу Buried Memories - Carol Post J. - Страница 12

THREE

Blood.

So much blood.

It covered the woman’s body, seeping outward in an ever-expanding circle. She lay facedown on the floor, hand curled into a fist, as if she was spending the final moments of life in an angry protest against the void creeping over her.

She drew in a final shallow breath. The fist tightened, then released.

Nicki bolted upright with a gasp and pressed a hand over her racing heart. It was only a dream. One nightmare of many. This one was probably triggered by the visit from the two detectives and all the talk of her mother’s murder. The knife lying in the mulch might have played a part, too.

She slid from the bed and bent to stroke Callie’s head, trying to shake off the final remnants of the dream. She was no stranger to nightmares. Scary movies triggered some of them, the evening news others. Growing up, she’d seen things no child should ever see, watched movies that would terrify the most hardened adult.

But often her dreams held elements of the past—leering grins, sinister glances and whispered threats. Louie had landed a starring role in more than one.

As she removed a T-shirt and shorts from the chest of drawers in the corner, her gaze slid toward the closet. She’d left the doors open last night. Shoes lined the bottom, and her clothes hung in organized sections, although packed in way too tightly. Lavender once again occupied his spot on the shelf.

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw him away. So she’d bought a needle and some matching thread and set to work. Now, with the exception of dozens of tiny stitches crisscrossing his belly, he was back in the same condition he’d been in before the attack—one eye missing, pale purple fur matted and stuffing so compacted his head listed pitifully to one side.

All these years, she’d held on to him. He was the only thing from her early childhood she’d managed to keep. She’d started out with a bin of personal belongings, but through the series of foster homes, one by one, the items disappeared. Some she accidentally left behind, but more often, other kids took them. Once someone tried to take Lavender. The foster mom had to pull her off the other child. The next day, she was on her way to another home with her beloved stuffed rabbit.

Callie nudged her hand, letting her know she’d dallied long enough. It was time for a walk. And after that, breakfast. Like most dogs, she approached both with equal enthusiasm.

Once showered and dressed, Nicki hooked up the leash. As soon as she stepped outside, uneasiness sifted through her. She scanned the yard, then shifted her gaze to the flower bed. Nothing was there, no threatening objects. She tried to shake off the apprehension. It was broad daylight. And Callie was with her.

But finding her chef’s knife lying in the mulch Friday night had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. And although neither she nor Tyler had seen hide nor hair of the intruder in the day and a half since, tension continued to wrap itself around her body.

She glanced toward Andy’s, then headed down her drive. Tyler was probably back inside, having long since finished Sasha’s walk. Maybe she should try to coordinate Callie’s walks with Sasha’s. She would feel safer, and the company was nice. Reconnecting with Tyler had been a pleasant surprise.

But he was different from the boy she’d known long ago.

Friday night, when she’d asked him about his military service, she could feel him shutting down. Her questions had been innocent. But he’d clammed up so tight she couldn’t have pried the information from him with a crowbar.

He never used to be that way. During those balmy days, sitting in the tree in her backyard, sharing stories as daylight became dusk and finally darkness, there’d been no secrets between them. But those experiences had happened a lifetime ago. That Tyler was gone. Maybe that Nicki was, too.

When she reached the road, she looked in both directions. She hadn’t gotten up as early as she did during the week. Maybe if she had, she could have avoided the nightmare. If that was the case, the extra hour of sleep hadn’t been worth it.

She took in a deep breath and increased her pace to a jog, giving Callie the opportunity to work out some of that inexhaustible supply of energy. Yesterday after Tyler had finished his work at the inn, they’d made a run to Crystal River for materials. Today he had the day free and planned to tackle her bathroom vanity installation in the afternoon, as soon as she got home from church. Andy refused to work on Sundays. Tyler didn’t have any such compunctions.

Callie skidded to a stop so suddenly, the leash jerked Nicki’s arm backward before she could halt her forward movement. She frowned down at the dog, who’d stepped off the pavement and was busy sniffing the ground. “A little bit of warning would be nice.”

Nicki let her gaze drift down the street. A short distance away, a car sat parked against a patch of woods. When Nicki started moving again, the engine cranked up. The driver made a U-turn and sped away, heading toward downtown.

Her chest tightened, and she tried to push aside the uneasiness. The driver was probably a lost tourist consulting a map, then discovering he was on the wrong part of the island. That was a logical explanation.

Except for the break-in and the note and the knife left near her living room window.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten close enough to make out the tag. Other than the fact that it was small to medium size and white, she couldn’t even say what kind of car it was. She wasn’t good with car models. She’d always been a truck girl herself.

A few minutes later, she turned around and headed in the direction of home. Callie would keep going if Nicki let her, all the way to town. But long walks alone had lost their appeal. There were too many deserted stretches along Hodges.

Back at the house, she opened the front door and removed Callie’s leash. The dog made a beeline for the kitchen, then stood watching her enter, eyes filled with eagerness. After opening a can and dishing up a generous serving of a smelly concoction named Savory Beef Stew, she poured herself some cereal and sat at the kitchen table.

Yesterday’s mail was still piled at the edge. She’d been busy cleaning when she saw the mailman stop and hadn’t taken the time to go through it. Then she’d set to work on one of her stained glass projects until Tyler arrived to take her to Home Depot.

She picked up the top piece and tore open the envelope. Central Florida Electric Cooperative. The charges were every bit as high as she’d expected. Summers in Florida were hot and it showed on the power bill. Of course, that was all she’d ever known. At least she had air conditioning, which was more than she could say for her early years.

The next envelope contained a credit card offer, which she intended to run through the shredder. Beneath that was something from Chase. One of her credit cards was through them. But the page showing through the windowed envelope looked more like a letter than a statement.

As she scanned the type, dread slid down her throat, lining her stomach with lead. Someone had applied for a credit card in her name, likely before she’d placed the fraud alert. She hadn’t gotten home till Sunday night. And she’d called them Monday morning. If her intruder had come in on Friday, he’d had two whole days to wreak havoc with her credit.

She laid the sheet of paper on the table and sat back in her chair. She’d have to call Chase and cancel the request. This was what she’d feared the moment she saw her information spread across the table. One week had passed, and it was already starting.

The doorbell sounded, and her tension ratcheted up several notches. Who would be ringing her bell at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning? She looked through the peephole, and the tension dissipated. When she swung open the door, Tyler stood on her front porch.

He wasn’t smiling. In fact, his jaw was tight, and vertical creases of concern marked the space between his eyebrows. When he spoke, the concern in his features came out in his tone. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, other than the fact that someone just applied for credit in my name.”

Of course, Tyler wouldn’t have known about her identity theft concerns. Something else must have put those creases of worry on his face. “What’s going on?”

He held out a folded sheet of paper, which she hadn’t noticed until that moment, and a chill passed through her. “What is it?”

“Whoever has been harassing you has apparently decided to carry it next door. I don’t think this is aimed at my brother, even though he’s the one who retrieved it from the front door a few minutes ago. It wasn’t there when I walked Sasha this morning.”

She took what he held and unfolded it. Like the other note, it was written in all caps with bold, angry strokes that could belong to almost anyone.

WATCH THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. IT CAN GET YOU KILLED.

Her blood turned to ice and her heart almost stopped.

She looked up at Tyler, her jaw slack. Her heart had resumed a frantic pace, and moisture coated her palms. “He was watching us. He saw us leave for Home Depot together.” She took a step back, shaking her head. “You have to stay away from me.”

He moved closer until he was standing at the threshold. “Do you really think I’m intimidated by this creep who’s too much of a coward to show his face?”

“Maybe you’re not intimidated, but I am. I’m not willing to risk you getting hurt. This is my battle, not yours.” Although she had no idea what she’d done to get drawn into it.

He took a step closer and put both hands on her shoulders. Now he was inside her entry area. “It’s our battle. Friends stick together. Or have you forgotten that?”

She dropped her gaze. No, she hadn’t forgotten. When some of the snooty rich girls at school had given her a hard time about being adopted, he’d gone to bat for her. And she’d returned the favor when those same girls and their boyfriends had egged the principal’s house and tried to pin it on Tyler.

He laid a finger against the underside of her chin, encouraging her to look at him. His eyes held a warmth that had never been there before. Or maybe it had and she’d been too young and naive to recognize it.

When he finally spoke, his tone was low, the words heavy with meaning. “I never run from danger. Especially when it involves someone I care about.”

She swallowed hard, unable to look away. His words suggested more than simple friendship. So did his tone.

The thought scared her more than anything had as yet.

* * *

Tyler moved through the darkness at a brisk walk, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the road ahead of him. It was 1:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, and Hodges was deserted, all the houses dark except for the soft glow of porch lights shining from a few of them. Gulf Boulevard didn’t show any more signs of life than Hodges had. According to Andy, a lot of his neighbors escaped the heat and humidity and spent summers up north. In the wee hours of the morning, that sense of isolation was even more acute. Most sensible people were in bed.

He’d tried. For almost two hours, he’d chased sleep. Finally he’d grown tired of tossing and turning and had slipped out into the quiet night.

He should have been tired. Actually, he was. Physically, anyway. He’d worked hard all afternoon and evening, pushing to get Nicki’s new sink and vanity installed and the plumbing hooked back up. He’d even started on the shelves in the master bedroom closet. But when he’d dropped into bed at eleven, his brain had gone into overdrive.

The note Andy had pulled off the front door that morning was in the hands of the police. But they probably wouldn’t be any more successful lifting the intruder’s prints from it than they had been from the first one. Or from Nicki’s house, for that matter. All the viable prints belonged to her. Her intruder had apparently worn gloves.

Tyler slowed his pace to catch his breath and cross to the other side of the road. He’d walked about a mile and a half. Maybe by the time he got back, he would be ready to sleep.

But the tension that had coiled through him as he lay staring into the darkness was still very much there. The second note had disturbed him as much as the first. Not because of what it meant for him. He wasn’t afraid for his own life. The note was likely an empty threat. But he understood the purpose behind the words. Whoever wrote them was trying to isolate Nicki from her friends. To weaken her and make her a better target.

It wasn’t going to work. It would take more than a written threat to tear him from Nicki’s side. It would take mortars, RPGs and a couple of Abrams tanks. And even that wouldn’t stop him if he could help it.

As he neared her house, he cast a glance in that direction. Light trickled through the trees that bordered her yard. She would be sound asleep inside, Callie nearby. The dog’s presence brought him a measure of relief. Otherwise, he would insist on loaning her Sasha to stand guard. Or move in himself.

He dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his mind. The nightmares were too frequent. Too real. He’d gotten pretty good at waking himself up before the scream building in his throat escaped. But sometimes the terror refused to release its grip until it was too late. Though it hadn’t happened yet, it was only a matter of time until he jarred Andy and Joan from a sound sleep. That was going to be embarrassing enough. He wasn’t about to show Nicki how messed up he was.

He rolled his shoulders, then ran his hands through his hair. When he reached her property line, he again shifted his gaze toward the house. To the right of the front door, a rattan rocker sat bathed in soft yellow light. A short distance away, an American flag hung from a short pole attached to the corner post. Further to the right, her Ram sat in the carport.

In total darkness.

He drew his brows together. When he’d headed out thirty minutes ago, both the porch light and the carport light were on. Had she gotten up and turned the second one off? Or had someone else extinguished it, not wanting to be seen?

He clicked off the flashlight and squinted into the night, worry coiling in his gut. But beyond the glow of the porch light, everything was black. Clouds obscured most of the stars, and the sliver of moon he’d seen early yesterday morning wouldn’t be visible until just before daylight.

He retraced his steps, then slipped into the trees bordering her yard. A twig snapped beneath his foot, the sound amplified in the silence. He hesitated. He had a gun. It just wasn’t with him. With his flashbacks and nightmares, he’d figured it was best to leave his weapon with a friend for safekeeping. Only a week and a half had passed, and he was already rethinking that decision.

Staying within the tree line, he continued to move away from the road, eyes on the carport. Once he was even with her truck, he stopped, listening. The skin on his arms prickled. Someone was there, or had just been there.

Dropping to his hands and knees, he clicked on the light and shone it under the truck, then swept the beam side to side in an expanding arc. Seeing no one, he sprinted to the back of the truck, then crept around it.

When he shone the light on the door of her house, he heaved a sigh of relief. It was undisturbed. He shook the tension from his shoulders. Of course it was undisturbed. No one was getting past the lock he’d installed. At least not without an ax or sledgehammer.

So maybe no one had been there. Maybe the light had burned out. He reached into the fixture. The bulb was still hot. It was also loose. He rotated it a quarter turn and light flooded the carport.

His stomach tightened as he stepped back from the door. His first instinct had been right. Someone had been prowling around her house in the dark. He scanned the side of the house. The laundry room window was the only jalousie left. According to Nicki, the prior owner had changed all the others to single-hungs.

Icy fingers traced a path down the back of his neck. Two of the four-inch by three-foot panes of glass stood against the house. The metal tracks that had held them were warped and bent outward. And the intruder had started on a third. Another thirty minutes and someone would have been inside, in spite of the locks he’d installed.

A sense of protectiveness surged through him, and he clenched his fists. Whoever wanted a piece of his longtime friend was going to have to go through him first. He stalked toward the front door, pulling out his phone as he walked.