Читать книгу No Sanctuary - Helen Myers R. - Страница 18

The phone was ringing as Bay returned home and opened her front door. Not bothering to take the key out of the lock, she grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?” She placed her slim shoulder bag and the folder from the Ridgeways onto the kitchen counter. “Hello?”

Once again she heard subtle but indistinguishable background noises to assure her that someone was there.

“Not today, thanks,” she muttered hanging up.

She’d had enough, enough of people pushing her buttons, of those trying to play mind games and all of the manipulation. All she wanted to do now was slip out of what she would heretofore call her “torture slippers” and change into the loosest, skimpiest outfit she could find.

“Mercy, that air conditioner is cranking away,” she said carrying her things down the hall. At the register she found out why.

The temperature was set all the way to the coldest setting. How had she managed that? What an idiot, she thought quickly adjusting it back up to seventy-nine. She must have knocked it somehow as she was hurrying to leave and wobbling in those shoes. Dreading what this would do to her electricity bill, she continued to the bedroom…and froze in the doorway.

The window nearest the bathroom was open.

Sultry air was seeping into the room, offsetting the chill in the hall and yet goose bumps rose on her bare arms. Now that she knew she hadn’t done.

Her heart slamming against her breastbone, she retreated to the kitchen for some kind of weapon—the heavy-duty flashlight kept by the door for her left hand to deflect a blow, and a knife with the longest, sturdiest blade for her right. Once leaving Gatesville, she’d hoped she was putting this part of her life behind her. She should have known that was too good to be true.

This time Bay checked room by room, starting with the kitchen’s broom closet and the linen closet in the hallway. At the same time she looked for other signs that someone had left taunting clues of his visit. Once she got as far as the bathroom and determined she was the only one in the house, she closed the window, tested the lock and began checking drawers, her imagination in overdrive.