Devious - Lisa Jackson [133]
Heart thudding, she eased toward the door. In here she was trapped. No other exit than the door. The tiny window over the toilet was far too small to slide through. Crouching, she pushed open the door just as she suddenly realized what she’d heard wasn’t the crack of a gun but the hard clap of the screen door slapping against its frame.
“Damn!”
Clutching the towel between her breasts, she hurried into the living room where the gloom of the evening had settled, darkness gathering in the corners.
The room was empty.
Quickly, leaving a trail of wet footprints across the wood floor, she walked through the kitchen to the back door where the screen was now closed and the yard empty, a few lights glowing near the pathway leading to the main house. She stepped out onto the porch and looked around, but she saw no one, just darkness gathering over the city.
Had her imagination, and the conjuring up of a nightmare, gotten the better of her?
Or had someone really been inside, peering through the crack of the bathroom door that she’d left ajar?
She saw Bo, sniffing the grass, getting ready to find the perfect spot to relieve himself, and wondered if he’d barked at the neighbor’s cat or a squirrel, or . . .
Or what?
Why would someone be snooping around the house?
“Come on, boy,” she said when he was finished watering Freya’s favorite clump of daylilies. Tongue lolling, he trotted to the porch and climbed up the steps. “You really should find a better place,” she reprimanded as she patted his head. “Or Freya might cut off your backyard privileges.”
He barked once, a deep rumbling sound, while his tail swept the floorboards of the porch. This bark was different than it had been earlier, and wanting more attention, he shoved his head against her thigh.
“Well, come on in!” Getting goose bumps where her skin was still wet, she let the dog into the kitchen, latched the screen, then retraced her steps, pausing in the living room where Camille’s things were still where she’d left them. A quick look convinced her that Cammie’s memorabilia hadn’t been disturbed.
What the hell had just happened?
Who, if anyone, had been inside?
Why did she feel violated, spied upon?
She glanced toward the window. For a split second, she saw the demon who appeared in her nightmares, the black beast with its tiny, sharp teeth, always ready to pounce.
“Don’t be silly,” she told herself, but double-checked the locks before she made her way to the bedroom to get dressed.
Her cell phone rang again.
She found it on the desk and clicked the TALK button before the third ring.
Once again, no one was there.
CHAPTER 40
“Don’t freak out. It’s spaghetti sauce,” one of the uniformed cops explained to Montoya as he, Bentz, and Brinkman signed into the crime scene and noticed the sticky red stains sliding down the wall just inside Grace Blanc’s bedroom door.
The living room was small, not a lot in it. Furniture that had been modern and cool in the seventies now looked tired and worn, a couple of metal tables surrounding a low, green couch and a garage-sale rocker in the corner.
“Good thing,” Brinkman joked with an ugly laugh as he surveyed the oozing red stain. “I was beginning to think it was really bad-smelling, maybe bloody brains or something.”
“Nice,” Bonita Washington, the crime scene team leader, remarked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “What are you, in the fourth grade or something? Grow up, Brinkman.”
“Just trying to lighten things up.”
“Oh, sure.” She was having none of his lip. Then again, she didn’t take crap from anyone. “You know, Brinkman, you might try to show some sensitivity for a change.” She was all business as usual.
“Look, it’s tight in here. See what you have to see and leave the rest to us. Okay? The sooner the body is removed, the better for everyone.”
Click! Eve Marsolet was snapping off photos.
Another guy from the crime lab was dusting for prints, another measuring stains.
They picked their way to a bedroom where all of the action had taken place.