“She didn’t tell me that,” I said, straightening up with indignation.
“So, you didn’t tell her to throw away the broken railings?”
I hesitated. “I don’t remember what I told her, but I know she didn’t mention missing screws—are you listening to yourself? Missing screws, someone poisoning Cat?” I gave a hard laugh. “You’re paranoid.”
“I’m not sure I am.” He moved past me and into the house, his shoulder knocking against me in the process.
A stab of fear hit me, one I hadn’t felt in years. “Matt.” I hurried after him. “Matt. Where are you going?”
“To the office. I need to check on some things.” He jogged down the winding staircase, his boots loud on the stairs.
“Wait.” I caught him just before the back door and wrapped my arms around him. “Matt.” I pulled him around to face me and pressed my body against his, my hands stealing around his neck, my mouth sweet and eager on his lips. He was slow to respond, but he softened, his hands finding my waist, his mouth responding to my kiss. I considered initiating sex but discarded the idea, my energy not up for the laborious task. Instead, I curled into his chest. “I love you,” I whispered.
He returned the sentiment gruffly, his hand sweeping over the back of my head, and I felt, in the sigh of his embrace, the buying of a little more time. But how much? I squeezed him tightly and recalculated things in my mind.
CHAPTER 38
HIM
It was amazing how useless security guard gates were if you were on foot, dressed in black, at night. All it had taken was one distraction, a car pulling up to the pair of officers, and he had scaled the low part of the wall undetected, shielded by a large willow tree. A half mile later, past ridiculous homes and million-dollar landscaping packages, he was moving down the driveway and settling into a dark corner of the yard.
There, he waited. Hours passed. The chorus of crickets and frogs came. Lights in the house extinguished, room by room. Once everything was dark, he waited another hour and a half, then stood, pulling on gloves.
He unlocked the back door and moved in quietly, blue surgical booties already pulled over his shoes, his steps silent on the wood floors. He headed for the staircase and kept to the far side, avoiding weak spots that might make noise. Above him, like the lull of a pied piper, a man snored.
His instructions had been clear, and he followed them to the letter. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall, the door ajar. The pale light of a television flickered through the crack. His heartbeat increased, and he removed the small handgun from the clip on his belt and held the weapon in front of him like a sword. Pushing gently on the door, he eased it open and paused, taking in the scene.
There were two humps in the bed, one large and snoring, one silent and small. On the television, an infomercial about a treadmill played. He stepped sideways, moving around the giant king bed until the man’s face came into view. Chubby. Mouth open. Eyes closed. Features slack. He looked as if he were already dead, the illusion marred by the guttural wheezes that eased out of him. Moving closer, he carefully worked the barrel of the pistol into the man’s mouth.
Brown eyes flipped open, his lips tightening on the cool barrel of the gun before gaping back open. The intruder carefully flipped off the safety with his thumb. As the prone man’s eyes pleaded with him for mercy, he let out a slow breath and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 39
NEENA
The police came in silently, their sirens off, three cars in total. From my perch at the window, I watched them pull up to our house, the knot of unease growing in my stomach. This was bad. I didn’t even know what had gone wrong, but this wasbad. I followed Matt as he opened the front door, meeting them as they came up the wide brick steps.
“Mr. Ryder?” A female detective flashed her shield, then introduced the other uniforms, all in the standard black garb of the town police department. “I’m Detective Cullen. You said on the phone that the intruder has left?” She had a thick New York accent and the aggressive posture to match it.
“Yes.” Matt straightened to his full and unimpressive height of five feet nine inches. “I heard him leave through the front, and I searched the house. He’s not here.”
She looked down at the stoop. “He left through here?”
My husband nodded, not realizing the issue of three officers trampling through the exit. “Yeah.”
“Dammit,” she swore. “Donnie, get back. All of you, get back and watch where you’re stepping. We just screwed ourselves in terms of footprints.”
I hung back in the warmth of the house, the night chill trickling through the open doorway, and watched as the cops attempted to maneuver inside without damaging evidence. “I’ll open the side door. You can come in through there.”
“Thank you.” The woman lifted her flashlight, shining it in my face. “You Mrs. Ryder?”
“Dr. Ryder,” I clipped back, holding up my hand to block the flashlight’s glare. “Do you mind?”
“No problem.” She clicked off the lamp and gave me a hard smile. “We’ll meet you around the side.”
I leaned against the left side of the house, my hands tucked into the pockets of my robe, and felt like a criminal. The scene was eerily familiar. Suspicious looks. Probing questions. Before, they’d only done a brief glance through the house, then ushered me into the back of a police car. Before, I’d been given a series of gentle questions paired with sympathetic looks. Now, I was being drilled. An army of uniforms was moving into my house. Matt and I were being kept outside and questioned as if we were suspects.
The detective pointed down the dark stretch of our driveway. “Your front gate out there—does that fence go all the way around the property?”