It struck her suddenly that the same window that let in the early morning light was about an arm’s length from the lock on the door. If someone wanted to, they could break the glass and get the door open.
She went still. She hadn’t heard anything. Not really. She’d had a bad dream and hadn’t gotten completely out of that fight-or-flight response fear compelled. It was nothing more than a trick of her mind.
Then the lights went out.
Definitely. She was definitely learning how to fix her electricity. Her heart started to pound, adrenaline, left over from the dream she’d been having, reignited in her system.
It was okay. There was nothing out there. She was alone and despite the ramshackle nature of the house, the doors were secure.
Scratch. Scratch.
She shrank back and stared at the door. It rattled slightly.
Definitely not the wind.
Fear shot through her and she scrambled for the phone. There was a landline in the kitchen. She hadn’t used a damn landline in years, but Lisa had insisted because cell phone service could be spotty.
Scratch. Scratch.
Who scratched at a door? There weren’t any trees close enough to explain that noise. Or the breathing sounds.
Something was at her door. She didn’t have a gun. Didn’t own a gun.
She should own a gun.
The door rattled again and she bit back a scream. Maybe if she hadn’t had the dream again she could have reacted with some kind of calm, but panic was threatening to take over. She could hear that man yelling, see her friend’s eyes as the light left them, knowing she was next.
Her cell phone was in the bedroom, but it was likely dead since she hadn’t put it on the charger. The landline would have to do. She forced herself to pick up the phone. She would call her sister. Lisa would send Remy out.
She didn’t know her sister’s number. There wasn’t a button for Lisa on this damn last-freaking-century piece of technology. Who used landlines?
She dialed the only number she knew.
“911, what is your emergency?”
She clutched the phone and prayed someone would come soon.chapter fiveArmie slammed the door to the SUV closed and was shocked at how hard his heart was pounding. Every bit of his training told him that this was likely nothing at all. She was new in town and unused to how things sounded in the bayou at night. It could be creepy and weird to outsiders. She was in a new home and she’d been through something terrible. If she didn’t have PTSD complete with nightmares, he would eat his hat.
Not that he had his hat. Or his uniform. He was in pajama pants, a T-shirt, and his sneakers. He’d slipped on a jacket emblazoned with the words Papillon Parish Sheriff that covered his shoulder holster and the gun he had there, but otherwise he was in civvies.
None of that mattered because from the moment he’d gotten the call that Lila Daley had a possible intruder trying to get into her house, his only thought had been to get to her as fast as he could.
He forced himself to slow down and take stock of his surroundings. If someone was trying to get to her, he couldn’t leave her alone to face it because the dumbass sheriff had let himself get shot.
He went still and listened. Nothing. Her house was on a half an acre and he could see the porch light on at Angie Jones’s place down the street, but the rest of her house was dark. Angie had motion-activated lights he’d helped her install. When they came on they stayed on for fifteen minutes at a time. They could have gone off by now.
He approached Lila’s house and vowed he would do the same for her. She might not like it coming from him but he would find a way to get more lights on her place. Like Angie, Lila was a single woman living alone, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic out this way. She wasn’t far from town, but it got dark out here fast. The highway was less than a mile away. It wouldn’t take much to find her.
Was she running from more than her past?
He was being paranoid.
He took a deep breath. It was time to let his training take over. The front yard was clear. He was ready to move around to the back, when he saw her in the front window. It looked like she had a flashlight in her hand and she was glancing out into the yard.
When she caught sight of him, she threw open her front door. She rushed out, and he was so damn happy he made a habit of having dispatch inform him of 911 calls. Not that there were ever many. In a couple of weeks, the new deputies would be trained and he wouldn’t have had the chance to tell night dispatch to hold off, that he would handle it. Then Lila would have been running toward a man she didn’t know and he would be carrying a gun.