wife about money when we saw them in the restaurant that night.
He warned me never to feel too comfortable…
Tony loved indirection, separating himself from the dirty work. Temple had gotten here alarmingly fast—was he working for Tony?
He didn’t seem to be the brain dead sort that Tony favored…
I stared at the image awhile, wondering what to do. I had just decided to call California, try to wring some information out of someone at the dojo when I noticed that the IM screen showed that Brian had logged off from work some time ago. He’d be home soon. Not soon enough to quell my suddenly jangling nerves.
The icon suddenly went on; Brian was downstairs. I was never so grateful for his lead-footed driving.
You home? I typed.
Yep, came back the reply.
Long day?
NTB. Not too bad.
K, brd, I typed. Okay, be right down.
TTYL.
I frowned. Why would he write talk to you later and not ccos, “caution, cats on stairs,” as he usually did?
I typed, k. Then I thought about it and typed: Dinner-E1’sP? Evil one’s pizza for dinner?
A long wait, then, whatever.
Now that was just plain wrong. Brian would never defer to me about pizza, especially not when it came to the evil, addictive sauce that Mario’s Pizza was famous for. I sat for a moment, wondering whether Brian was really okay, whether he wasn’t more burnt out than I thought.
Something was up.
The lights went out.
Damn Artie. I’d asked him to take care of the problem where the printer surged when the fridge did…Wasn’t that problem with the electricity supposed to be taken care of before today?
“Brian?” I called out from my desk.
There was no answer. I felt the all too familiar rush of adrenaline and prayed that it was just one more innocent situation that would be explained away in a moment…
A soft, rhythmic noise from downstairs…more a vibration than a noise…
“Brian?” I said, much more softly, and heard my voice crack.
Nothing.
I looked outside. His pickup wasn’t in the driveway. Through the open window, too high to be an exit, I could hear the muffled pounding. I picked up my phone. No dial tone, no nothing.
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. A softer noise, barely a noise, much closer…I recognized it was Minnie, almost invisible, a shadow in the mottled dark of the house. She was inching toward the door and stairs slowly, tail not even twitching, hesitating the way she does when she’s stalking or unsure of something.
I had to get downstairs. If something was up—I could either get my cell or hit the panic button on the alarm. I wasn’t going down there unarmed. I thought for a moment, wishing I hadn’t moved the tools down to the barn, then grabbed a dumbbell that I kept by my desk. Not perfect, not a lot of range, but a lot of wallop.
I scooped the cat up, went down the stairs softly, and glanced in the bedroom. A great lump was in the center of the white bedspread: Quasi was taking a last nap before trying to escape outside for the night. I dumped Minnie in there, shut the door on them both.
My cell phone was charging downstairs by the back door.
The rhythmic pounding continued downstairs, louder than when I was in my office. It stopped for a moment, then started up again, farther off.
I was at the bottom of the stairs now, avoiding the ones that I knew creaked the most. Then I saw the quick sweep of a flashlight beam, heard quiet footsteps.
Right. Out the front door, and no detours, Em—
The sound of a flashlight clicking off. The footsteps had stopped, too.
I thought I heard heavy breathing, as if whoever it was had run a quick race. Perhaps it was anticipation.
My heart stopped dead. I wasn’t sure that my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, when it came again, after a pause, as if someone had swallowed.
I went to the front door, unlocked it, and tugged, quietly. It wouldn’t budge. I pulled harder, I could feel that I’d slid the deadbolt back, but the door still stayed shut. I yanked with all my might, but it was wrong, wrong…the door never stuck like this. I pulled. Why wouldn’t it open—
And then there was the voice.
“Emma? Is that you?”
It was him.
“I’ve been waiting.”
It was Tony Markham.
Chapter 18
I SWALLOWED, TRIED TO KEEP MY KNEES FROM BUCKLING, and I leaned against the doorknob for support. In the dark, it was too easy to believe that I was asleep.