He ran across the yard, not looking back. Threw a leather-clad leg over his bike. The engine roared to life and gravel scattered as he sped away.
Now shivering from reaction, I stepped back inside. Pushed a kitchen chair beneath the doorknob to secure the back door. Then I knelt down beside my protector, laid my gun down on the kitchen floor and gave him a hug.
I checked him for injuries.
Just bumps and bruises, I thought when I was done. Just like me.
With Highball close at my heels and my gun back in my hand, I walked back down the hall. From now on, I thought, I’d have to watch my back. And keep my gun close at hand. Even in my own home. My own bathroom. Because Hector didn’t strike me as the type who’d just give up.
Neither did my sister.
Jackie didn’t know where I lived. She had no reason to send her abusive husband to my house. But I’d made myself a target for Katie. For Katie’s rage. And I’d become its latest victim.
Easy enough to imagine her wheedling a phone number from Jackie just before she left. All Katie had to do was tell Jackie that she was sending Hector on a wild-goose chase.
A chase that had landed him at her sister’s door.
Had she intended that he murder me? I wondered. Or had she simply intended his visit—his violence—to warn me away from something she thought I knew?
I took another shower, this time with my gun on top of the toilet tank. And Highball sprawled across the doorway. Then I put on my uniform and held an ice pack to my bruised cheek as I ate a bologna sandwich stacked with a tomato for dinner.
I went to deal with the drunk-and-disorderlies on Dunn Street.
A situation I was well equipped to control.
At 2:00 a.m., I drove back home.
I let Possum run loose, knowing he wouldn’t leave the yard while Highball and I were inside the house. Knowing that he would raise an alarm if anyone approached.
Insecurity prompted me to dress for bed in sweatpants and a once-maroon T-shirt that had faded to pink. Then, after popping a couple of aspirins to tone down my aching jaw and wrists, I dragged Highball’s cushion into the bedroom, tucking it between my bed and the doorway. Once he’d gotten over the excitement of being invited to sleep in the bedroom—a rare treat indeed—he settled happily onto his cushion.
Then I tucked myself into bed and settled my head against the pillows.
Exhausted, I shut my eyes. Drifted.
Back into a locked closet.
Just as the bare bulb burned out.
Impossible now to see the spider that was slowly lowering itself toward us. Supporting all but two of its spindly legs on a thin strand of web.
Those two legs, I knew, were searching the darkness. For children.
Katie’s hand was tight around mine as we sat huddled together.
“Sh-h-h-h,” she whispered. “Be quiet.”
Hector’s footsteps. In the room beyond the closet.
If he found us, he’d do to me what a stranger had done to Katie.
Then I felt the wisp of sticky web fall against my face. And tiny, dry legs rasping across my cheek.
I couldn’t help myself.
I screamed.
Hector wrenched the closet door open, grabbed my wrists.
And I screamed again.
I jolted awake in a quiet room, its peace broken only by the snoring of an old dog on the floor next to the bed. Woke up to the realization that my screams only echoed inside my head.
For a moment, I lay very still, longing for the presence of Chad’s warm body beside me. Remembering how many times I’d awakened from a nightmare and found myself within the protective circle of his arms. Found comfort there no matter what horrors the too-familiar closet had revealed on that particular night.
With a quick shake of my head, I rolled over and dangled my hand off the side of the bed, locating Highball with my searching fingers. Disturbed his sleep by stroking my hand over his thick coat. By telling him that I was a grown-up. That I didn’t need anyone besides him to protect me.
Not Katie.
Not even Chad.
After that, I checked that my loaded gun was still within easy reach, settled my head back down on the pillow, and closed my eyes.
I didn’t object when, a few minutes later, Highball crawled into bed with me.
Chapter 18
The next morning, the clock radio didn’t awaken me with music or even the throaty drawl of the fellow who did the farm commodities report. Instead, I