Lindsay Longford - Lover In The Shadows

Maybe she had been sleepwalking.

Drying her hands against her pajama bottoms and rubbing so hard against her leg she had to bite her lips against the pain, Molly tested that idea. The pain, real in its viciousness at the bottom of her thumb, was so alarming that she panicked to think she’d been sleepwalking, wandering upstairs, downstairs, all around the town…

“Stop it.” Her voice was startling in the quiet of the orderly kitchen, the single sound in all that humming silence.

She wouldn’t let herself lose control.

Molly took ten deep breaths. “Okay,” she said when she’d finished. Needing the reality of a human voice, even her own, she continued, “Okay. No one came in. Fact. Nobody could have.” Thinking, she shook her head slowly, and wet strands of hair slid across her chin. “Not past all those locks. And out? Leaving everything locked behind? Only a ghost, maybe. And there’s no such thing as ghosts. No such thing as the Bermuda Triangle.”

In spite of her weak attempt at humor, she shuddered again in the dim morning. She would have found greater comfort if she could forget all the people who did believe in the Triangle and ghosts. In the uncertain light of these moments between night and dawn, the idea of ghosts fluttering through her home wasn’t something she could cope with. Not after everything else. Ghosts who slipped through locked doors and windows. No, much better a real, tangible explanation for what was happening to her, no matter how terrifying.

That left sleepwalking.

But she didn’t have a history of sleepwalking.

She no longer dreamed.

Her breath came in wheezes. On TV she’d seen a report about the behavior people were capable of while in the grip of unconscious sleep.

The reporter had interviewed a woman who “woke up” over and over in her kitchen, eating, making sandwiches. Other people discovered themselves eating cigarette butts as if they were food. Nocturnal bingeing. People did strange things in the nighttime hours.

Murder, even.

A man had, supposedly, walked out of his house, driven to a relative’s home, strolled in and murdered the family.

While he was asleep.

Sleepwalking.

Madness.

Molly touched the wound on her hand.

Her blood.

She rubbed the spot over and over, trying not to think about alternatives.

Her blood.

He’d been watching her for a long time. Prowling around her house, moving silently along the gallery, watching her during the long nights. Now, he moved closer. It was time.

The small smack against the kitchen door shot Molly upright, her hands over her mouth.

A second smack. Purposeful.

She edged to the door. Worse to stay listening to that muffled sound and not know what it was.

If she wanted to keep her sanity, she had no choice.

Holding the shutter carefully so that she could look out onto the gallery, Molly saw only darkness.

Again the sound came, lower, from the floor.

Staring through the window, Molly saw a shimmer of motion, a flick of dark against dark. Something was out there.

Eyes were gleaming up at her.

Real eyes, not metallic reflections of her own fear-glazed self. A stray cat. Real. Nothing to make her hide behind locked doors jiggling with imagined fears.

Drawn to the reality of the cat, she carefully released the bolts. Damp air rushed in as she held on to the screen door and looked down at the cat staring back at her with unblinking gold eyes.

Large, with powerful muscles along his flanks and shoulders and a broad head with a bumpy, hooked nose, he was the most beautiful animal she’d ever seen. Rain-wet, his black coat was shiny and sleek.

“Hey, puss,” she whispered, looking down the length of the gallery. Off to her left she thought she saw movement, but it was only a mourning dove winging off into the rain, disturbed by the rattle of the opening door.

Imperiously unmoving, the cat sat with his long tail curled around his front paws and watched her with unwinking golden eyes.

“Looking for any port in a storm, fella?” Molly stooped and touched her nose to the screen door close to the cat, comforted by the presence of another creature. This big cat with his unwavering gaze was solid and tangible in the quicksand of her thoughts. “You’re a beauty, you are.” Molly looked at his neck. “No collar? That’s a shame. I’ll bet there’s someone out there looking for you, cat.”

The cat tilted his head and lifted his paw to the door. He tapped it, an arrogant demand for service. Molly pressed her finger to the door and the pad of the cat’s big paw flexed. His claws pierced the screen around her finger, encircling the tip. Trapping it in the cage of his claws.

“Careful, buster. What do you want, anyway?”

The cat’s eyes never blinked.

“Oh? As if I should read your mind, huh? Food and a cozy spot next to the fire?”

Unmoving, utterly still, he watched her.

“Listen, buster, this is Florida. You’re not going to freeze.” Molly surveyed his body. Long, muscle-padded haunches. “You’re obviously not hungry. Couldn’t be. Vamoose, fella.” She tried to pull her finger away, but the cat tightened his grip, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Hey, this isn’t funny. Shoo, go away. I can’t help you. Sorry, but the last thing I need is a cat around here right now.” She wiggled her finger, but the cat held it firm. “If you were a dog, maybe I’d let you stay. I could use a real big, real mean dog. A brute. With a nasty disposition. A dog I’d keep for sure.” She pulled harder, futilely.

Uneasy, Molly raised her voice and looked around, sensing something ruffling her nerve endings. “Hey, listen, puss, let go. I want to shut the door, okay?” Molly thunked the screen with the fingers of her free hand.

So fast she never saw his movement, like dark lightning streaking, the cat fastened a paw around her hand, capturing a second finger and holding it with his claws through the screen.

“Well, buster, now we’re in a fine mess. Let go,” she ordered, glaring at the animal.

His gold gaze held hers. There was something in his somber stare that kept her looking, looking past the darker gold flecks, as if she were moving down a golden corridor faster and faster and faster, wind and air rushing past her, golden eyes locked on hers, drawing her deeper into that spinning gold….

Molly shook her head. Light lifted the edges of gray from the gallery and she could see out into her yard, down to the bayou veiled in rain. She sighed, exhausted and wrung out.

Looking back at the sleek animal in front of her, she frowned. “So, I’m a sucker for helpless critters, cat, but you’re the most unhelpless beast I’ve ever seen. And, like I said, you’re not a dog. Besides, cats are always looking down hallways as if they see something, and, puss, I don’t need you seeing things that go bump in the night, you know? I’m having enough problems figuring out which bumps are real and which ones aren’t. I don’t need you spooking the heck out of me.” Her voice dropped to a shaky whisper.

Not breaking her skin, the cat curled his claws tighter. That arrogance she’d noted earlier gleamed back at her from his gold eyes.

“You have some nerve, cat. Anybody ever tell you that? Yes, I know I like cats. Ordinarily.”

The cat arched his back, his claws still hooked in the screen around her fingers. Damp heat from his large body came to her in the chilly, rain-dark dawn.

Molly hesitated. “Listen, if I let you in, you can’t stay, hear? I mean, this isn’t your home away from home. You can come in for a while. Just until…” She stopped. She knew what she was doing. She knew she didn’t want to deal with the knife still in her kitchen. Twisting her fingers caught in his grasp, Molly continued, “Just until, okay?”