Jodie Bailey - Smokescreen

And leave her here alone, a sitting duck for anyone who happened to spot her? No, thank you. Her best option was to go with him and face whatever giants might be lurking in her living room. “It’s too hard to explain, and you’ll need a screwdriver.”

His eyebrow arched, the shadow of the streetlights making him look like a supervillain in an old cartoon. All he needed was a mustache to twirl. It would have made her laugh under different circumstances.

Ashley reached for the door handle but a short grunt stopped her. Ethan flipped a switch by the steering wheel and popped his door open cautiously. When the interior lights stayed dark, he tipped her a nod and met her at the front of the truck, hand at his hip under his jacket.

Ashley’s eyes drifted closed as she wavered on her feet. She hadn’t considered he’d be armed. His reflexive movement as they faced danger spoke more than words. Even though they’d escaped the airport, she was still in a situation requiring weapons. She’d grown up around guns, been trained to use them, and still the irrational, stupid fear won every time. The memory of pain and stolen dreams overwhelmed her common sense.

Pulling in a deep breath, she released it slowly. Be strong. Focus on where you are right now. Ethan could never know how much the past still haunted her nightmares.

As much as she feared the gun at Ethan’s side, she edged closer. Right now, he was the one safe thing in her life. Ironic, considering his propensity for leaving when it suited him. Considering how her heart started to beat double-time when she’d realized he was her rescuer, it was best if she remembered that. Focus on the soft feel of the air... On the smell of smoke from someone’s fireplace... Anything other than guns and Ethan.

They slipped across the parking lot to the back, where a few feet of small yard stood between them and the protective wall that buffered the sounds from the road behind the building.

Ashley followed Ethan into the breezeway and up to the exterior stairs to the second level, stopping short when he did. The door to her apartment stood open slightly, the wood around the lock splintered. The intruders hadn’t even tried to hide their entrance. Far from fear, hot fury surged. It took a lot of chutzpah to bust into someone’s home without even caring if the whole apartment complex knew about it.

Motioning for her to follow, Ethan held a finger to his lips then slipped up the short breezeway to the stairs leading to the third floor. He ushered her underneath the open cement-and-metal structure. “Wait here.”

Ashley wanted to protest, but she knew better. Arguing would waste valuable time and he’d never let her go anyway. She stood tense against the wall, trying to make herself small.

No movement came from her apartment. The light wind that always seemed to blow through this part of the state whispered against her ears, blurring the finer sounds.

It felt like hours before Ethan appeared in the doorway, the dim lights of the breezeway playing strange shadows across his face. His eyes stood out, glittering with an emotion she couldn’t define. “It’s clear, but I wish you didn’t have to see it.”

Ashley’s mind and body downshifted into a place worse than fear. She was numb. From the inside out, she felt nothing. The chilled air, the thought she could die... Nothing connected. She wanted to pinch herself just to jolt something into her brain.

“Ash? If you tell me where it is, I can get it. You don’t have to come in. It’s probably better if—”

She didn’t let him finish. She needed to move, needed to feel something in her body, even if it was the simple forward motion of putting one foot in front of the other. Pushing past him, Ashley paused in the doorway and stared.

The streetlight in the parking lot leaked through the purple curtains at the front of the living room, casting a violet haze over the scene. Even in the dim light, it was obvious everything had been tossed, as though a tsunami had broken in the room and retreated. The light made the whole scene surreal, more frightening than it should be, the glow too much like a haunted house that had given Ashley nightmares as a child.

As badly as she wanted to flood the place with light, she knew better. It would only tip off anyone watching.

She stopped by the entrance as Ethan slipped the door shut the best he could behind her. “You’re sure you cleared the place?”

“Would I have let you in if I hadn’t?”

This sarcastic side of him didn’t even make her flinch. It tended to come out when he was stressed, worried about the unknown. The last time she’d heard it was at her hospital bedside the night her entire life blew apart.

Definitely not the place her imagination should go right now. The fear jolted again and brought a brusqueness with it. “A simple yes would have worked. I want to know they’re not going to pop up again when I pull the portable hard drive out. And I want to be double sure they don’t see what I’m about to do now.” She laid her hand against the wall and felt for the kitchen, inching forward, toes connecting with what was left of her normal life. Her sanctuary no longer brought safety. The violation fouled the air and crawled along her skin.

With no windows in the small kitchen, the blackness hung thick and inky. She could almost feel invisible hands poised to grasp her and yank her into a pit where her floor used to be.

She allowed herself a tight smile. Whoever was searching must have thought they’d found what they were looking for.

Laying hands on the small flashlight she kept in her junk drawer brought little relief, since it only served to make the darkness outside the beam even thicker, but it was better than nothing. She found a small screwdriver and, careful to keep the beam aimed at the floor and away from the windows, stepped over what she could now see. An overturned dining chair. The phone charger she’d left behind in her mad dash to make the plane. A spare key to her car.

She shoved it into her pocket. They’d need it when they went to the airport to get the keys to Sean’s post-office box from her glove box.

The light glinted off of something shiny.

Ashley swallowed hard. The Blue Willow china plate that had hung near the dining room table, the one tangible item left from her great-grandmother, had been smashed, fine pieces ground into the carpet. Something about those impossibly small shards on the floor undid her in a way nothing else could.

She bit back a sob Ethan was bound to hear.

He had. There was a scrape of movement near the door. “They found the software?”

Ashley shook her head then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark. It was a second before she could trust herself to answer. “Doubtful.” The word cracked just like the plate. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. There were too many things to do, too many moves to make, for her to fall apart now. This was only the beginning.

Trying to corral her thoughts, she stepped gently over the plate and ran her hand along the wooden lip underneath the small, round dining table. Her fingers caught on a piece of duct tape barely hanging on to the wood at the far end of the curve. “They took it.”

Ethan was at her side before she even heard him move. “They took your program?” His voice drew tight, the dark magnifying the whisper until it sounded like a shout.

“No, I hid a dummy one.” She edged away, cheeks warming, even though the circumstances were wrong and history said she really shouldn’t notice. “Call it paranoia. Sean and I worked hard writing the software, and it could be worth more money than you can imagine. It’s not perfected, because we haven’t had time together to work out the bugs. Thieves want easy information they can sell. I figured if anyone ever broke into my house, they’d check obvious locations, think they’d found something important and leave. I never expected to end up needing this.”