Kat Martin - Against the Storm

She listened again, trying to decide if she should call 911. The police would show up, she figured, even if they knew she was the caller. But as the seconds stretched into minutes, she realized the only sound she was hearing was the fear pumping through her veins.

When the noise didn’t come again, she began to relax. She had imagined the intruder. There was no one in the house. As Trace had insisted, she had carefully locked the doors.

She glanced at the digital clock beside the bed: 2:15. She lay there in silence, her ears focused to catch any noise out of the ordinary, but she didn’t hear anything more. The little button in the center of the bedroom doorknob was pushed. It wasn’t much of a lock, but it gave her some sense of security. At least she would know if someone was trying to get in.

She watched the clock, the numbers slipping past. At two thirty-five, she rolled out of bed. No other sounds had reached her. Maybe she had fallen asleep for an instant and dreamed the entire incident. Things like that had happened to her before.

Still, she had to know.

Reaching for the blue fleece robe tossed over the foot of the bed, she slipped her arms inside and tied the sash around her waist. After years of living in the Texas heat, she slept in the nude, but she always kept the robe handy in case there was some sort of emergency, like a fire, or just someone arriving unexpectedly at her door.

She listened again for a moment, heard nothing and quietly turned the knob. Easing the door open, she waited. Just the ticking of the antique clock that she planned to hang on the wall in the living room but hadn’t done yet. Sticking her head out in the hallway, she glanced both ways, but no lights were burning; nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

After tiptoeing down the hall, she slipped into her photo studio and grabbed a makeshift weapon—a unipod, the one-legged stand she sometimes used to steady her camera. She quietly retraced her steps with it clutched in both hands, and descended the stairs.

No movement. No sound. Maggie flipped on the light switch, illuminating the glass lamp hanging in the foyer, casting a bright glow partway into the living room.

Nothing.

The tension eased from her shoulders. She turned on the light in the kitchen, turned on a lamp in the living room, took a look around. She had imagined the entire episode—thank God.

It was the note. The notes were making her edgy and restless, sending her into a tailspin. She hoped Trace Rawlins would find the man who had been harassing her.

She moved through the house, making a brief inspection of the locks, finding them all secured. She turned off the brass lamp in the living room, then padded back to the kitchen. Her hand paused midway to the light switch as her eyes caught something sitting on the breakfast bar.

A cold chill swept through her. The only things there when she had gone to bed were the telephone, the old-fashioned answering machine she still used and the address book she kept beside them.

Her mouth went dry. She forced her feet to carry her to the counter. Her hand shook as she reached toward the small porcelain statuette sitting on top. It was no more than five inches high, a man in a black tuxedo dancing with a woman with upswept red hair wearing a long, flowing, pale green evening gown.

Maggie swallowed. Her gaze shot around the kitchen, but she had checked the rooms and the closets and found no one there. Picking up her address book with a shaking hand, she flicked it open. Trace Rawlins’s business card rested just inside.

Frantically, she dialed the cell number printed on the card, terrified that the man who had left the statue might be hiding in the house and she just hadn’t found him. With the phone pressed against her ear, she listened to the ringing on the other end of the line and prayed Trace Rawlins would answer.

The boat was running with the wind, Ranger’s Lady skimming over the surface of the frothy blue ocean. The early-spring air felt fresh and cool against his skin. Gulls screeched and turned over the top of the mast, circling the boat in search of food.

Trace was smiling, enjoying the perfect day, when Faith Hill’s sweet voice began to sing to him through his cell phone. In an instant, he was jolted awake, a habit from his days in the Rangers. His hand shot out and grabbed the phone off the bedside table, and he pressed it against his ear.

“Rawlins,” he rasped in a sleepy voice.

“Trace, it’s Maggie O’Connell.”

“Maggie?” Worry slid through him. He rolled to the side of the bed, swung his long legs over the side. “Maggie, what is it?”

“Someone…someone was in my house tonight. He left…left something for me on the counter.”

A chill ran down Trace’s spine. “Have you called the police?”

“I—I called you instead.”

His fingers tightened around the phone. “Are you sure he isn’t still there?”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“Not good enough. Hang up and call 911. I’m on my way.”

Trace hung up the phone, grabbed his jeans off the back of a chair and pulled them on without bothering with his briefs. After dragging a T-shirt over his head, he pulled on his boots and headed for the door. Sensing his urgency, Rowdy followed, but the dog was used to his master’s odd hours and didn’t make a fuss.

Trace’s shoulder holster hung on the hat rack beside the back door. He used a Beretta 9 mm semiauto when he carried, which he hadn’t needed to do lately. He slipped on the holster, snapped out the weapon and checked the load as he hurried outside toward his car.

It didn’t take long to reach Maggie’s town house. He was glad he had been there before. It was almost three in the morning, but the lights were on. As he strode up the walkway, he could see her through a small window over the sink in the kitchen, standing there in her bathrobe, her arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold.

No patrol car was in sight. Trace silently cursed the time it was taking them to get there. He knocked on the door. “Maggie? It’s Trace.”

She opened the door an instant later, her shoulders sagging with relief as he walked past her into the entry.

“Thank you for coming.”

He glanced around. “I thought the cops would be here by now.”

Her gaze strayed from his. “I, um, didn’t call them.”

Frustration tightened Trace’s jaw. “Why the hell not?”

“You were on your way. I took another look around. I’m sure he’s not here.”

Trace shook his head. “Dammit, Maggie.” Pulling the Beretta from its holster, he made a check of the rooms downstairs, the coat closet, the bedroom and bath. He made the same search upstairs, the master bedroom and bath, and the photo studio. Returning downstairs, he opened the door from the entry into the garage, flipped on the light and took the single step down.

Maggie’s Ford Escape sat in the garage. The door leading outside was locked. There was no sign of whoever had come into the house.

“I checked the doors and windows,” he told her as he returned to the kitchen. “They’re all locked. No broken latches, nothing. Any idea how he got in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Show me what he left you.”

She led him to the breakfast bar. “That.” She pointed toward the item on the counter. “It’s pretty innocuous, just a little porcelain statuette, but…”

“But it means something. At least to him.”

Trace examined the dancing couple, carefully painted by hand. Using a paper towel, he lifted the piece to examine it more closely, noting that the bottom was uneven, as if it had been attached to something, and broken off.

He set the statuette back on the breakfast bar. “Does it mean anything to you?”