Rain lashed my windshield. I peered out at an apocalyptic landscape of stalled vehicles, accidents, flashing blue lights. My hands clenched the steering wheel, knuckles white, my head pounding from the strain of concentrating so hard on the road. On the LIE, traffic was bumper-to-bumper. The cars inched forward. After half an hour, I hadn’t gone more than a few miles. At this rate, I’d be out here all night. I could die in a terrible car accident. Or I could reach the house safely and then be attacked by my stalker. Either way, in the chaos of the storm, it could take hours, days, before my family was notified of my death. In my stress and exhaustion, my throat tightened with tears, and I dialed Jason’s number. My heart lifted at the sound of his recorded voice, and I missed him terribly.
“Jason, honey,” I said to his voicemail. “I’m on my way to the beach house. The neighbor says the alarm’s going off and the front door blew open. The police are too busy with other calls to respond. The roads are terrible. I wanted you to know where I was. I’m scared of what I might find, and I wish you were with me. Is there any way you could come out here? Hannah is with Lynn, and she’s safe. Call me. I love you. Bye.”
It took two hours longer than usual to get to Montauk Highway, which normally would have been deserted at this time of night in October. But traffic was backed up here, too. The closer I got to Glenhampton, the slower I went, but I couldn’t turn around, because there were cars in front and behind going in both directions. When eventually I got to the front of the line and saw what the obstacle was, I broke out in a cold sweat. The road ahead was completely flooded. Around me, several vehicles had washed out. In front of me, a man jumped out of his stalled car and sank into waist-deep water as the car beached itself on the side of the road. A man in a rain poncho waving a flashlight beckoned me forward. He wasn’t a cop as far as I could tell. And I wasn’t driving into a flood at the behest of some bystander. I shook my head, and he walked right up to my car and pounded on the window.
“Go!” he screamed.
I did, only because I was more afraid of him than of the flood. I hit the accelerator, and the Escalade lurched forward. Water lapped at my tires, and the engine started making choking noises, like it was about to die. For a terrifying moment, I felt the Escalade float. I ripped off my seat belt, heart pounding, getting ready to abandon ship. But a second later I felt the tires gain traction again and saw pavement. The road ahead was clear. I stepped on the gas and got the hell out of there.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the circular driveway at the beach house. The rain was coming down hard. Trees were swaying in the wind, and leaves were blowing wildly. I was limp with nerves and bathed in sweat after the awful drive. The condition of the house was as Francine had described. The front door stood open. Lights blazed from inside the house. The burglar alarm was still shrieking. The local police must still be occupied responding to the storm, since, despite my earlier phone call, they obviously hadn’t made it out here.
I stopped to ask myself whether I could possibly have left the house like this: lights on, door unlocked, so it could blow open and trigger the alarm? I thought back to when I last left here. That was the night Aidan followed me to the restaurant and barged in on our family dinner. But that came later. At the time I left the house, I’d been running out to see the divorce lawyer, to get the papers to serve on Jason. I was calm about my decision. I was running late, but I wasn’t flustered, and I didn’t panic. I locked up properly, like I always did. I was sure of it.
It wasn’t me who’d left the house in this condition. Somebody had been in there since, without my permission. An intruder. An intruder who wanted to send a message. Why else leave the door wide open and the lights on? Who could it be but Aidan? My house blazed with light, but the rest of the street was dark. Nobody was home on the bluff. They were smarter than me and had cleared out in the face of the storm, with the exception of my neighbor, Francine, who would be of little help if Aidan was inside waiting for me. I knew I had to confront him. His behavior was escalating, to the point where he’d contacted my daughter. Hannah was safe with Lynn for now, but he could try that again. And next time, he might hurt her.
I stepped out of the car into driving wind and rain, my legs rubbery after the hellish five-hour trip. Here at the ocean, the storm was more powerful than ever, and I was soaked instantly, my raincoat plastered against my legs, my hair streaming, water running into my eyes. I staggered up to the wide-open front door, stopping on the threshold to take in the damage. The beautiful Tibetan carpet was soaked and matted. A lamp had been knocked over, and framed photos from the side tables had blown down and lay scattered across the floor. There were streaks of mud everywhere, and shards of glass, from the lamp or maybe the picture frames. A gust blew through the room, sending light fixtures swaying, and leaves and twigs skittering across the white-oak floors. Was this damage done deliberately, or was it simply the wind that had blown in the door and knocked things around?
The alarm was so loud that I couldn’t think straight. From habit, I reached in and tapped the code into the keypad beside the door. The shrieking stopped instantly, but then I realized what I’d done. If Aidan was in the house and heard the alarm shut off, he’d know I was here. I’d given myself away.
Panicking, I backed out the door. But as I turned toward my car, a gust of wind hit so hard that it sent me staggering. Simultaneously, a loud crack sounded. I watched in horror as an enormous tree limb came crashing down onto my car, shattering the windshield into a thousand tiny pieces. I turned and ran back inside, grabbing the front doorknob with both hands, using my body as a counterweight to yank it shut. The wind died from a howl to a dull roar, and I turned and leaned against the door, panting. I couldn’t go back out there. The wind was tossing around debris big enough to kill me. But the car was undrivable with a shattered windshield.
I was trapped here.
The house was not safe. Aidan could be hiding anywhere. He knew his way around, and I had nobody to blame for that but myself. My nerves tight as a drum, my heart beating frantically, I took out my phone to call the police. They hadn’t responded to my earlier call because nobody was in danger. I could very well be in danger now.
I stared at my cell phone in dismay. No reception. And we hadn’t bothered installing a landline. Not only was I trapped, I was cut off from all help.
I rifled through my bag until I found the kitchen knife. It gave me the comforting illusion that I could defend myself if Aidan jumped me. I hurried through the living room to the kitchen, my eyes sweeping left and right as I took inventory of the damage. A vase had been knocked over on the kitchen table. A pile of newspapers sat on the white marble top of the kitchen island. What the hell? I hadn’t left those there.
And then I saw them—and froze. Muddy footprints on the white-oak floors. No footprints had been visible on the living room rug, which was itself muddy and soaked from the storm. But here in the kitchen they stood out in terrifying relief. The prints were large and serrated. A man’s footprints, made by heavy boots. The wind didn’t do this. A person did. A man. Aidan had been here. He might be here still. I felt sick realizing it.
I followed the footprints, clutching the knife in my sweating hand as they led me toward the terrace door. Was he outside? I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. Something was moving around, low to the ground, out on the terrace. Heart pounding, I raised the knife and moved toward the French doors. I squinted out but couldn’t see clearly through the glass, which was fogged with rain and condensation. If Aidan was out there, I could surprise him. I could attack him with the knife. Did I have the nerve? I was reaching for the door handle with my right hand, holding the knife in my left, when a thick, dark thing crashed against the glass and fell to the ground.
“Aagh.”
I staggered backward, the knife slipping from my hand and clattering to the floor. I grabbed it up again, panting with fear. But when I peered through the glass, I saw only a cushion from the chaise longue, lying on the ground. That thing had hit the door—it wasn’t Aidan. The terrace furniture was blowing around like so many matchsticks out there, and the cushion had knocked up against the glass, terrifying me so much that I felt my heart would come through my chest.
Nobody there, nobody there, calm down.
Maybe he’d left. Maybe he’d gone out through the terrace door. I was shaking so hard. I had to get ahold of myself or I wouldn’t be able to continue. I went to the cabinet and grabbed the bourbon Lynn had brought me that night when I despaired over my marriage. That worry felt so quaint to me now. I took a swig right from the bottle. It burned going down, warming my blood, stilling the trembling of my hands. I left the bottle out on the counter and set off to search the rooms.
The first floor consisted of the enormous great room that combined kitchen, living room, and dining area, a powder room, a laundry room, and a media room. The overhead lights were on in the great room, but I walked the perimeter of the cavernous space, turning on every lamp, even switching on the gas fireplace to illuminate shadowy corners. I threw open closet doors and pawed through to make sure nobody was hiding inside. I tiptoed to the powder room, yanked open the door, and switched on the lights. Nothing. In the media room, I hunched down to see under the seats, but Aidan wasn’t hiding there. Everywhere I went, I saw Aidan’s muddy footprints, but they grew fainter the farther I walked from the kitchen. That didn’t mean he wasn’t here. It simply meant the mud had worn off his shoes as he walked. I crept up to the second floor and searched all the bedrooms. The whole time I was clutching my kitchen knife, mentally preparing to defend myself, but I checked room after room, and there was nobody.
Aidan had been here. I was certain. Now he was gone, and I was alone, but I didn’t feel safe. He might come back. I had to do what I could to prevent him from getting in again. I went downstairs. I stripped off my wet raincoat, which I’d been wearing all this time. I felt so weak. I stood at the kitchen island with some crackers and a jar of peanut butter and wolfed down a makeshift dinner, eating until I felt my strength coming back. Then I went around and checked the locks on every door and window and pulled all the shades. It was the best I could do, but it wasn’t much. He’d broken in through the same security before. I’d just have to pray that he was done terrorizing me for the night, that he would wait out the storm before trying anything more.
I grabbed the bourbon and the knife and went upstairs to change out of my wet things. The wind was so strong that my brand-new, supposedly hurricane-proof bedroom windows rattled with every fresh gust. I propped myself up against the down pillows, bourbon in hand, and clicked on the TV for a weather report. The screen lit up for a second, then displayed a floating graphic saying NO SIGNAL. Between that and my phone not working, I had no way to monitor the storm. I went to the window, looked out at the beach, and gasped. In the lurid light, the surf was higher than I’d ever seen it. It crashed against the dunes that formed the last bulwark sheltering the house from the ocean. And the dunes looked smaller than before. Hours ago, the Weather Channel people were projecting landfall at midnight along Maryland’s Eastern Shore or even as far north as Delaware or New Jersey. If the storm turned sharply north, Long Island and the Hamptons could take a devastating hit. This was just the outer edge of the storm, and things were bound to get a lot worse before they got better—a terrifying thought.
As I contemplated that, the lights in the bedroom flickered—once, twice, three times—and went out. I gasped. Now I was alone here in the dark. Was it possible a breaker switch had tripped? I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and flicked on the flashlight, sweeping it around the room jerkily. The furniture took on lurid shapes, and seemed to lurch at me like an attacker. I cowered in my bed, too afraid to go downstairs and look for the breaker box. I couldn’t remember where it was, and I wasn’t handy anyway. I pulled the covers tight around me. The bottle of bourbon was on the bedside table. I could see its outline in the watery light shining through the windows. I downed what was left in one gulp and reached out to touch the handle of the kitchen knife, reassuring myself that it was within easy reach. Then I closed my eyes and surrendered to exhaustion.
The music was coming from very far away. It felt like a dream. Sinatra, crooning. I’ve got you under my skin. I’ve got you deep in the heart of me. The richness of his voice, the swing of the beat, was muffled by my heavy sleep. But it didn’t stop, and after a minute, my reptilian brain realized that was weird, and my eyes popped open.
The music was real. The power had come back on while I was sleeping. It was still dark outside the windows, but light blazed in the bedroom. I shut my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head, too bleary to get up and turn it off. But, wait a minute. I hadn’t played that song last night. I wasn’t playing any music at all when the power went off. So why would this music play when the power came back on?
My heart turned over in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. The lights coming back on I could explain. But the music could only mean one thing. Aidan was here.
Slowly, I lowered the blanket, my hand creeping out, reaching for the knife. But it was gone. Of course. Don’t allow the target access to a weapon. That was Stalking 101.
Aidan sat in a chair that he’d positioned right in front of the closed bedroom door. In his lap was the big silver gun I’d seen at his apartment.
He smiled. “Morning, sleepyhead.”