I woke.
I didn’t know if it was due to the temperature, which had suddenly gone through the roof as the space heater had kicked in full bore. Or that damn light that was flickering outside.
I reached over and checked the time on my cell phone: 11:51. I threw off the blanket and lay there, feeling like a hundred degrees. I got up, turned down the heater, and cracked the window a couple of inches to let air in the room. I lay back on the bed and shut my eyes and tried to push everything away again. Last night’s break-in. Patrick. Whether someone was really after me. I was safe here, hearing nothing but the sizzle of the flickering spot outside, the occasional sound of a gull honking on the bay.
That’s when I heard it. At first, just the sound of crunching snow.
What was that?
I listened. It could well be nothing. No one knew I was here. I didn’t hear anything again for a long time. I blew out a breath and closed my eyes to sleep.
Then I heard it again. Like a branch cracking on the ground. Or footsteps. My eyes bolted open and my heart immediately came to a stop and stayed there. Totally immobile.
This time there was no mistaking it.
Something was outside.
I froze. It could easily be an animal, I told myself. A raccoon. In winter, they liked to crawl under the shrink-wrap for warmth. Or a wharf rat. Big, ugly suckers—the size of a cat. Every yard had them. Then I heard it again. Not a fleeting, scurrying sound, but something flat. Crunching. Going along the side of the house.
Footsteps.
I pushed up to my elbows, ice now running through my veins. I listened so closely I heard the brush of the window shade against the glass, the dust blowing across the floor.
There it was again. Oh God! This time it seemed to be moving away from me. Toward the front of the house.
My heart was pounding crazily. Shit, Hilary, what the hell are you gonna do …
I got to my feet, careful not to make a sound. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, so all I had to do was slip on my shoes. I picked up my car keys and cell phone off the table. Patrick had told me to call at the first sign of anything suspicious. But before I did, I at least wanted to be sure. And anyway, what could he do? He was in Staten Island. An hour away. Call the cops?
Then everything was over.
Silently, I tiptoed to the door to the main office. I stood, every cell in my body rigid, afraid to make a single sound.
I scrolled to his number in my cell phone.
For a long time there was only silence. I prayed that it was all somehow just the wind or an animal. A false alarm. I stood there, thinking how I could make it to my car. Trying to recall if I’d locked the front door to the office behind me. How could someone even get in here?
Then I heard the creaking of a floorboard. Whoever it was had stepped up on the front porch.
My God, he was coming in …
My heart climbed up in my throat. I had to get out of here now.
I ran to the maintenance shed door and flung it open. By now, my footsteps probably sounded like loud banging on the floorboards, likely giving myself away. Whoever it was clearly heard me and ran up to the door. They twisted the knob, trying to open it. They pushed on the doorframe, rattling it forcefully. It would hold for only so long.
What the hell do I do? I could try to wedge myself out the windows in back, but I’d have to push the glass up and kick out the screens. By that time he could be all over me. I heard the sound of glass shattering. A man’s hand snaked through a windowpane, trying to get to the lock.
Panic took hold of me.
The shed was my only way out.