Dani followed Mr. Barnhill into his home. There was no way she was going back to her house if the shooter was still following her. Not with Simon there. But she didn’t want to put this sweet man at risk either. Her heart thudded as she wrestled with the fear skittering through her.
Jenny. Where was Jenny? Had he killed her? Shudders racked her. Sobs grabbed at her throat. No time for a breakdown.
Where were the cops?
“Ma’am?” The 911 operator.
Mr. Barnhill went from door to door, checking the locks. Dani positioned herself by the front door window so she could see if someone approached the house. “I’m here.” She didn’t recognize her own thin voice.
“Do you see the person shooting at you?”
“No. We’re next door.” She gave him the address. “But I don’t know where my friend is.” Dani sucked in a deep breath. “And my son is at home alone.” She gave that address. “He’s deaf.”
Dani listened as the dispatcher requested officers to head to her home.
“Officers are on the way. Just stay on the phone with me.”
Mr. Barnhill slipped up beside her. “You okay?”
His pale face and sweat-dotted brow worried her. “I’m all right. You?”
“I think so. Why’s that guy shooting at you?”
“I wish I knew,” she whispered. “Do you have any weapons?”
“No. I’ve never shot a gun in my life.” He paused and swiped at the sweat on his brow. “You see him out there?”
“No. I think he left.” She prayed he had.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Please, Lord, let Simon stay put playing his video games.
She desperately wanted to text him, but didn’t want to worry him.
Police cruisers finally pulled in front of Jenny’s house.
And then she spotted Jenny, Chester in her arms, hurrying toward the chaos, her brow knotted in a concerned frown.
Officers descended, motioning for Jenny to get behind cover. Jenny cowered under the arm of one uniformed policeman as he led her to his cruiser. Two officers approached Jenny’s house, weapons in hand.
Dani opened the front door.
One officer held up his hand. “Stay in the house, ma’am, we have reports of a shooter in the area.”
“I know, I’m the one that called 911.”
“Then just stay there.”
Dani hung back and the minutes passed.
Finally the officer waved her over. “Looks like it’s all clear.”
Dani ran to the cruiser. “Jenny!” She slipped into the seat beside her friend. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“What’s going on?”
Dani gave a quick summary of the events and Jenny simply blinked, mouth gaping as she clutched Chester to her. The officer wrote down everything Dani said.
When she finished, she climbed out of the car. “I’ve got to check on Simon.”
“Who’s Simon?” the officer asked.
“My son.”
The two officers who’d entered Jenny’s house came out and Dani paused. The first one said, “Bullet holes are in the walls.” He looked at Dani and Jenny. “Anyone get a good description of this guy?”
Dani shook her head. “Jenny wasn’t there. It was just me. He had a mask on.” She fought through the remembered terror. “He was tall, lean. And he enjoyed taunting me.”
The officers exchanged a glance. “Taunting you?”
“It was like a game. Like he already knew the outcome and was just savoring my fear.”
“Any idea why someone would want to shoot at you?”
“No,” she snapped and glanced down the street toward her house. “Look, my son is at home alone. I want to see him.”
She started walking toward her house. One of the officers fell into step beside her. “Do you have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of.” Dani racked her brain trying to figure out why someone would want to kill her. “He didn’t want to kill me, though.”
“What?”
“He said something about me going with him. ‘We’re going to walk out of here without any trouble.’ That’s what he said.”
“So he wasn’t trying to kill you?”
She ran a hand over her ponytail. “I don’t know. Not at the house. He wanted me scared for sure, but it sounded like he meant to take me somewhere before he—” she gulped—“killed me.”
Had he mistaken her for Jenny? But what could Jenny have done to spark such evil in someone?
She ran up the porch steps and unlocked the front door to her house. She glanced at the officer’s name tag. Officer T. Owens. “Wait here, please.”
He nodded. She darted up the stairs and into the bonus room.
Simon looked up at her entrance. He smiled and signed, “You’re back?”
He didn’t know a thing. Her heart slowed its frantic pace. She signed, “Yes. Are you going to stay up here for a while?”
He shrugged and nodded.
Dani said, “I’ll be downstairs.”
She pulled the double doors shut behind her, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath. “Lord, give me strength, please,” she whispered. Then headed back down to where Officer T. Owens waited in her foyer.
A half hour later, after checking on Jenny and Simon, she made her way to the laptop she rarely used. When Kurt was home, he had forbidden her to get on it. When he was gone, she was able to sneak and use it. She’d watched him type in the password often enough that she didn’t have any trouble accessing the laptop.
Between her trips to the library computer lab and finally learning how to cover any obvious tracks that she’d been on his computer while he was gone, Kurt had never suspected the things she’d discovered online. The internet had been her doorway to the outside world. She’d even made some online friends in a linguistic group. But she never told anything too personal, although some of the others did.
Dani settled herself in the chair and typed in the password.
“What are you doing?”
She jumped and spun to find Simon watching her. He tilted his head and his hearing aid squealed.
Placing a hand over her racing heart, she said, “I’m going to figure out how to disappear.”
“Why?”
Dani paused, not wanting to tell him the details of what had happened today, but knowing he had to be aware that they might be in danger. She signed and spoke at the same time. “Because someone tried to . . . hurt . . . me today and I think I need help figuring out who it was.”
“Hurt you?” He frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He blinked and rubbed his nose, then pressed his ear mold to stop the squealing hearing aid. “Who are you going to ask for help?”
She pointed to the website she’d found a couple of months before Kurt had been killed. “Operation Refuge.”