Chapter Seventeen
Trey
The sound of cackling and swirling winds broke through the fog of Trey’s sleep.
At first, his brain interpreted the sounds he was hearing as The Wizard of Oz playing on the TV.
Wanting the noise to stop so he could hold on to the languid comfort of his dream state, he patted the top of his duvet searching for the remote, but a familiar voice broke through and he reluctantly began the painful process of resurfacing.
“Trey! Trey, wake up!”
Recognizing Callie’s voice, he realized the sound his sleepy mind had interpreted as The Wizard of Oz was actually more of the same haunting sounds that had been blaring through the library for the past several months.
And when he opened his eyes, he saw that he wasn’t in his own room, but Callie’s, and she was curled up against him in her bed.
Everything that had happened earlier—including their very hot and extremely satisfying bout of lovemaking—came flooding back to him, but before he could dwell on the memory of it, her insistent words broke through his sleep-soaked stupor.
“Trey,” she hissed, “Wake up. They’re back.”
Pushing himself up, he saw now that Stella was standing in front of the door, her fur standing up on end, and Callie was clutching the sheet to her chest, concealing his view of a pair of truly remarkable breasts.
Which, he remembered now, he’d spent an extended time a few hours ago, getting up close and personal with.
Then what she said penetrated his sleep-fogged brain. “How can they be back? Alex arrested them.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Callie said, “but clearly someone didn’t get the memo because there are Halloween sounds coming from the stacks again.”
The cackles coming from the doorway told him she was right. And as he climbed out of the bed and pulled on his discarded shorts from the floor, he noticed that Callie had also begun to dress.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded as he stepped into his flip-flops. “You need to stay here while I investigate.”
But she was already approaching the door, looking like she was about to kick butt and take names.
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Callie said with a shake of her head.
“Do I need to remind you again that I own this library? That means I get to make my own decisions here. We either go out there together or we don’t go at all. ”
Part of him wanted to argue that because he was the man, he should be the one to go investigate, but he knew better than to peddle that kind of slop to her. And she had a point. This was her place, as they’d established earlier. And she had a right to go with him to see what was going on.
“Fine,” he said, wanting to get to wherever the pranksters were hiding before they had a chance to escape again. “Though I’d like to know how people who were supposedly in jail were able to get back inside. I mean, we didn’t even hear them breaking in.”
“We were kind of busy before that,” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers. “Maybe they snuck in while we were distracted.”
He shot a heated look at her. “Yes, we were.”
“Well, let’s get out there and find these creeps so we can maybe get distracted again,” Callie said, kissing him quickly and grabbing his hand as they made their way toward the steps leading to the stacks and the reading room.
As she did whenever they went to confront their intruders, Stella ran up ahead of them and up the metal stairs into the stacks.
Reluctantly letting go of Callie’s hand so he could go ahead of her into the rows of bookshelves, Trey followed the same path Stella had taken, and soon enough they were nearing the cage.
They’d barely reached the metal gate when Trey felt a gust of wind from the direction of the window on the far side of the stacks, which was followed by the sound of a loud crash, and Trey knew with a sinking feeling exactly what it was.
“What was that?” Callie asked, her eyes wide.
Trey didn’t answer, just ran toward the far wall, which faced out over the marina, where he and Bobby had installed the stained-glass window the day Callie arrived.
And just as he looked at the gaping hole where the stained-glass window had once been, he saw the full moon, which they’d so admired earlier, shining beams onto the floor through the hole where the window had been.
Poking his head through the opening, he looked down to where the smashed pieces of colorful glass lay fanned out onto the short expanse of the driveway below.
Callie leaned out beside him to look down as well. “Oh no. Trey, I’m so sorry.”
Behind them, he heard a yelp and a hiss. “That was Stella!” Callie cried, and turned to run toward the sound.
With a curse, Trey rushed after her.