Chapter Three
Kindred Residence
Tupelo Pike
Rory told herself she should be in bed by now, but there was something about being able to stay up as long as she liked—with the lights on.
No one could tell her when the lights were to go off.
No one could tell her when she could eat and when she couldn’t.
To that end, she had a snack cake, a soft drink and a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of her.
Also, scattered across the battered wood top was an empty snack cake wrapper as well as one that had held cheesy crackers.
And the bowl of popcorn was half empty. To her credit, she also had a bottle of water.
She leaned back and groaned. She was stuffed.
Couldn’t eat another bite if her life depended on it.
A smile spread across her lips. It was awesome.
She patted her belly and reminded herself that she couldn’t keep doing this for long.
But tonight, if she were a drinker or a smoker, she would overindulge in those wicked activities as well.
But she’d never been a smoker and not much of a drinker.
Wine occasionally and the champagne on her wedding day.
Her smile wilted. Images from that day flashed rapid-fire through her mind like a good movie that suddenly turned bad on fast-forward. She pushed the painful images away, didn’t want to look just now.
Pushing to her feet, she grabbed her cell phone and headed to the kitchen.
She needed some air. She tucked her new cell phone into the pocket of the nightgown she’d dug out of one of Lulu’s drawers.
None of the clothes that Austin had brought had included sleepwear.
Mr. and Mrs. Harris had probably burned everything else.
Not that she would have wanted to sleep in anything she’d worn before… when Pete had slept beside her.
She shook off the thoughts. Didn’t matter. She had worked really hard not to hold his parents’ beliefs about her against them. Their son had been murdered, and the only evidence of who killed him pointed to Rory. Of course they hated her.
“Looking forward,” she murmured, “not backward.” At least for tonight. Dissecting every moment of that terrible time was necessary, but she didn’t have to start tonight.
She slipped out the back door and sat down on the porch step.
The air was cooler now that it was well after dark.
She stared up at the moon and stars. The sight brought back her smile.
She hadn’t seen those in a long time. There had been no window in her cell.
What little time she had been allowed outside was during the daylight hours.
Funny how you didn’t realize how much you would miss something until it was gone with no possibility of ever being available to you again.
As if Nature had decided she needed the break, a shooting star flashed across the sky.
Rory smiled. Maybe this was a sign that everything really was going to be all right.
Glass shattered.
Rory shot to her feet and hurried to the back door. Listening for trouble, she slipped through the house, stalled at the front window. A white four-door pickup truck roared away, the sound fading in the night as it disappeared.
She froze, the remembered sound of shattering glass echoing in her mind.
The windows in the living room were all intact as far as she could see. She headed for the hall. The first room on the right was the one Austin had made into an office. She flipped the switch for the overhead light.
Broken glass glinted on the old hardwood floor. A big rock lay in the middle of it.
The window wasn’t that large, but it was big enough to have made a mess.
“Damn it.”
She retraced her steps to the kitchen. The broom hung on a nail by the back door as it always had.
Dustpan sat on the floor, propped against the wall behind it.
She grabbed both and headed back to the home office.
The windows were old, so the glass had shattered in dozens of pieces big and small.
Some shards remained in the sash like broken teeth.
“That’s what happens when you let your guard down, Rory.” Just when she’d started to relax, there was a reminder that she had no right to do so. She was the Murder Bride, and no one believed her story.
Time was required, but she finally swept all the shards into the dustpan without cutting herself.
She shoved the rock into a corner with the broom, then emptied the glass into the kitchen garbage can, walked back to her new office and swept the room all over again.
In her experience, you never got up all the broken glass the first time.
Inevitably a piece would wind up in your foot.
A round with the vacuum cleaner was next.
It was old, and she wasn’t sure how well it worked, but she gave it a try nonetheless.
When she was satisfied that she’d done all she could to clean up any remaining fragments, she grabbed her phone and the flashlight that stood on the counter next to the back door.
Lulu had kept one there for as long as Rory could remember.
Way before flashlight apps had been invented for cell phones.
She let herself out the back door and headed for the shed.
Surely there was something out there she could use to secure the broken window.
Lulu hadn’t been one to let any sort of resource go to waste.
She insisted that you never knew when you might need a piece of wood or odd screw or nail or whatever was left over from a project. Better to have it than not.
The shed was actually a good-sized garage, but there was no overhead door.
The old-fashioned carriage-style doors no longer hung straight, but they did the job of protecting the interior well enough.
Rory lifted the cross board that held them closed, and the doors swung open.
She roved the beam of the flashlight over the interior.
Lulu’s ancient Volkswagen Beetle stood in the middle.
Her aunt had hand-painted colorful flowers on the doors of the little sunny yellow car.
She’d loved it as if it were her child. Rory would bet money that the bead necklaces still hung from the rearview mirror and fake flowers remained perched in the little dash vase.
She smiled as she thought of all the times she had been dropped off at school in that flashy bug.
The other girls had been so envious of the car.
Rory’s wardrobe had been a different story.
Church rummage sales and consignment shops had been the places Lulu shopped.
Wearing second- or thirdhand clothes never bothered Rory.
Well, maybe that once when the snobbiest girl in her class had recognized a dress as one she had cast off.
Lulu had reminded Rory that the dress had been far too nice for such a mean girl and that she had looked far prettier in it anyway.
After some digging, Rory found a piece of plywood that looked to be about the right size. Lulu had no fancy battery-operated tools, but she did have an old circular saw and a drill, both of which plugged into an electric outlet.
“Better than trying to attach it by hand.”
Rory found the right tip for the screwheads, then gathered the drill and the plywood and headed back to the house. She would have to come back out and close up the shed when she finished.
A loud engine roared in the distance. Rory stiffened, listened harder. Was it the same one? The white pickup whose occupant had thrown the rock? Surely they wouldn’t come back.
Rather than risk being caught outside if the person or persons did return, she hurried into the house and locked the door.
She made it into the home office and turned off the light in the room, then waited.
Sound carried in the darkness. The truck could have been a mile or so away.
No sooner than the thought occurred, headlights bobbed in the darkness.
The truck braked to a stop in her driveway. The distinct crunch of gravel pierced the air. Her heart thundered even harder. Voices echoed. At least two distinct voices were clear. Both male. The men apparently didn’t care if they woke her.
A deep thud. She jumped. Something had hit the front of the house. Another thud…this time louder. She dared to ease closer to the window. It was too dark to tell for sure, but the two were holding something like…guns.
Fear spiraled through her body.
One jogged back to the truck and opened the passenger-side door. She held her breath. The interior light from the cab gave her a glimpse of what he carried.
Paintball gun?
He closed the truck door and returned to his friend. The thudding started again.
“You hiding in there?” one shouted.
Rory drew back from the window…baffled as to what to do. She didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t dare engage them. Maybe it was better to pretend she wasn’t home or that she was asleep. But who could sleep through the bangs and thuds coming one after the other?
Not to mention the shouting and laughter.
She couldn’t just stand here in the dark. She had to call someone. It was either the police or Chance Rader. She decided on Chance. She eased into the hall, crouched down and tapped his name in her contact list. She’d added his number to her phone even before he arrived at her house.
He answered on the first ring.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she whispered. “There are two men outside, and they’re shooting at my house with what looks like paintball guns.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“You better come out or we’re coming in!” one of the men called.
The shouted words had her pulse racing.
“What was that?” Chance asked.
The sound of his vehicle starting in the background of the call gave Rory some fraction of relief. It wouldn’t take him long to get here. “They said if I don’t come out, they’re coming in.”
“Call 9-1-1. I’m on the way.”