Chapter 24 Katie Morrow
Katie Morrow
“I always wondered how Mark got two women like that. Some guys, you know. They’re like catnip. Plus, of course, the money. That’s probably what it was. Make him a taxi driver and neither one of them would have looked twice at him.”
Katie was in the second-floor yoga studio when she heard the chime of the front door.
She was in a low lunge with a backbend, one knee down, her chest lifted high, her fingertips reaching up toward the high ceiling’s exposed wood beams. She carefully pushed to both feet and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Hello?” she called out.
Grabbing her water bottle, she opened the studio’s door and peeked into the hall.
The house was quiet and still. The morning staff had left two hours ago, and Mark wasn’t due back until five or six.
She walked out on the landing and peered over the railing, looking at the first-floor entranceway. The door was closed, the landing empty.
She frowned, trying to think if she had an appointment or service call she had forgotten about. Nothing came to mind, and if she did, they certainly would have knocked on the door, not opened it and walked right in. Had she left it unlocked?
Katie never left doors unlocked. If anything, she double-checked locks three or four times, then convinced herself she had just unlocked the doors instead of locking them.
And that must have been what happened here.
When she’d walked down to the street this morning to get the newspaper, she must have flipped the dead bolt the wrong number of times and left it unlocked.
Which meant that someone was in their house. Someone who hadn’t answered her call. Why wouldn’t they?
There was no good reason not to answer. Not unless they didn’t hear her, and maybe they hadn’t.
She was unprotected, armed with nothing but a sore set of abs and an inflated yoga ball.
Useless. She performed a slow swivel, considering her resources on the second floor.
Mark’s office. Three guest suites. A bunch of bathrooms and the elevator car.
Mark’s office potentially held a letter opener, but not much else, unless she was going to hit the perp over the head with a printer cartridge.
But she did have her phone. She carefully unplugged it from the wall and considered what to do. Dial 9-1-1 and go downstairs, her finger poised and ready? Have the phone in hand while researching the sound and, if she saw anyone, press the call button?
Or maybe she should call Mark now and have him on the line while she looked. And then he could call 9-1-1 if she screamed or suddenly went silent.
She didn’t love either option. Mark would likely be annoyed and call her paranoid, and Katie was already second-guessing whether she had heard the door chime at all. Maybe she hadn’t. And she did always lock the door. Certainly no one had broken it down. That, she would have definitely heard.
To double-check, she bent back over the railing and got a better look at the front door. It was closed. No sign of damage. Straining forward, she focused her eyes on the dead bolt.
Locked.
So, see? No one could come in. She had locked it behind her, and must have imagined the sound. That was what she got for spending a half hour hanging upside down in various positions. All the blood had probably rushed to her head and busted a capillary.
She checked her watch: It was time to stop yoga anyway.
It was almost four, and she should start the pork marinade.
She returned to the studio and placed her blocks and medicine ball in their appropriate cubbyholes, then blew out the candle and flipped off the light.
She was heading down the entryway stairs when she heard the fridge door close.
She froze at the sound, one she definitely had not imagined.
Her grip grew clammy, and she quickly unlocked her phone, pressing 9-1-1 into the keypad and creeping down the final steps.
Maybe it was one of the housekeepers, who had forgotten something and come back.
Maybe Mark’s assistant was picking up his weekly set of lunches, though she had been by yesterday and had no need to be back.
Footsteps sounded—the intruder was walking toward her, their steps confident, passing through the eating nook. Any moment they would step into view.
Katie raised the phone, her finger hovering over the call button, ready to press it depending on who came into view.
The person rounded the corner and came to a sudden stop at the sight of her.
Katie’s phone fell from her hand and hit the tile with a loud crack.
“Hi, Katie,” Willow said calmly. “It’s nice to meet you.”