CHAPTER FOUR
A man answered Amelia’s call, but with the blood rushing in her ears, he sounded terribly far away.
Glass shattered in the kitchen.
A locked door hadn’t stopped her pursuer, and her reptile brain had panicked.
She couldn’t speak on the phone or run from danger.
She had options: freeze, fight, or flee.
In the grand evolutionary sense, she was dead meat.
The cat brushed against her leg.
Its softness shocked her system.
She gasped as though she hadn’t remembered to breathe in hours.
The cat walked its little toe beans over her bare feet.
The sensation kickstarted her nervous system into gear and gave her two options: fight or flee.
The man’s scary face came into her mind, and she vaulted up the stairs.
The cat wove and ran between her feet.
Her sweaty palm gripped the phone as though the person who answered might be able to pull her through the phone line to safety.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Her pulse screamed in her ears.
“Hello?” She pressed the phone to her ear.
No one was there. They’d hung up.
Amelia paused at the top of the stairs and listened.
The man was probably listening for her too.
She needed to hide. The main bedroom would be the first place anyone would check.
She couldn’t hide in there.
Closets? Too easy. Bathrooms?
Where did someone go to hide from the unknown?
She didn’t have time to discover the best hiding spot and dove into a bedroom.
Swimming awards and dated posters hung on the walls.
It was a time capsule of a teenager’s bedroom before they’d left home for college a decade before.
She hit Redial again and tried the closet.
Nope. The stench of mothballs hit.
It was too packed with clothes and boxes for her to fit in anyway.
“Hello?” a man said in her ear.
Amelia jumped. In the half second since she redialed, she’d forgotten she even held a phone.
“Don’t hang up,” she begged, slipping to the far side of a full-size bed and shoving herself underneath.
Dust bunnies and storage boxes claimed most of the space.
“Do you have your passcode?” he asked.
Amelia heard footsteps.
They moved in the opposite direction of the room she was in.
“I need help,” she finally whispered.
“Passcode, or I have to disconnect.”
This wasn’t happening.
This was a nightmare.
No one was chasing her.
Her sister and brother-in-law were safe.
Amelia hadn’t broken into a house and wasn’t hiding under a stranger’s bed.
The cat slipped under the bed skirt and nuzzled her shoulder, once again grounding her in the midst of insanity.
The passcode had to be the strange list of words that Hailey demanded Amelia memorize.
“Banana. Light bulb. Chicken. Heart.”
“And you are?”
“Amelia. Can you help us?”
The pause hung for eons before his voice mixed indecipherably with voices in the background.
“I don’t have an Amelia.”
“What about Hailey and Jonathan? The Dumonts?” she pleaded.
“Because they said you would help. I need help. Help me .” Tears caught in her throat.
“Help us.”
“Give me a second,” he said and muffled his voice as he spoke to someone else.
“Help’s coming. I called in your location after you first called and hung up.”
“When will they be here?” She pinched her eyes.
“My sister and brother-in-law are across the street. But there’s a man here too. He followed me.” Should she say that Hailey and Jonathan had Amelia sneak into a neighbor’s home?
The guy hadn’t even asked what was wrong.
She needed to call 911.
After too long of a beat, he asked, “Who are you?”
“Amelia Stone.”
“And…?”
“And what?” she cried.
“I have to know something more than that, lady.”
“Hailey said not to call the cops. She said to call you. That you would help, and I need help!” Her heart and lungs pummeled her chest. Amelia tried to compose herself, but the only thing she managed was to keep from crying.
“We need help. I don’t know what’s going on, but I trust my sister, and she trusts you.” She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing for the millionth time that she was having a bad dream she would wake up from.
“There’s a man here, and I’m hiding under a fuckin’ bed. Help me .”
“Okay, okay. I’m listening. I’m helping,” he said then to someone else said, “I don’t care what protocol says.” He cleared his throat.
“Amelia? You there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tell me who your sister and brother-in-law are?”
“Hailey and Jonath—” The footsteps creaked in the hall.
She wanted to sob but swallowed her terror.
Tears leaked down her cheeks.
“Amelia?”
She whimpered.
Of all the ways she could have imagined dying, this wasn’t something she could have conjured up.
She didn’t even like to watch horror movies.
Why had they watched a scary movie earlier?
Everyone died. End of story—and what a predictable one at that.
Amelia much preferred the predictability of rom-coms: movies filled with lots of love, the main characters didn’t die, she usually laughed, and there was a guaranteed happily ever after.
God, were those going to be her last thoughts?
She never should have run upstairs.
“The man who followed you, you hear him?”
“Uh-huh.” She also heard the cat as it followed her under the bed and ignored her jabs to push it away.
Not only should Amelia not have run upstairs, she shouldn’t have let the cat in the room.
It would give her location away.
Slipping between the boxes, the cat crawled from under the bed and back out again.
She batted it away with her free hand.
“If you can tell me without him hearing: Where is he?”
“Hallway,” she managed as the cat massaged its front paws on her thighs.
Amelia pushed it away.
“Right outside where I am.”
“Shit,” the man muttered.
“Do you have any training?”
“What kind?”
“Tactical? Self-defense?”
“I’m an event planner.” The only things she was trained in were buffet menus and color-coded motifs.
“Shit,” the man said again but this time with far more conviction.
“Tell me everything you know about the situation.”
Amelia squeezed her eyes closed and listened to make sure the footsteps weren’t coming closer.
“One person came toward me. Three toward Hailey and Jonathan—”
“Focus on your situation.”
“A man came inside. Broke in.” Like me , but she didn’t see any benefit to sharing that detail.
The cat stopped trying to cuddle and positioned its body facing the door.
He could hear the intruder better than she could.
“He’s in the hall bathroom.”
“Good. That’s great. Take a breath. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Nice and easy.”
She tried.
His voice was more calming than his orders.
He wouldn’t cut it as a yogi unless they offered yoga at boot camp, but he sounded like he could talk his way out of a shitstorm.
The cat slipped from under the bed.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Under a bed.”
“A fuckin’ bed. I remember. Only tell me new intel. Main bedroom? Guest bedroom?”
She almost smiled.
“A teenager’s room.”
“What’s around you?”
“A bed skirt. An abandoned water bottle and T-shirt. I’m half hidden on one side by shoeboxes. Lots of crap.”
“Do you have any weapons?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not even wearing shoes.”
“That’s fine. You don’t need shoes,” he said in a way that was oddly relaxed.
“Amelia, right?”
“Mm-hmm. He’s close.”
After another eternally long moment, he said, “I’m going to stay on the phone with you. I’ve enhanced the response coming—”
“Does that mean more cops?”
“Something like that. Where is he now?”
She tried to recall the layout.
“Another bedroom—no, the hall again. Coming closer—”
The door creaked open.
Her lungs hurtled into her throat, but she caught her scream before the whole neighborhood heard.
Amelia tried the technique suggested by her boot camp yogi.
She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth —in and out, in and out, just as the man on the phone, a military yoga zen drill sergeant who coached her breathing as though he were yelling, “ Right foot! Left foot!” had demanded she do.
In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
Her heartbeat slowed from its runaway pace.
In and out. One breath in.
Another breath out. Amelia tried to disappear as the bedroom door opened wider.
Cautious footsteps entered.
She held her breath as the man walked by and kicked the bed skirt in search of her hiding spot.
The closet door opened.
Clothes clattered, torn off their hangers.
Amelia replayed the voice of the man on the phone.
She didn’t even have to have her shoes on.
Just take it nice and easy.
“Is he in there now?” the man whispered on the phone, and taking her silence as an answer, continued, “If he finds you, fight back. Don’t freeze. Don’t try to reason. Don’t waste your energy screaming. Bite. Use your elbow. Use your fingernails. Knee him in the nuts. Fight dirty. Do you hear me?”
The other man seemed to pause his search and said, “Yeah? Hello?” as though taking a phone call.
He sat on the bed. “What do you want?”
The bedsprings squeaked and sank down.
Amelia flattened herself against the floor, terrified he could feel her through the mattress.
“Not yet,” the man on the bed said as the bed springs groaned.
“Don’t know. Call back if you find out first.”
He grumbled and didn’t get off the bed.
Even her shallowest breaths seemed to roar and reverberate.
Her hands were sweating, but her grip on the phone felt like she was clinging to a life raft.
Amelia tried to imagine the man on the phone pressed to her ear.
He was calm to her helplessness, lethally trained to her unskilled incapability.
Why hadn’t she taken self-defense classes?
“Amelia?” he whispered.
His voice was like honey.
Trustworthy. The way he spoke, the way he sounded was as though he had the ability to protect her no matter the threat.
She wanted to cry, and more than that, she wanted him to reassure her that all would somehow work out.
“Rub your finger over the mouthpiece if you want me to keep talking. Do nothing if you need me to shut up.”
He seemed to have read her mind.
Eons passed as she cautiously repositioned her hand and fluttered her fingers over the bottom of the phone.
“Okay, I read you loud and clear,” he said quietly.
“I’m here. You’re doing great.”
She almost snorted.
Tears leaked out of her eyes.
“I can hear your breathing. Try to quiet that for me. Can you do that, Amelia?”
Absolutely not.
But she tried. Amelia swallowed and listened to the even cadence of his voice, his breathing, the way he remained in control and calm.
“Easy breath in, easy breath out,” he whispered.
“Good girl. Just like that.”
Her panic didn’t subside, but the hammering explosions in her chest slowed as he spoke.
“In… and out…”
The intruder pushed off the bed, walked across the bedroom, and jostled the window blinds.
“This fucking night.”
Yeah, she could say the same thing, buddy.
He moved to the foot of the bed and re-kicked the bed skirt.
He nudged a box against her foot.
Amelia didn’t move a muscle.
He kicked it again as though testing the resistance—the cat hissed.
It thumped across the floor, hissing again.
Heavy footsteps jerked back.
“Christ.”
The cat jumped on and off the bed.
The intruder let out a low rumble of laughter.
“Stupid fucking cat.” His footsteps nudged the bed skirt again, but he stopped short.
“Yeah, what?” he said, answering another phone call.
“Not yet, man. It’s been thirty fucking seconds.” He crossed the bedroom and stopped near the window, standing closer to Amelia than he had when moving the shoeboxes under the foot of the bed.
“Now? What about—yeah, I hear you. Fine.”
And just like that, he left the room.
The footsteps were swift.
He didn’t try to hide the sounds he made when rushing down the stairs.
“He’s gone,” she let out, choking on relief.
“He took a call and left.”
“That’s good. Stay put until I say so. Okay?”
She wasn’t claustrophobic, but being trapped under the bed and ordered to stay put when the intruder could come back made her skin crawl.
Hot panic curled in her chest. She wanted to push her arms out and move her legs.
Amelia needed to push the mattress off of herself as though it were lying across her chest, pushing the oxygen from her lungs.
Her pulse quickened and thundered loudly in her ears.
“I need to get up. I have to get up.”
“Stay put, Amelia. Another two minutes.”
She counted the seconds.
One, two, three, four— “I can’t. I have to—”
The cat returned.
It nuzzled her shoulder.
Tears slipped from her eyes.
The silky soft fur brushed her damp cheek.
It almost made the tears fall faster.
A rough tongue scratched her chin.
The cat purred. Its toe beans pressed against her arm.
Amelia’s breaths slowed.
She focused on the cat and gripped the phone.
Amelia’s claustrophobia slowly dissipated as she stared at the bottom of the box spring.
The cat was petting her as though it knew she was teetering on the edge of a full-scale mental breakdown.
“Who are you?”
His rough laughter was laid back.
“Just a guy doing my job.”
Ha .
At times, she’d sworn event planning in Washington, DC, was as stressful as it could get.
People with their VIP personalities were her bread and butter.
Those people hired her company because she was unaffected by status, job title, or bank account size.
Amelia had absolutely nothing on this guy.
His composed nature reminded her of Hailey and Jonathan.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“We don’t usually trade in personal details.”
“I don’t know who we is, but I need to know. Please.” She laughed quietly, voice shaking and in every way the opposite of his collected demeanor.
“Don’t make me beg while I’m hiding under a bed.”
“A fuckin’ bed,” he joked.
Her lips quirked. “Tell me who you are.”
“Camden.”
No last name, which was to be expected—if it was even his real name.
Still, she believed everything else he’d said.
Why not something so trivial?
It didn’t feel trivial to her.
This man was legendary.
He’d saved her life by simply being on the phone.
“Thanks, Camden.”
He waited for an extra beat.
“The agents are there. You’re going to hear them come in. Okay?”
“What about my sister—”
“They’re arriving simultaneously. They’ll find you and your sister soon.”
Voices called her name from the first floor.
She could hear law enforcement clearing the rooms as they fanned throughout the house.
“I can hear them.”
“All right. They’ll take care of the situation—I hope everything works out for you.”
She swallowed hard.
“Things don’t work out well when they have to call you, do they?”
He laughed soberly as though she’d hit the nail on the head.
“You did great tonight. Whatever happens, know that few people could have kept it together the way you did.”