Chapter 6
NANA, THE CAT BURGLAR
PARKER
I jolted awake. Huh? What?
I patted my nightstand for my phone. After fumbling with it for a minute, I finally tapped the screen.
It blazed to life. The bright light from my phone stabbed through the darkness and straight into my eyeballs.
I snapped my eyes shut. Fuck. I blinked until I could read the time. Seven minutes past three.
Why the fuck was I awake?
I still had another two hours to sleep before I had to get up.
So, what had woken me? I tried to remember. Was it a sound? I thought it was. Like a door closing?
And, ugh, why was I so sweaty?
Right. Nana was here. I was wearing pajamas because I couldn’t sleep in the buff with my grandmother staying with me .
Was she having trouble sleeping? That must be it. She must be roaming around the apartment. Maybe she needed a glass of water. Or to use the toilet.
Or was she meeting up for a rendezvous with Davina?
Nana and the younger woman had been eyeing one another all night.
Maybe it was because it was my grandmother, but the whole flirtatious ogling across the room had made me squirm.
But who was I to yuck someone else’s yum?
If Davina wanted to hook up with a senior citizen, and Nana felt like she could keep up with a woman at least thirty years her junior, all power to them.
But had they spoken to one another? When would they have set up an assignation?
No. I was sure they hadn’t spoken. So, what else would Nana be up to? Knowing Nana, it could be anything.
Bootcamps at Nana’s house had taught me that.
You know, it still shocked me that our parents hadn’t hesitated to hand us over to her, which showed how little they knew about Nana. Although, to be fair to our parents, Nana had made us swear not to tell them what happened. And it was a mantra we cousins still lived by.
It’d been a long time since I was a kid who spent part of my summer under Nana’s tutelage, but as I recalled, Nana excelled at everything. She could move through the woods in the dark like no one else.
Damn it.
I bet she was dressed in her black cat-burglar clothes again and was about to go snooping around town at three in the morning. Yeah. That sounded like something she would do, but I really hoped I was wrong .
I threw back my covers and scrambled out of bed because I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I knew she was still in the apartment.
My bare feet slapped against the laminate floor as I padded down the hallway.
I checked the living room and kitchen first. They were empty.
The kettle was cold. The bathroom was empty too.
I tiptoed to the spare bedroom. The door was ajar.
Dread pooled in my gut as I nudged it open a crack.
Seeing the empty bed, I pushed the door all the way open.
“Nana?”
I flicked on the light.
She wasn’t in there, or anywhere else in the apartment.
“Oh, for pity’s sake…” I muttered as I retraced my steps to my bedroom.
I grabbed my phone and jabbed at it until I found Nana’s name in my directory. I waited for the call to connect.
Something started ringing in the other room.
Damn it. She’d left her phone behind. I don’t know why, but that ramped up my sense of urgency about finding her.
I considered swapping out my pajama pants for jeans, but that’d take energy I didn’t have.
Instead, I yanked on my hoodie and a pair of socks before stomping back down the hallway.
I shoved my feet into my shoes at the top of the stairs and was about to head out when I remembered it was the middle of the night in October.
I grabbed my jacket off the hook and rammed my arms into the sleeves .
“Nana is out of control,” I muttered to Sushi and his friends, who were eyeing me curiously from their tank.
Sushi let out a string of bubbles and I swore I could hear him thinking, Why the hell are you wandering around the place like a ghost in the night?
“Me too, Sushi. Me too,” I muttered.
The crisp and cold air punched me in the face as I stepped into the street.
A thin layer of frost coated the world and glittered at me under the streetlights.
Sometimes we already had a couple of inches of snow by this time of year, so I should be happy it wasn’t snowing, right?
Still, I couldn’t help but think of my bed.
I had been all happy and warm a few minutes ago, but oh no… Nana had to go wandering off.
I shivered and zipped my jacket up to my neck. My pajama bottoms did little to ward off the cold, but I wasn’t going up to my apartment again. I had to find Nana. I pulled my jacket collar tighter around my neck.
I scanned the frosty street. Curses detonated in my head like little explosions. Where the hell had she gone? If I had to walk all over Willow Lake to find my grandmother, I wasn’t going to be impressed. I might even phone my mom to tattle on her.
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to get my brain working.
I bet she went back to the Willow Lake Inn.
Either that or Levi’s motel. Was she meeting up with Fin and his friends?
I didn’t hear them making any plans, but the chances were high they had a private group chat, one that didn’t include me.
The motel wasn’t far, so I opted to start there.
I marched down the street. Each step fueled my anger.
I couldn’t let her spy on my neighbors. These people were my customers and my friends.
If she destroyed my life in Willow Lake, I was going to be so pissed.
No. That was wrong. I was already pissed.
As I approached the motel, I noted how dark all the guest rooms were, just as they should be if people were sleeping.
Except if this was Nana’s destination, then the lights should be on.
Nana might think they were hunting down Mafia types, but the rest of them thought they were chasing ghosts.
They wouldn’t sit in the dark while making ghost hunting plans.
I stared at the motel, looking for any movement in the windows. And now I was acting like a creep. This was what she’d driven me to. I hoped no one from the police caught me skulking around.
But I still didn’t look away until I was sure everything was quiet. She wasn’t there.
To make sure she wasn’t getting up to any other trouble here, I did a quick check of the perimeter, kicking the shrubs as I went to make sure she wasn’t hiding in them.
Most of them had already lost their leaves, so I doubted she could hide in them without me seeing her, but she was cunning and wily.
As I finished my circuit without finding her, my dread grew. I also didn’t see Simon, Levi’s security guard. I didn’t know why Levi kept that guy on the payroll. He was nice enough, but he was a terrible security guard.
The only thing I found was the black cat that was always hanging around the place.
I was sure it was the same one that’d tripped Levi earlier at the pub.
The thing was a menace. I frowned and debated trying to catch it.
The cat was too plump to be a stray, but animals shouldn’t be allowed to run around the community.
They could be hit by a car or get eaten by a coyote or…
The cat hissed and bolted when it saw me approach. I gritted my teeth. I wanted to run after it, but I wasn’t here for the cat.
I had to find Nana.
If she wasn’t here, she must have gone to the Willow Lake Pub. I had to get there before she tried to break in. Knowing her, she had probably packed her set of lock picks, and I knew she knew how to use them.
I rounded the corner of the motel and slammed into something.
“Oomph,” I grunted.
“I’m sorry,” a deep, masculine, and familiar voice said.
Levi.
I blinked up at him. He peered down at me. I’m not sure which of us was more surprised.
“Parker?” He frowned before glancing at his phone. He quickly shoved it in his back pocket like I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t.
“Levi?”
Then I realized how close we were standing, and every other thought was chased away. All that remained was Levi, Levi, Levi …
My hands were resting on his waist. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, so I could feel his shape under my hands. I swallowed hard. His gaze caught on my lips. This was it. This would be the moment we kissed. Right here. Right now. Under the full moon.
It was all terribly romantic.
I leaned closer. He stepped back.
Uh. Right. I yanked my hands away and shoved them in my pockets.
“What are you doing here?” Levi asked. His gaze darted around like he was expecting me to have an entourage.
“I could ask you the same thing. Why are you here? Did something happen at the motel? I didn’t see Simon…” Shit. If Nana did something that had Levi’s staff calling him out in the middle of the night, I’d burn all her clothes and replace them with pastel polyester pantsuits.
“I… uh…” Levi scratched the back of his neck and averted his eyes. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Huh. Why did I get the impression he was lying to me?
“Why are you here?”
“My grandmother took a walk, and I’m worried about her.”
“Why are you worried? Willow Lake is a safe town.” His forehead furrowed. “Does she have dementia? That happens to some humans when they age, doesn’t it? Do you think she’ll get lost?”
Humans? What a weird thing to say.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “Nothing like that. She’s just bullheaded.”
Levi flinched. I played my words back in my head. I didn’t know what would have bothered him. Considering the circumstances, it was a nicer word than some others I could have said about her.
“Do you want help looking for her?”
“Nah, that’s okay,” I said. “Besides, you must be freezing out here.” When his forehead furrowed in confusion, I pointed at his shirt. “You aren’t wearing a jacket.”
He glanced down. “Oh. Uh. Right. I’m okay. I run hot.”
Oh, I knew he was hot. He didn’t need to tell me that.
“I thought she might have come over to talk to my cousin…” I said, trying to get my mind back on task.
“At three in the morning?” Levi’s eyes widened.
Right. I’d forgotten the time for a minute there. Oops. And Levi didn’t know about my grandmother’s wild and strange suspicions. If he did, it’d be easier to explain all this. But things were so tenuous with him. I wasn’t sure I was ready to expose him to all my family’s, uh, quirks . Not yet.
“I didn’t see her here, so I’ll grab my car and head out to the pub. Maybe she forgot her purse there or something.” That sounded reasonable, right? Would he notice I’d slid right over his question?
“At three in the morning?” he asked again, sounding even more suspicious. Then he did the last thing I wanted him to do; he turned to walk up the street toward my building. “I’ll go with you.”
I hurried to catch up with him. “Oh, that’s not necessary. Really.”
“No problem at all.” He set his jaw and flared his nostrils. That look meant he was feeling obstinate. I sighed. It looked like Levi was coming with me.
I hoped we found Nana fast, before she broke into the pub. Because if she got arrested after putting me through all this, I refused to bail her out. She was on her own. No way would I help her.
She could call my mother to post bail. I’d pay money to watch what happened after that.