Chapter 23
Brent had to grab a few things from the house. He just needed to sneak in and get out.
It took him more than an hour to get close enough that no one saw him. Too many people had built houses out here. It sucked that the house wasn’t as isolated as it had been years ago.
The weekend he killed and buried his parents, there’d been construction workers close by, but they’d ignored him. It would be too much to hope the nosy neighbors who’d moved into those houses would ignore him.
He’d almost made it to the house when the hair on the back of his neck rose. He froze in the shadows of the trees and looked around, trying to figure out who was watching him.
Brent turned around slowly, keeping his movement to a minimum as he searched for the bastard spying on him. After about thirty seconds, and about one hundred degrees into the turn, he spied a man on the back porch of his house.
He swore they locked eyes. That was the only excuse for the way the man pulled out his phone and started punching the screen so quickly. The guy turned and hurried inside, and then the curtains on a window moved in the guy’s house.
No question, he’d been spotted. Now he had to decide whether to rush into the house and retrieve his stuff or just take off. Seconds were ticking past, and he had to make up his mind.
Getting caught would ruin everything. He could come back later, once everything calmed down.
Brent ran, dashing through backyards and alleys. He heard the first sirens and turned, going the other way. They weren’t smart enough to catch him. He should have gone in during the night. Next time, he would time his trip home better.
He guessed the police would eventually look for his parents’ graves.
Then there were the other graves. Those nameless women and children who died before he could ship them out had caused some problems for him, but he’d learned to take care of it.
Maybe he should have burned the house. It was too late now.
He finally stopped running after he found a bus and hopped on. The cops wouldn’t be able to track him if he used city transportation like this. He could get lost in the milieu, hiding amongst the thousands who lived on the streets.
The idea of living on the streets long-term was abhorrent, but he could do it for a few weeks. In two weeks, he bet the cops would move on to something else. Then he could sneak home and get his stuff before taking off to a place where he had freedom to run his business as he best saw fit.
But before he left, he had to take care of Calla. There was no way he could leave her behind, not with everything she knew.