“Tell her the truth,” I said, smoothing the animal’s fur. “She doesn’t have one anymore.”
“She says there were sounds in the house this morning, too,” he pointed out. “Man-made sounds after you left. She got scared, ran, and went to St. Killian’s.”
“How’d she do that?”
“Uber,” he answered.
I scoffed. Jesus. I never thought of that. Woman was certainly self-sufficient.
But I remembered the first part he said. Noises?
“You think she’s overreacting?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. She seemed very sure,” he explained. “I can install cameras and an alarm system.”
“No,” I told him. “Take on more men. Two details of four each.”
“Yes, sir. She’ll be safe.”
“From everyone but me,” I clarified.
“Yes, sir.”
She was probably just overly alert. Thanks to me.
But she also mentioned a visitor at Bridge Bay Theater days ago. Someone who came into the bathroom and scared her. She thought it was me.
It wasn’t.
This house should have better security, but I didn’t like cameras or video. I’d learned the hard way to not leave evidence.
And given our affluent neighborhood and the low crime rate, Winter’s father never saw fit to arm the house with an alarm system, at the very least. Maybe I’d add one eventually. Right now, I liked coming and going quickly.
“And, sir?” Crane prodded.
“What is it?”
“Her phone’s been ringing downstairs,” he told me, approaching my side. “Would you like me to give it her or…?”
I glanced to where he held it out for me, amused at his coy attempt to give me her phone but still remain innocent in the matter.
I took it.
He left, and I turned it on, seeing it was armed with a pattern passcode. I couldn’t get into it, but there were several notifications visible just on her lock screen.
Mostly from Rika.
An article in the town paper about Winter’s performance last night.
Talk on social media and some videos. Lots of shares and comments as the video spread outside of our town.
I squeezed the phone. She didn’t think she was getting out of here, did she?
And then I expanded a text from Rika. It was a screenshot of a Twitter comment on the video of Winter dancing:
This girl should be everywhere! Why isn’t she touring?
Rika texted below the image: