He’d unbuttoned his thick corduroy coat, revealing a blue plaid flannel shirt acros
s a far-too-impressive expanse of muscular chest.
What in the hell was the matter with her? She’d spent two months in prison, not twenty years locked away from all men. And she’d never been one to ogle a guy, anyway.
Had to be the tension.
He was a distraction. That was all.
She couldn’t clean yet. Not until Troy, Clarke and the others released her home back to her a second time.
“Bowe isn’t going to risk getting caught by running people down in the middle of town. He’s facing way too many charges to take a chance on that. And while he might not have gotten the conviction he wanted where you were concerned, he did get them for others.”
Shuddering again, she felt for whoever those people were. She’d come so close to being one of them.
When the thought of the cell brought a jittering sense of panic, she forced her mind back to the moment at hand.
Which was equally scary. Just in a different way.
It made sense that Bowe would not be the one after her now. Besides, why ransack her home if he intended to kill her? “So, who would be? And what were they looking for here?” Why ransack her house just to scare her and then go try to run her down? She’d never have known about the vandalism to her things if she’d been killed. Which meant...
“Whoever was here was looking for something,” she said slowly.
Clarke nodded.
She looked up at him. “And they want me dead, too.”
“Which leads me to believe that today’s events are connected to Fritz’s murder. Most likely, the real killer is behind it. Fritz had something that person wanted.”
“Based on the fact that whoever it was came for me, after ransacking the house, do we think he or she found what it was? Or not?”
Shaking his head, Clarke took a step closer to her, but when she stepped back, he stopped immediately. He got kudos for that.
And a shard of fear of an entirely different kind shot through her and she frowned. “Wait. There’ve been a few times since I got home that I’ve thought someone else has been in the house.” She started out slowly, but her words picked up pace as reality set in further. “The first thing I did when I got home two days ago, after getting Forester home, was put everything back in its usual place. The house had been cleaned professionally, but no one but me would know where things went. But then it seemed like things were moved again. I put it down to my having missed them the other day. I was a bit...distracted...” Worried sick about her grandmother was more like it. “Then I noticed closet doors open, but I put that down to me being paranoid. Figuring they’d been opened when the police went through here scouring for evidence or something.”
His attention seemed to sharpen and focus completely on her. His look was intent.
Could it be that a killer had been in her home the same time she’d been there?
The idea was creepy as well as frightening.
Scary beyond what she felt equipped to handle. So, she had to find more strength than she knew was there. Draw on an empty well until it sprang new sources...
She continued, “Last night...I was certain I heard someone in the house, a couple of times. I really had a sense that I wasn’t alone. But then Forester jumped up on my bed, and I chalked the sensations up to him. He’d only been here a few months before I went to prison, and he generally spends most of his time under my bed when I’m around...”
Speaking of which...now that she knew the house was clear of any immediate danger...she brushed past Clarke, careful to keep as much distance as the cupboards on either side of her allowed, and headed to the third and largest of the house’s three bedrooms. The purple coverlet she’d left neatly on the bed that morning was in a lump on the floor. She couldn’t even assess the rest of the mess and damage.
Things didn’t matter as much as life...
On her knees and then hunched down, she peeked under the bed. And came eyeball to eyeball with the cat who never quite seemed to trust her.
“Hey, Forester,” she said softly. “Did you see who was here, buddy? Can you tell me who it was?” Of course, she knew there’d be no reply, but she’d been working on the hope that if she used a gentle voice and real conversation, the cat would begin to trust her.
She didn’t blame him when it didn’t happen. She wasn’t going to be sweet-talked into trusting again, either.
Not ever.
* * *