Page 27 of Paranoid

Cade checked the calendar hanging on the cupboard near the back door, a Grumpy Cat calendar with notes scribbled all over it. Rachel, a true techie, still marked appointments on a hanging paper calendar. “Just so we’re all on the same page,” she used to say even though she kept a digital calendar on her phone and computer as well. Or at least she had when they were married. And there it was. Today’s date. The day Luke had died . . . and now, the same could be said of Violet Osbourne Sperry. Both violently. Twenty years apart. For a second he wondered if there was any connection, but he dismissed the stupid thought as quickly as it had come. A coincidence. Like people born on the same day.

Well, not really.

He glanced at Rachel’s phone and picked it up, then noticed that the screen was lit. As if someone had just been using it.

But no one was in the house.

Or...

The muscles in the back of his neck tensed. Again, he had the sensation he wasn’t alone, but as he walked through the first floor and swept his gaze through the rooms on the lower level, he saw no one, not in the living and dining areas nor in the mess that was his son’s bedroom. He paused for a second in Dylan’s space, noting the empty bottles and wrappers and mussed bedding. Clothes were tossed over the two chairs in front of a space-station of computers.

But no one hiding in here nor in Harper’s somewhat more organized chaos.

Then what?

It was the smell. The hint of cigarette smoke? Or his imagination? No one that he knew of smoked. Not Rachel. Not the kids . . . well, that he knew of. And besides, the odor was so faint . . . nah.

He even ignored the tightening in his chest and went upstairs for the first time since he’d left. The rooms had been changed, bedding and towels more feminine than when he lived here. But her robe was the same, a ratty old blue thing flung over the foot of the bed. He touched it. Swallowed and in his mind’s eye remembered how they’d made love the first night they’d bought the new mattress. The kids had been gone for the night and they’d spent the hours here, under this slanted ceiling, making love like teenagers. He remembered the taste of her skin, salty with sweat but smelling of that cologne that drove him crazy, how slick she’d been when . . .

Shhh.

Click.

What? He froze at the familiar sound, the sweep of the back door opening and closing before the latch caught.

How was that possible?

Before he finished the thought he was down the stairs and into the kitchen. The back door was closed but he walked through, into the backyard, and saw that the gate was ajar, moving slightly.

Had it been that way a moment before?

He didn’t think so and it seemed unlikely.

Sure enough it moved with the wind, unsecured. Which wasn’t the way Rachel ever kept the yard. And why the hell was the back door unlocked? Ever since the kids were young and the dog a pup, she’d been a nut about keeping the backyard secure, buttoned up tight.

His feet crunched on the wet gravel walkway. Pushing through the gate, he caught a glimpse of someone walking away, a block beyond, a man in a dark jacket and black pants, watch cap pulled low and hurrying beneath the branches of the fir trees from neighboring houses.

Had he been in the yard?

Or was he just a neighbor out for a walk?

Time to find out. Cade started running only to see the guy fumbling in the pocket of his jacket.

Oh, shit, did he have a weapon?

&

nbsp; Slowing, his eyes trained on the man, Cade was ready to leap over a fence and dive into a nearby hedgerow until he spied the man withdraw a key fob and point it at a sedan parked on the street. The car bleeped, lights flashing as Cade called out, “Hey!”

About sixty, unshaven, and wearing glasses, he stopped and turned. Bushy gray eyebrows pulled together beneath the watch cap. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Maybe.” Cade reached the car, a white Buick. With out-of-state plates. Idaho. “Do you live around here?”

“Eight or nine blocks over.” He hitched his chin toward the main road. “On Toulouse. Frank Quinn.”

“Cade Ryder.”

If the name meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. “I’m over here looking for my dog. A damned beagle. Got out again and took off after a squirrel or something, I don’t know.” Lines of worry furrowed his brow. “I’m going to have to get a tracker for him or build a brand-new fence. Don’t suppose you saw him.”