Page 16 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

NINE

It was a creak in the floor outside my bedroom door that jerked me awake. I never slept deeply. Not as a kid and not as an adult. Things do go bump in the night and in my experience, it never results in anything good.

I didn’t move from my position, curled on my side, hugging a pillow.

But my eyes were wide open, adjusting to the darkness.

To make a floorboard creak in my apartment meant weight had to shift on it.

They didn’t just creak because of unseen breezes like in old farmhouses.

I had a first-floor apartment, so I ran through my mental checklist of things I’d done to safeguard it before bed.

Doors locked? Check.

Windows shut and locked? Check.

Alarm system turned on? Uncheck. The landlord hadn’t installed them and wouldn’t approve of me paying to install my own.

Doorbell camera on?

I reached for my cell phone and flicked it on, the backlight set to its dimmest setting so as not to flood the room with light. I swiped to the app.

No one was outside my apartment’s entrance. Everything appeared serene. Untouched.

I started to relax, chalking the creak up to my imagination. I mean, I was seeing dead people so it wasn’t too far of a stretch to assume I could conjure noises in my subconscious.

Another creak.

Adrenaline was becoming a constant companion. I should be used it by now, but I wasn’t. It greeted me now. My eyes widened, staring at the closed bedroom door. I slid from under the covers and poised on the side of my bed. I gripped the hairspray-sized bottle of bear spray on my nightstand.

More effective than a bullet . The product tag line had claimed.

I hoped it was true.

Another creak of the floor and my body tensed, my brain shooting off sparks of danger. Not again. This would not happen to me twice!

I dialed 911.

The operator spoke on the other end of the line, but I left the phone on the bed beside me. They could figure out where I was—thank God for technology.

My bedroom window was across the room. I could make a dash for it, unlock it, bust through the screen and flee. But I doubted I’d make it if the intruder charged into attack me. I felt more confident in dousing him in high-concentrated volumes of pepper spray that was known to blind grizzly bears.

My breath hitched and I held it.

The doorknob was slowly turning.

Someone was here. In my apartment.

A fury filled me. A claws out, hissing kind of fury that made my body tense, ready to spring.

It mingled with terror that also caused me to freeze, stealing my breath and my ability to cry out.

It was the strangest sensation. This fight or flight combination.

The knowledge that death stood on the other side of that door.

That death was pushing it open, and my bedroom hinges had the audacity to squeak in an eerie horror movie reality.

My finger shook against the pepper spray’s trigger.

The door swung open, hitting the door stopper.

No one was there.

There was no silhouette in the entrance ready to attack. There was no voice. No sudden movement. No violence .

Just an open door that bounced off the stopper and then settled.

I managed to stand, my legs trembling, my body protesting the movement toward the door to investigate. Everything in my body told me to run. Flee. And it was probably the wisest. But instead, I held the can of bear spray in front of me and peered into the hallway beyond my bedroom.

It was a short hallway, and lit by a nightlight that created familiar shadows.

My bathroom was on the left, and then further down the hall, the open entry to the main living area.

If the intruder was here, he had likely hidden in the bathroom behind the shower curtain, or he had exited the apartment by way of the main entrance.

I didn’t dare to cross the threshold between my bedroom and the hall.

I could hear myself breathing, heavy in my ears.

I could sense him. Feel him. That cold, calculated way he had of torturing us.

Toying with us—keeping us in the dark, blinded to each other’s faces.

His prisoners in a cellar of concrete and rotting wood, our only companions each other and the spiders and roaches that lived in the corners.

He was here. I could taste him in the air, I could smell his scent, I could hear the low timbre of his voice when he?—

A siren sounded in the distance, snapping me to attention.

I strained to hear anything—a sound, a shout, a breath—but it was as if my apartment was abandoned, and only I was left behind here.

Entombed with my nightmares turned reality.

The question of whether my dreams were so vivid that they had become my truth, or whether my truth was so present that my dreams had become safer than my awakened existence.

The police had been at my place all of ten minutes at best when Reuben Walker pushed his way into the apartment. With two cops and now Reuben, my home suffocated me. Too many people. Too many men. I desperately needed air.

I shoved past Reuben, busting into the night, the sky opening above me like a black canopy with twinkling eyes everywhere. Yet somehow, I felt safer. Less exposed and less constricted .

“Noa.” Reuben strode up to me. He smelled of coffee, and the lights on the east end of the building illuminated another ridiculous T-shirt. This time a deck of cards with cartoon eyes read “careful, or I’ll deck ya”.

I couldn’t even laugh.

“Are you ok?” Reuben asked. “I heard the call on the radio and recognized your address.”

He knew my address? Of course he did. He’d been here before.

I needed to get myself under control and my thoughts to stop whirling and regurgitating adrenalin-fueled confusion.

I don’t know why I both liked that Reuben was here and was also annoyed by it simultaneously.

I wrapped my arms around my chest. I was wearing a T-shirt too, only mine was a normal one boasting an athletic brand, but I wasn’t wearing a bra and I preferred to shield myself.

“I’m fine,” I answered.

“Did you see anyone or anything?”

“I already told the other cops. No. I didn’t see anything.

” I recited my anticlimactic encounter a second time, and somehow, even the bedroom door opening seemingly on its own didn’t sound as creepy.

That’s the problem with time. It dulls the initial impact.

It takes away the senses until it’s a memory.

Unless you have something shocking to report, an opening door doesn’t come across as threatening.

“They’re searching your apartment now,” Reuben was telling me. “Obviously they swept it for an intruder, but they want to see if anything is missing or was taken.”

“Nothing is missing or taken.” I knew this because absolutely everything in my place was exactly as it had been when I’d gone to bed.

I wandered through my apartment with a cop after they’d cleared my home.

A twenty-dollar bill was sitting in plain sight and unmoved on my kitchen table.

I didn’t have too much of any value, but if it were a mere robbery, I would have thought they would have at least grabbed my tablet left discarded on the couch. “Nothing was even touched,” I finished.

“You don’t know?—”

“I do know.” I gave Reuben a stubborn glare. “Nothing was taken.”

“Ok.” He acted like he accepted my answer out of respect, even if he didn’t believe I was fully cognizant of the facts. “Your doorbell cam? Can we see the footage?”

I handed Reuben my phone, the app already pulled up. “I checked it. There’s nothing. Whoever it was, they didn’t come through the front door.”

“Any idea how they got in?”

“You’re the detective,” I snarked back and then bit my tongue and gave my head a swift shake. “No. I lock all my windows.”

“24-7?” Reuben pressed.

I considered the implication of his question. I didn’t want to live in a cave, with musty air. Circulation was needed, so of course I didn’t keep the windows closed 24-7. “Not all of them. Sometimes they’re open during the day.”

“When you’re away?”

“I—I try to close them all.” But now I couldn’t remember. Which made it worse. And the fact that if Reuben’s implications were right, I’d spent the evening at home with my intruder. He’d slipped through a window during the day while I was gone and hid until I was asleep.

An officer was passing on his way to his squad car. Reuben motioned for him to stop. “Did anyone find anything when you searched the perimeter of the building?”

“Nope,” the cop responded. “Everything was clean.”

“Copy that.” Reuben nodded and the cop continued on his mission. “No snakes. That’s a good thing.”

“You think this was Sophia’s killer?” I drew my chin in and stared at him.

“Maybe. You’ve been helping with the case. I know you’ve been doing your own snooping around.”

“I haven’t been snooping.” I detested the inference that I was a nosy amateur detective seeking relevance in the crime-solving world. No. I was trying to help Sophia.

“Fine. But I advised you not to.” Reuben’s expression was kind, but reprimanding. “We don’t know what this perp’s next move is going to be and you don’t need to be in his cross hairs.”

I wanted to waggle my fingers at Reuben and be all, oooo, look at you throwing around cop words and sounding all important.

But I didn’t. I didn’t need to add sounding juvenile to my list of attributes.

Besides, I knew Reuben was stating it because he cared, and I appreciated that.

Tonight was just another exclamation point affirming the fact that I didn’t want to ever repeat my past experiences.

“I’m sorry.” I was in earnest when I said it.

His eyes flickered in surprise.

I adjusted my stance on the sidewalk outside my apartment. “I’m just upset.”

“I get it,” he responded with quick assurance.

No, he didn’t. But it was nice of him to try, I guess.