Page 6 of The Intruder

I turn so quickly, I knock over the glass of water I placed on the edge of the sink. It topples to the floor and, naturally, breaks into a thousand pieces, which is exactly what you want to happen just before the power is about to go out. Good thing I’m still wearing my boots.

I curse under my breath and hurry in the direction of the door. You would think that when you live in the middle of nowhere, visitors would be rare. And for the first few months, they were—I was completely isolated. But when I open the door, I know exactly who I’m going to find standing there.

“Hello, Lee,” I say.

Lee Traynor is my closest neighbor out here.

He moved into the cottage down the way about six months ago, and considering he has to fight his way through some serious underbrush to make it from his house to mine, he is here far more than I would expect him to be.

At least once a week, he manages to find an excuse to knock on my door.

And if I pretend not to be home, he returns later that day.

“Hey, Casey.” He rips off his slightly damp hat to reveal a head full of messy brown hair. He’s got a flashlight in the hand that isn’t gripping his hat. “I just wanted to check on you before the storm.”

My body tenses as I step back to let him inside. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Lee comes inside my living room, but he doesn’t take off his puffy waterproof coat. He does unzip it halfway though.

“It’s going to be a big one.” His blue eyes focus on my face in that concerned way he has, where he gets a deep crease between his eyebrows. “You sure you have everything you need?”

I’m sick of everyone addressing me like I’m helpless. Like I can’t manage to gather appropriate supplies before a major storm. Lee especially always seems so worried about me, even though we’re basically strangers and I can’t figure out why he cares so much.

“I’m good,” I assure him. “I got everything I need.”

Lee looks like he’s about to quiz me on my stockpile, but he stops short of doing so. Good thing, because I’m still buzzing from pushing Rudy’s face into the dirt. It’s a bad time to piss me off.

He studies the array of candles I have lined up, ready to be lit. “You should light them soon. With the wind picking up, the power will probably go within the hour.”

“I will, Lee. Don’t worry about me.”

I’m a little insulted that he seems to feel the need to come out here to check on me.

I was living here for a month before he moved in, and I was doing perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Well, there was that one incident when my toilet started spouting brown water all over the bathroom and I did lose my cool, but other than that, it was fine.

I haven’t had anyone looking after me in a while—not since my dad died—and at first, I thought it was sweet that he seemed so concerned.

He seemed like a nice enough guy. He doesn’t have a wife or kids living with him; I figured he was lonely.

He’s also not too hard on the eyes, with his thick brown hair and easy smile and a nose that looks like it’s been broken once before, but it suits him.

But then I started to think about it. Why did a normal-looking guy in his thirties suddenly decide to move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere?

When I asked him about it, he brushed me off, mumbling something about wanting to get closer to nature.

It was a blatant lie—I could see it all over his face.

Now every time he shows up at my door, I can only think one thing:

Why are you always here? What do you want with me?

Lee’s gaze darts around the living room and comes to rest on one of the windows. “Did you put duct tape on the windows?”

I nod proudly. “To keep them secure.”

“No.” His voice is emphatic. “You never tape windows during a storm.”

Despite the certainty in his voice, I question Lee’s wisdom on the matter. I’m sure I remember my father taping up the windows, and he knew everything.

“If they do break,” Lee says with an authoritative air that makes me think he knows what he’s talking about but still manages to annoy me, “they’ll break into bigger shards that will be even more dangerous. You don’t want a huge shard of glass to come flying at you.”

“No, I don’t.” I look away, embarrassed at my mistake. “Fine. I’ll take down the tape as soon as you leave.”

My words are a thinly veiled hint: You need to leave.

But Lee is far from done here. His gaze now lifts to my ceiling. “What about your roof? It doesn’t look so great from the outside, Casey. Did Rudy take a look at it?”

“He did.” I leave out the part where I made him eat dirt. “He’s going to fix it next week.”

He snorts. “Yeah, sure. Rudy is useless. You should let me fix it.”

Lee knows about roofs. He works as a contractor, driving out in his truck every day to various jobs.

He has in fact offered to patch up my roof on several occasions, free of charge.

But I keep telling him no, because I don’t want to owe him anything.

That’s Rudy’s job, and I expect him to do it, and even though he hasn’t fixed it and there’s a storm blowing in, I’m still glad I never allowed Lee to help me.

“The roof is good enough,” I say, even though I was thinking the same thing not very long ago.

“It could blow off.”

“It won’t blow off,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

“You know,” he says, “if you want, you can come over and stay at my place. I’ve been working on my roof, and it’s really secure. No chance of blowing away. Also, I’ve got storm shutters and a small generator that will be enough to keep the well pump going.”

He says it like the idea just occurred to him, although I suspect that was his purpose in coming here in the first place. He came here to swoop in and rescue me from this death trap of a cabin.

“Lee,” I say.

“You can have my bedroom,” he offers. “I’ll sleep on the couch. No funny business—I swear. I’m just worried about you.”

Admittedly, he’s been coming here for six months now, and he has always been a perfect gentleman.

He hasn’t suggested anything hinting at romantic interest in me and has never laid a finger on me.

For the first month or so, I thought it was possible he might be gay.

But then one day in the summer, I opened the door wearing a pair of teeny shorts and a tank top, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off me.

He even stumbled over his words once or twice. Probably not gay.

That revelation made me even more uneasy though. He doesn’t seem like the sort of man who would be shy around women, so I have to believe if he were interested in me, he would have made a move by now. But if his interest in me isn’t romantic, what is it? Why is he always knocking on my door?

There’s something about this man I don’t trust.

With Rudy, what you see is what you get.

If I had been stupid enough to go to his house, he’d have hit on me the entire evening and possibly tried to slip into my bed after nightfall.

I almost certainly would have had to kick him in the balls at some point over the course of the evening.

Lee would never try anything like that. I’m sure of it.

No, he’s definitely not a sexual predator. But somehow, I sense something much worse could be lurking at that other cabin half a mile down the road. And if I go there, I will regret it.

“I’ll be fine, Lee,” I assure him, even though I know there is a small chance the roof could blow off or the windows could shatter. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’ve faced worse things in my life. “I’ll take down the duct tape. I promise.”

He looks like he’s about to argue more, but then he notices my folded arms and recognizes I’m not going anywhere.

He strokes the beard on his chin that he has started growing out more and more since he moved here, although he keeps it well groomed.

While he’s thinking, I let out an involuntary yawn.

“Tired already?” he jokes. “It’s barely dinnertime.”

I rub my eyes. “Didn’t sleep great last night.”

“You had that bad dream?”

I admitted to Lee once, on the one night when I stupidly opened up to him a little bit, that I have a recurring dream that I’m on fire. It really freaks me out, and when I wake up, I’m covered in sweat and usually can’t get back to sleep for the rest of the night.

I can’t remember how it came up, but I was immediately sorry I told him. He’s easy to talk to, and it just popped out. Once you say something, you can’t unsay it. And if you don’t trust someone, the last thing you want to do is admit you have dreams of being burned alive.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I always sleep well during storms. Something about the sound lulls me to sleep.”

“Are you sure there isn’t anything you need?” he presses me. “Because once the storm starts, I won’t be able to run over here so easily. And the phone lines will probably go out so you won’t be able to call me.”

He’s right about the phone lines. Despite the fact that phone lines are supposed to be protected during storms, there must be something wrong with the copper wiring of our phone cables, because the phones go out even when it just rains.

Rudy always has to get a guy to come out and fix it.

Although to be fair, most of the time, I barely even notice the phone is there. I don’t get many calls.

Lee notices my hesitation. “Tell me. Whatever it is, I can try to take care of it.”

“Um…” I finger the silver chain I always wear around my neck. “You weren’t…you weren’t walking around the back of my house about ten minutes ago, were you?”

He frowns. “No, of course not. Why?”

“Never mind,” I say quickly. “It was probably just a deer.”

Damn, I was hoping it was somehow him and he had an explanation for everything, although I knew it wasn’t possible that pale face belonged to the bearded man before me.

For a moment, I consider telling him about the alleged face at the window and the movement I saw by the toolshed.

The figure that almost looked human but very well might have been a rabbit or just a strong breeze.

He’s already here—it would be easy enough for him to take his flashlight and look around the shed.

He would be thrilled to do it for me, and I would sleep easier at night if he did.

Maybe it would be good to have some backup.

Then again, I hate the idea of asking him to do it. I don’t need a man to make sure there isn’t a bogeyman hiding in my shed, for Christ’s sake. I can check it out myself if I get concerned. I’m perfectly capable of that.

Also, I’ve got the dead bolt. Nobody is getting in here that easily.

“All right then.” Lee stuffs his hat back on his head. “If you’re determined to stick it out, then I wish you luck. And if the phones are working, you can give me a call if you need anything. Anything at all—I mean it.”

I’ll just bet he does.

The door to the cabin sticks, and when I wrench it open, it looks like the rain has already started. It’s not coming down as violently as it likely will be in an hour or two but enough that Lee will get drenched during the five-minute walk back to his own cabin.

“You got an umbrella?” I ask him.

He looks up at the sky, then down at the mud forming below his Workman boots. “Damn,” he says.

“I’ll lend you one. I’ve got a ton.”

I dash back into the cabin and pull out one of the half dozen umbrellas organized at the back of my closet. I bring it out to Lee, who is waiting in my doorway, his hood up.

“Thank you, Casey.” He levels his blue eyes at me. “Be careful tonight.”

“Same to you.”

Lee charges out into the night, my maroon umbrella protecting him from the downpour, although the rain is becoming increasingly horizontal. As I watch him disappear into a clearing in the woods that leads back to his cabin, my shoulders sag in relief. Even with my crappy roof, I’m glad he’s gone.

I go back into my cabin to remove the duct tape from my windows, trying to tell myself this will all be fine. Yes, this is the first big storm since I’ve lived here. But I’m prepared. I mean, it’s not even snow. This is New England—a rainstorm is barely a blip out here.

So why can’t I shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen tonight?