Page 51 of Silent Threat
Hope Hill. Home. Safe. Annie.His subconscious mind threw words at him it thought might settle him.
He let them rumble through his brain while he stood under the spray. Afterward, he didn’t go back to bed. He dressed and sat in the chair by the dark window. He stared into that darkness until his mind was empty.
At midnight, he ambled out into the parking lot, ready to go feed the skunks with Annie. He’d missed her when she’d gone to the evening feeding. He’d had group therapy. He made sure to attend those sessions and listen carefully. He’d figured with people baring their souls, he might catch a clue. He hadn’t so far.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, still pissed that he hadn’t found anything in Shane’s room that afternoon, that he’d let Shane catch him.
“What are you doing here?” the Texan had asked when he’d found Cole coming out of the room.
“Sorry, man. Your door wasn’t locked. I’m out of toilet paper. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I grabbed an extra from under your sink.” He held up the roll he’d picked up two minutes before, his contingency plan in case someone saw him leaving Shane’s room. SEALs always had a plan for every eventuality. “I’m not gonna make it downstairs tracking down the custodian, you know what I mean?”
“Freaking bean burgers, amigo. Cooks have a fiber fetish.” Shane shook his head. “Feel free to take a dump here. Just don’t stink up the place.”
“Nah, I can make it back to my room.” Cole walked away, calling back without turning, “Navy SEAL shit don’t stink.”
If Shane laughed behind him, Cole didn’t hear it.
He’d gotten away with the room search, but he had no new information. Daily progress: zero. As he scanned the parking lot for the umpteenth time for Annie, he kicked a pebble across the blacktop and watched it bounce into the darkness.
A dark-blue pickup pulled in. Trevor jumped out and headed straight for Cole.
“Couldn’t sleep.” The kid flashed a sheepish grin. “Had a craving for pizza, so I thought, why not. They have some pretty good pizza over on Main Street. Was watching TV over there. The hurricane just hit Cuba. Now it’s a category three. You think it’ll come up this way?”
Cole shrugged. “They usually turn out to sea.”
“Yeah. Are you going out?” Trev asked in a way that said he wouldn’t mind being invited along.
But Cole said, “Waiting for someone.”
“Right.” Trevor smiled brighter to hide his disappointment that Cole’s words weren’t followed byWanna come with us?
“I guess I better get to bed.” He walked away slowly, willing to be called back. “Have fun.” He made his last attempt.
He reminded Cole of a puppy wanting reassurance and affection, wanting to be part of a pack, even a pack of two. Cole looked after him. Maybe they could hang out tomorrow for a while. Trevor had been here longer. Cole could ask him about the patients he hadn’t ruled out yet. The kid was such an obvious mess, maybe people didn’t think they had to be on their guard around him. Maybe he knew something that would help Cole finish his job.
Cole waited a few more minutes after Trevor disappeared inside the building. Still no sign of Annie or her car. Maybe she’d gone already. Because Cole didn’t like the idea of her alone at the house at night, he hopped into his pickup and drove over.
Her car wasn’t in the driveway. All the windows were dark, even the window on the garage door. She wasn’t in there feeding her little stink muffins.
Maybe she’d come and gone already, spending the night with a friend instead of at Hope Hill. The possibility that that friend might be male had Cole in a dark mood as he headed back to the rehab center.
He was only a couple of blocks from Annie’s when he passed a police car flying in the opposite direction. The lights flashed. The sirens blared loudly enough so even Cole caught some of the sound. Detective Harper sat behind the wheel. Cole did a U-turn and barreled after him.
When the cruiser pulled into Annie’s driveway, the detective lunged out of the car and ran toward the front door. Cole didn’t follow him. Annie’s car wasn’t there, so Annie probably wasn’t there. Maybe a neighbor had seen someone skulking around the house and called it in.
That siren would have been heard from a mile away. Whoever had been in there was gone at this stage, and whatever damage he’d wreaked was done. Cole put pedal to the metal and drove for the spot on the other side of the cornfield where the path that began at Annie’s fence ended.
If the intruder ran when he’d heard the siren, Cole might still be in time to catch him.
But the first thing Cole saw was Annie’s car on the shoulder just half a mile from the house.Empty.
Now the fear hit him.
He drove past the Prius, turned down the next road, and kept going. The spot where he’d hoped to find the intruder’s car stood deserted. If the guy had come this way, he was gone now. Nothing to see here.
Another U-turn and he was back at Annie’s car again. This time Cole stopped and got out. The Prius was locked. He checked the ground, illuminated by his pickup’s headlights.No sign of struggle.Worry punched him in the solar plexus anyway.
He left her car and sped all the way back to her house.
