Read Online Return to the Shadows by Angie West - Free Book Online Page B

danger. I would start with a
phone call to Mike. Tell him to get his ass over here, I decided. I
punched in number three on the speed dial and drummed my fingers on
the wall next to the phone.
    “Come on, Mike, answer the phone,” I
muttered.
    “Claire?” he mumbled groggily on the fifth
ring.
    I paused at the sudden click and dead silence
that filled the line. “Mike?” I pressed the buttons on the phone,
hung it up, and quickly snatched it back up. Nothing. No dial tone
buzzed in my ear. Silence. I shivered. The line had been cut. I
whirled around and scanned the kitchen. The blinds were closed, the
curtains drawn tight. The kitchen was dark. I had not bothered with
the light on my mad dash to the phone.
    There was a phone in the den. My cellular
phone was in the drawer of my nightstand. It seemed an odd
coincidence that my phone went dead right as I was trying to call
for help. And I didn’t much believe in coincidence.
    The line had been cut and I knew it. The
timing strongly indicated that whoever cut the phone line was
watching and knew that I was attempting to use the telephone. But
how could anyone have seen me try to use the phone? And why now?
Why cut the lines right this minute? Unless…I hung my head and bit
back a curse. Unless they weren’t watching. What if they were
listening? It made perfect sense. Ashley’s dream, her drawing, me
running down the hallway in the middle of the night. They had heard
the entire thing. No, not they. Officer Lance Jones. It was the
most plausible explanation.
    But how? I thought back to the night he’d
been here with his partner, the night he took our statements, and
walked through the house to make sure we were safe. I snorted. He
must have planted the bugs that night. I looked around sharply and
hoped like hell that bugs were the only thing he had planted in my
house. I had not seen any video surveillance cameras besides my
own. Although, some of them were so tiny, but no, I reasoned.
    He hadn’t had time to set up video
surveillance. And even if he had somehow managed to bypass my
security system and reenter the house at some point, I would have
known about it. The private monitoring company for the system
always called the owner and mailed out a form whenever the alarm
signaled or the service was interrupted, tampered with, that sort
of thing. So I was ninety-nine percent sure that there were no
video cameras tucked away to carefully record our every move.
    I took a deep breath and considered my next
move. I had to get Ashley and get out of the house.
    Priority number one. The rest could be dealt
with later. I thought about the best way to get out safely and came
up woefully short. Although my first instinct was to grab Ashley
and get in the car, I rejected the idea immediately. It was
probably the worst thing that I could do. Lance Jones, not to
mention whoever else was waiting out there with him, would be
expecting that. I felt it was pretty safe to assume the men who
waited outside had guns. No, I could not risk either one of us
getting shot.
    I shivered again and tried to think fast. The
bugs would probably pick up any sound I made. I didn’t even know
where they had been placed. Hopelessness washed over me in
sickening waves and I gripped the doorframe with white knuckles. We
were not going to die tonight. We were not trapped in the
house.
    There was always a way out. Think, Claire, I
silently commanded. Step one, get Ashley and gather some supplies.
Quickly. I knew that we probably had no more than ten minutes
before they came in after us.
    Fifteen if they waited for Mike to show up
and took care of him first, because he would surely be panicking
and on his way by now. I had to get out of the house. I had to warn
him.
    I flipped the kitchen light on and went back
to Ashley’s room.
    “Hey, peanut. You know what? How would you
like a quick snack? Then we can drive over to your uncle Mike’s
house or Grandma and Grandpa’s. Would you like that?” I smiled