“We won’t be able to get anything until Cloquet PD decides to investigate tomorrow. But I’m thinking tomorrow might be too late.”
Cork eyed the woman’s darkened house and shook his head. “I’m thinking it might be too late already.”
CHAPTER 26
Annie woke to the ringing of the phone. She hadn’t meant to sleep. She’d just intended to lie down on the sofa for a little while. She was always tired, it seemed, and the strain of the day at Spirit Crossing, her headache episode, and the scare from the neighbor across the street had all contributed to an overwhelming exhaustion.
Night had descended and the house was dark. Annie had no idea how long she’d slept. She sat up slowly, a little disoriented, and stumbled her way to the phone on the stand near the stairs. It was only as she lifted the receiver that she thought about the deluge of calls from reporters earlier in the day, but it was too late. She mumbled, “O’Connor residence,” which was how she’d always answered the phone when she was growing up, when she lived under the roof of the house on Gooseberry Lane, when her life was still an unknown road stretching ahead of her, full of possibility.
There was no response from the other end of line. Then whoever it was simply hung up.
Annie set the receiver back in its cradle. Her first thought was that it must have been a wrong number, but as the fog of her sleep cleared away completely, her next thought was It’s him.
She was alone in the house. She tried to recall if she’d locked all the doors. The front door, after John O’Loughlin had left and gone back across the street? She rushed over and checked the lock. It was set. Then she thought about the back door, the one their neighbor had unlocked to come in and check on her. Had he reset it?
She hurried to the kitchen and checked the door to the mudroom. It was secure, thank God. Annie leaned back against the door and felt how tense she was, how fast and shallow she was breathing. That’s what fear does, she thought. In her time in Guatemala, she and fear had become well acquainted. The screams in the night or the gunshots that could come at any hour as the gangs took what they wanted from those who already had next to nothing, or fought with one another, or the soldiers swept through the barrio yet again.
She left the kitchen and went to a front window in the living room, where she drew aside a curtain to look out. The streetlamps were on, and the intersections on Gooseberry Lane were illuminated with fluorescent pools. All the houses she could see were dark. There were no vehicles parked on the street.
Maybe it was just a wrong number, she told herself.
But in the next instant, she heard it. The sound came from the dining room, a jiggling of the handle on the door that opened onto the backyard patio.
Earlier, when she lay down to rest, she’d set the Louisville Slugger on the floor beside the sofa. Now, she moved from the window and once again took the bat in her hands. Although the house lay in darkness, she still held to the cover of the wall as she crept toward the dining room. She peered around the corner and saw the figure at the patio door, solid dark against the backyard, which was dimly lit by a gibbous moon low in the sky. She couldn’t see who it was, but she could see, rising like a straight stick from his right shoulder, the silhouette of the barrel of a rifle that must have hung from a strap.
Annie didn’t waste any time. She reached around the corner of the wall to the light switch and flipped it. The room exploded with brilliant illumination from the chandelier above the dining table. Which was good and not good. The good was that it made the figure stumble back immediately. The bad was that the glare off the patio door panes made it impossible for Annie to see the intruder clearly.
At almost the same moment, she heard the mudroom door in the kitchen rattle.
Two of them? she thought, glancing that way. Her grip on the bat tightened.
When she swung her eyes back to the patio door, the figure was gone. She turned her attention to the intruder at the mudroom door, moving swiftly in that direction. As soon as she entered the kitchen, she hit the light switch and drew the bat back, ready to swing. But it wasn’t a menacing stranger who came in.
“Whoa,” her father said, holding up his hands in surrender. “It’s just me.”
“Someone tried to break in,” Annie said quickly.
“Where?”
“The patio door.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Wait here.”
Her father rushed past her, but she didn’t remain behind. She followed him, the bat still gripped in her hands. Cork opened the patio door and ran out. He stood in the rectangle of light cast by the dining room chandelier, looking left and right. He glanced back at Annie.
“Close and lock the door. Lock the kitchen door, too. Don’t open up unless it’s me knocking.” He vanished into the darkness where the light didn’t reach.
Annie did as he’d said, locked both doors, then went to the living room and waited. The knock at the front door came a couple of minutes later. She turned on the porch light but didn’t look out.
“Dad?”
“It’s me.”
She unlocked and opened the door. “Did you see him?”
Her father shook his head. “Nothing. And nothing parked on the street. I heard an engine fire up next block over, so he might have parked there. Whoever he was, he’s gone now.”
Annie’s jaw went tight. “Lewis.”
“Lewis?”
“I need a cookie and milk,” Annie said.
In the kitchen, she took two chocolate chip cookies, one for each of them, from the Ernie cookie jar while Cork poured milk into a couple of small tumblers. They sat at the table, and Annie related everything that had transpired regarding the security guard named Lewis.
“But you can’t say for sure that he was at Spirit Crossing today?” Cork said.
“When the headaches are really bad, I sometimes see things that aren’t there.”
“And you can’t say for sure that he was the one at the patio door?”
“No.”
“If he’s been a cop, he probably had no trouble finding out exactly who you are and where you live and our telephone number here. I’ll get our phone records tomorrow and see who called tonight. That may nail him.” Then he furrowed his brow and said, “What’s going on, Annie? These headaches, what’re they about?”
