“So am I.” He looked down at his hands. “Sandra, my sister, and her boyfriend, Larry, were at home when the fire started. I don’t know why they couldn’t get out.” His words slowed. “At first, I thought Sandra must have been smoking something and it was her fault the fire started, but the autopsy report showed she was clean.”
“Wow, you said she was trying to get off the drugs. Looks like she was successful.”
He shrugged and looked up to meet her eyes. “Maybe. She’d gotten clean before and gone back to it, so …”
Moved by his pain, she reached over and clasped his hand in hers. “I really am sorry.”
“Anyway, I don’t know what Will saw or heard that night, but until he deals with it, he’s never going to get over it … or stop having nightmares.”
“Poor kid.”
“Yeah. Some nights are rough.”
“Where were you that night?”
He grimaced. “I was with a patient at the hospital almost all night in Bryson City. I didn’t find out about the fire until the next morning when the social worker brought Will to me.”
He was with a patient all night. Easy enough to confirm. Her heart warmed. Her instincts were right. He didn’t have anything to do with the fire. Her eyes grew heavy.
Paige reached over and squeezed his fingers. “I’m sorry, Dylan, I’m fading. Can we talk later?”
“Sure. I shouldn’t have stayed so long.”
She was glad he had. With a pang, she realized she didn’t want him to leave. But he sure couldn’t stay.
Then she couldn’t hold back the yawn that hit her. Her eyelids felt like they had weights attached.
Dylan gave a small smile and glanced at his watch. “You’d better get some rest. I’m going to check in with Eli and see if he’s made any headway on who trashed my office.”
Paige nodded, grateful that her head only protested with a mild squeak instead of the raging scream that had accompanied that movement more than once since she’d awakened in the hospital.
With one last, lingering look that she wasn’t sure how to interpret, Dylan rose and headed for the door. Paige waited at the window until he got in his car and drove off. Then she made her way back to the couch. Light-headedness hit her, and she collapsed onto the cushions.
Grabbing the light blue blanket she kept thrown over the back of the couch, she pulled it over her and let her eyes drift shut.
Her last coherent thought was that she was more certain than ever that Dylan didn’t have anything to do with the fire that had killed Larry and Dylan’s sister. And that was a good thing because for the first time in her career, her heart was getting way too involved.
Thud!
Paige jerked awake. Heart thumping, blood humming in her veins, she sat up.
The first thing she noticed was the lack of pain in her head.
The second thing that caught her attention was the fact that she’d apparently slept all day because the sun was going down just outside the window behind the couch.
The third thing made her freeze, all senses on high alert.
Someone was in her house.
Her drug-induced haze had evaporated with the sudden rush of adrenaline. She needed her gun.
But it was in her bedroom in the end table in the gun box.
Making a mental note to keep it with her from now on, she slid off the couch and her bare feet hit the carpet. Her left hand grabbed the cordless handset from the end table.
She might need it.
Paige’s eyes scanned the open room, registering each detail. The family room blended into the kitchen separated by the large countertop. The breakfast area looked undisturbed. That left the two bedrooms.
One of which contained her gun.
Throat dry, breathing controlled into shallow breaths, thoughts slid through her mind as she crept on quiet feet toward her bedroom. Who would be in her house? And why? Had her cover been blown? If so, how? And where had the sound come from?
The laundry room? The only way to access that was through the breakfast area.
She just wasn’t sure. And she didn’t want a confrontation without her weapon. Physically, she didn’t think she could handle it. Not today.
Pulse pounding doubletime, all senses tuned for another noise that didn’t belong, she used the moonlight filtering through her still open blinds to guide her.
Paige passed the kitchen and paused at the door that led to the hallway. Cautiously, she peered around the edge, thankful she’d left the small night-light burning.
Nothing.
Pulling in another breath, fingers clutched around the cordless handset, she slipped through the door and into the hallway. To the right was the guest bedroom. The left, hers.
She turned left.
Stomach swirling, Paige slid the few steps to the door and again, peered inside from around the edge of the frame.
No one. Her stomach relaxed a fraction.
Moving quickly, yet still doing her best to stay quiet, she set the phone on the end table then pulled the drawer open. Inside lay the box sheltering her weapon. Paige punched in the code and the door opened with a soft pop. Curling her fingers around the butt of the gun, she flipped the safety off.
The hair on the back of her neck bristled and she spun, eyes probing the shadows of her room.
And still nothing stood out to her. Her heart pounded, adrenaline rushed. The bathroom door stood open and she could see inside. The shower curtain was still open, slid to one side, just the way she’d left it. A glance in the mirror above the sink showed no one hovering behind the door.
And yet …
Shivers danced up her spine as she assessed the window. The closed curtains looked untouched, pulled together, also just like she’d left them.
But the bottom of one fluttered.
Paige chilled. She hadn’t opened that window.
But there was no place to hide, except …
Her eyes dropped to the bed.
A hand shot out, clamped around her left ankle and jerked.
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