she kept listening for…something, she didn’t know what, but a signal that would tell her she and Mark were safe, that help had arrived.
Mark was still in the water, splashing his rubber toys in complete oblivion—just the way Lauren wanted it. The last thing the child needed, right on the heels of that terrible nightmare, was another fright. And an intruder in the wee hours of the night was nothing but frightening.
Then pandemonium broke out.
A car drove by at normal speed.
At the front door, a man shouted a curse.
Blazing lights strobed into the house despite the curtains on the windows. She heard scrambling, more voices, more cars. Brakes squealed, doors slammed shut.
“Stop!” someone hollered.
Another car sped up, this one’s tires crunching ice and snow and finally shrieking against the pavement. Others followed, and did the same. A heartbeat later, someone pounded on her front door.
“Open up!” a familiar voice shouted.
Lauren looked at Mark, whose eyes were again wide-open, round, frightened. His mouth formed an O, and his naked limbs shook with fear.
The pounding downstairs never let up.
He yelled again. “Lauren! Let me in! It’s David—David Latham.”
“The monster,” Mark sobbed. “No, Aunt Lauren! Don’t let him in. He’s gonna…he’s gonna eat us up!”
And although she knew Monster David didn’t have a cannibalistic bent, Lauren hesitated.
How could she let that man inside her house again? How could she subject Mark to another trauma? The child had suffered too much already.
But someone had tried to break into her house. She’d heard them at the back and front doors, she’d heard the curse when the cops drove up, heard the running footsteps when they gave pursuit.
And David was a Federal Agent.
Even though he didn’t seem to believe her, she didn’t think he would hurt them, while the intruder wouldn’t have any such qualms.
She took a deep breath. “It’s okay, Marky. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The bright red-green-and-purple-striped bath sheet she used to wrap her nephew felt wrong in their current situation. It belonged to happy summer days, not to a horrifying winter night.
Still, she held the boy close to her heart and ran down the stairs. David’s pounding grew louder the closer she came. At this rate, she wouldn’t have much of a door left by the time she let him in.
She ran.
Mark shook.
Her fingers trembled on the doorknob. She finally got everything to work, threw open the door and glared at the enraged man on her front step. Before he could get a word out, she spoke.
“You’d better have your checkbook ready to pay for a new door, Agent Latham. It was an irreplaceable antique.”
He scowled. “Forget the door, lady. It’s fine. It’s your irreplaceable lives I care about. You and the boy could’ve been killed!”
Lauren’s knees shook then gave way.
On the way down, her only thought was of Mark. The child whose weight left her arms as she slid into a midnight-black hole.
SIX
Lauren woke up in the hospital. She could identify her surroundings before she opened her eyes. The astringent smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant stung her nostrils, and the eerie chill of IV fluids flowing into her hand was unmistakable. Her appendectomy two years ago had left her with indelible memories, few of them good.
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