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The cat's mouth opened and closed in a yowl that the music prohibited Murphy from hearing.
She grunted when his powerful back legs used her stomach as a catapult. He bounded to the floor, his fluffy tail brushing the corner of the door frame just before he disappeared from sight.
Murphy snatched off the headphones. She didn't realize her breaths were choppy until she heard the rasp of them in her ears. Her legs were unsteady as she stood and crossed the room.
With trembling fingers, she turned off the stereo; the click of the cold metal knob sounded abnormally loud and menacing.
From somewhere near the foyers, Moonshine meowed.
The sound startled a gasp out of Murphy.
“Calm down,” she whispered to herself, then instantly wished she hadn't. Her voice sounded as shaky and watery as her knees felt. “Stop it. Just stop it. Every house makes noises. You know that.” Of course she did. Only Murphy had an uneasy feeling the noise she heard had nothing to do with the normal creaks and groans of settling wood.
Her gaze scanned the small living room, searching for a weapon. Not that she'd need one, she told herself. Still, as Tom was fond of telling her, it never hurt to err on the side of caution. It was one of her brother's rare words of wisdom that she actually heeded.
Twin brass lamps sat on the teak end tables flanking the sofa. They were large; lovely to look at, not to lift. She judged them too heavy and cumbersome to provide an adequate defense. Besides, in order to use one, it would need to be unplugged. If someone was out there and they saw the lights suddenly go out…
Thunk!
Murphy's hand went slack. The headphones dropped unnoticed to the plushly carpeted floor.
That was not the sound of a house settling, damn it!
Murphy raced into the kitchen. The soles of her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floor when she stopped abruptly and squatted. If only she'd thought to ask Tom where he kept weapons when she'd agreed to borrow his new summer house for the week! But, of course, she hadn't. The thought had never crossed her mind.
Her gaze scanned the moonlit room, fixing on the knife rack. No help there; it was nailed to the wall next to the window on the opposite side of the kitchen. She didn't dare pass the window to reach it. In the drawers next to the stove, the sharpest weapon she found was a butter knife.
Metal hinges creaked as she eased open first one cupboard door, then the next. In the third, she found something useful: a big, fat, cast-iron skillet, the kind her foster mother used to cook mountains of blueberry pancakes after church on Sunday mornings.
The skillet felt heavy and solid in Murphy's trembling hands. Not the perfect weapon, but the best she could find in a strange house on short notice. God knows the skillet was less awkward than one of the lamps.
Breathing hard, she eased the cupboard door shut, then slowly, slowly, stood.
A shadow passed by the window on the adjacent wall.
Murphy's mouth went suddenly dry.
While she would like to convince herself the shadow was caused by nothing more harmful than moonlight flickering off the snow and bare-branched trees outside, she couldn't. The shape was too thick, and it moved in a way that was undeniably human.
Moonshine yowled.
The sound cut through Murphy like a knife.
As quietly as possibly, she crept over to the wall next to the doorway that separated the kitchen and front door by a tiny foyer. Her palms felt clammy as she clutched the heavy skillet tightly to her chest.
Chink, chink, chink.
Someone was rattling the doorknob.
She'd locked the front door…hadn't she?
Hadn't she?!
Her mind went blank. It took effort to swallow back a surge of panic, but she did it. At all costs, she needed to stay calm. If nothing else, her job at DCYF had taught her how to keep her composure—or at least pretend to—under the toughest conditions. Conditions could not get tougher than this. Not if there really was a person out there making those noises.
Murphy was ninety-nine percent sure there was; it was that stray one percent that nagged at her. Her luck had never been good.
Sucking in two deep breaths, she mentally repeated the question she'd asked herself only seconds before. Had she locked the front door?
