Page 5 of The Life She Had

Celeste

The storm didn’t strike for nearly two hours after I came inside. I had been working in my second-story office with the window open. Yes, having the window open and the AC blasting is money flapping out the window, threatening an electric bill I cannot afford. I’m watching the shed, though, and the open window lets me listen, too.

At first, the black clouds had seemed to move on, clear skies chiding me for pouncing on the excuse to abort my run. The sky had been bright blue and cloudless, the sun ruthless. Then, before I could blink, dark clouds blew through like the wake of a passing jet.

Now rain smacks the old siding, rat-a-tatting like machine-gun fire. I make the mistake of reaching through the open window, and rain hits my wrist so hard it bends backward. I yank my hand in. It’s dripping wet. No sign of hail pellets. Just rain.

I peer out as I close the window. The shed squats there, peeling white paint seeming to glow in the darkness.

There’s no one in the damned shed. That’s what I have been telling myself ever since I came inside. I’m being paranoid. Hell, the entire reason I’m trapped in this “arrangement” is for protection from Aaron. That was the devil’s bargain I made with Liam.

Let me take care of you. Aaron will never find you here. I’ll give you whatever you need to be comfortable. And you’ll have me. That’s not such a hardship, is it?

It hadn’t been a hardship... until I realized our arrangement wasn’t a decent man protecting his lover. It was a calculating bastard doing what he did best. Controlling and manipulating. Putting me securely under his thumb.

You don’t like our arrangement anymore? All right. I won’t make you stay. I’m not that kind of guy. Go on. Just run fast. Run fast enough that Aaron won’t catch you once I set him on your trail.

The shed is empty. I already established that.

What about the door stopper? The hinges? The tidy interior?

My memory had overexaggerated the poor condition of the shed, that’s all.

I’m about to turn back to my laptop when light flickers inside the shed. Breath stops as my chest seizes.

I sit paralyzed in the crosshairs of that open window. Everything in me screams to move. Drop to the floor. Lunge from my chair. Get the hell away from the window. But I cannot move. I don’t dare.

It only takes a few heartbeats for the panic to subside under the cold anger of that internal voice telling me to stop being so silly. I thought I saw a light coming through the cracks between boards, but now I see nothing except the pale shape of the shed itself.

Still, when I do move, it is excruciatingly slowly, inching my rolling desk chair to the side until I am behind the faded brown drapes.

Deep breaths. No one is there. Everything is fine. When the rain stops, I’ll go out and nail the door shut to be sure I never need to worry about this again.

More deep breaths. I eye my laptop on the desk. I have work to do, but I cannot bring myself to cross in front of that window again.

At least twenty minutes pass before I’ve chastised myself enough to make the journey back to my desk. Inch by inch again, even as that internal voice sighs and grumbles at me for being such a child.

It’s even darker outside now, the storm turning the late afternoon to night. I focus on the pounding of the rain as I move back in front of the window and—

And there is a light in the shed. There is undeniably a light.

I stumble and fall on my ass, pain slamming up my tailbone. When I can blink back the pain, I creep to the desk and take the gun I left beside my laptop. Then I rise on my knees just enough to see out the bottom of the window.

Light glimmers through the cracks in the shed, and there is absolutely no mistaking it for anything else.

Someone is in my shed.

I reach to pull my phone from the desk. Then I scuttle until my back is against the wall. I lift the phone and stop, fingers poised over the numeric pad.

Who am I calling? The police?

It’s Celeste. Maeve Turner’s granddaughter? I inherited her house a few months ago? Right. Well, um, I hate to bother you, but there’s someone in my shed. Could you, um, swing by when you have a chance? Talk to them?

Normally, I would be more direct, but I’ve learned to dial it down in Fort Exile, where I’m an outsider. Even caring for Maeve on her deathbed hasn’t earned me any credit with the locals.

I know how that call will go. They’ll point out that it’s a storm. Someone probably needed to take shelter for a few hours, and am I really going to roust them out into the rain?

Folks around here are a bit more hospitable, Miz Turner.

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