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“You’re welcome. But I’d be careful… Crime scenes attract some pretty strange types.”
“Yes, of course.” Theo faltered. Was she one of those strange types? Why had she come here, why did she feel compelled to return to the worst moment of her life? Theo couldn’t even recall making the decision to walk this way; she just had.
The temperature had cooled further in the last half hour, so Theo walked briskly, partly to compensate for the fact that her jacket was light and partly because now she wanted to be as far away as possible from Dan’s house and the rubberneckers who surrounded it.
It wasn’t till she was a couple of blocks from home that Theo thought she heard footsteps behind her. Over her shoulder, the street was deserted. Then she saw him, across the road. The man who’d accosted her outside Dan’s house was leaning against a fence, just watching her silently. She tried not to give any sign that she recognized him, and picked up her pace, keeping Horse on a short leash. The hound seemed to sense something was wrong. Horse’s head lost its relaxed loll, and his ears sprang up.
The man was crossing the road now, his stride noticeably long and purposeful. Theo suppressed an impulse to run. He was just behind her now. She stopped and turned. He ran toward her.
“Horse, danger!” Theo said urgently. “Danger!”
The hound moved between Theo and the oncomer, lowered his head, and growled.
The man stopped sharply. “It’s me. From the crime scene.”
“Why are you following me?”
“I wanted to see you got home safely, make sure you didn’t get snatched or nothin’,” he said keeping his eyes on Horse. “I’m old-fashioned, I guess.”
“As you can see, I have Horse to see me home,” Theo said, trying to keep her voice calm. It was beginning to get dark, and for some reason, the street seemed deserted—no children playing or people walking dogs. “Thank you, but I don’t need anyone else.”
“All right…or good-on-ya, as you Aussies say.” He smiled. “I’ll see you around… You too, Horse…” He didn’t move, just stood there smiling.
Theo thought about running. But she didn’t want to turn her back on him, and she couldn’t walk away without doing so. In the end she pulled on Horse’s leash. The hound stood his ground, snarled and snapped, as if at any minute he might break away and tear the man into more digestible bits.
“I don’t know what’s got into him,” she said, “but you may have to walk away so that Horse will let us do likewise. I don’t think he’s going to calm down until you’re out of sight.”
For a moment the man just looked at her, still smiling, and she thought he was going to refuse, but then he nodded, waved, and turned. Theo and Horse watched him go, waited till he could no longer see them before they resumed the walk home. And then they ran.
Theo took Horse into the house with her, locked and bolted the door before checking the back door and every window. Some of the window catches were rickety, unlikely to hold under pressure. She drew the curtains. God, how she wanted to call Gus, ask him to come home, but she wouldn’t. She could handle this.
Theo knelt to hug Horse. “Thank you, Horsey. Thank you for being fearsome. You, old mate, are a fabulous actor.” She filled his food and water bowls, and for a while she watched him eat. “You have to guard the house now, just in case. You can do that, can’t you?”
Horse rolled onto his back, his hind legs spread, as he looked at her pleadingly. She rubbed his stomach and his eyes rolled back with pleasure as he made happy grunting sounds. Theo smiled. “Yes, you’re a fearsome beast, you are.”
It was nearly completely dark, and now that the exertion of sprinting home was wearing off, Theo felt cold. She wasn’t sure how to start the central heating. She found the thermostat on the wall in the kitchen and flipped the switch to “on.” Nothing happened, but she wasn’t sure if the system just needed time to heat up to a comfortable temperature. It, like everything in Gus’s old house, might have seen better days.
Theo decided to take a shower to warm her up a little. She hoped that by the time she finished, the furnace would have kicked on.
She took a deep breath and retrieved from the kitchen drawer the one big knife Gus owned. She set it on the soap dish when she turned on the water. Even armed, she showered quickly with the shower curtain open so that she could see the door. At one point the knife slipped, narrowly missing her foot as it fell into the tub. She placed it on the vanity, blanching as she thought of how badly that could have come out and how embarrassing it would be to explain. She washed the conditioner out of her hair with one eye still on the door, and towel dried in seconds.
The mirror was completely fogged, possibly as a result of the open curtain, and the floor was wet and slippery. Theo pulled on her bathrobe, calling Horse to her side as soon as she stepped out. “I know, Horsey, I’m being idiotic…but just hang with me for a while.” She ducked up to her room to change into pajamas and slippers and a couple of sweaters because the house was still arctic, and then fetched a mop to rectify the bathroom. Through all of this, Horse followed her happily.
Theo checked the thermostat again. It was definitely on, but there was no heat or movement of air from any of the vents.
Opening the drawer to return the knife, she changed her mind, and slipped it into the pocket of her sweater. Theo wasn’t sure what to do. It was marginally warmer upstairs, but if anyone was going to break into the house, they’d do so on the ground floor…probably through the living room window, which had the dodgiest catch. She decided then, running upstairs to grab a blanket from her bed. She moved the sofa in the living room so that curled up on it she would be facing the window. She placed the knife and phone on the coffee table, both within easy and rapid reach, and opened her laptop. Theo knew she wouldn’t be able to write, but she could edit. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to do that either, but it was comforting to have the laptop open, the screen between her and the world.
She pulled up her manuscript and stared at the opening page. The detective’s accusations that she’d intended to confront Dan Murdoch about his refusal to help, soured her reading. It wasn’t true of course, but Underneath had come between them. Perhaps it was spoiled now.
Theo closed the file, and in the black screen she could see her reflection. God, she looked a wreck. She shut the screen, wanting to crawl under the blanket and hide, but she had to watch the window, and sometime in the next day or two, she would need to have lunch with Dan’s agent. That Dan had sent Veronica Cole her manuscript confused her. Had she misunderstood him? Had their last meeting been marred simply because she was oversensitive about her work? The thought hurt, and Theo turned her mind away, and somehow it fell upon the man who tried to follow her home. And she looked to check that the knife was still in easy reach.
CHAPTER 8
Primus is dead! His name was Dan Murdoch. He lived right here, in Lawrence Kansas, where he worked to unearth the truth about what’s been going on in Corporate America. And he died for that. Murdoch was murdered in his own kitchen last week. Nobody has heard from Primus since.
WKWWK
Wayward Son
