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“No, you’renot—and I’m not doing this with you right now.”
“This is just as much my business as it is yours,” I hiss as Rhett stands and steps around the tree trunk.
“Rhett!”
But he is gone, jogging silently across the yard to the house.
I am furious. How dare he cast me aside like this? We wouldn’t even be here if not formyJeep. Who is he to tell me to “stay”?
I surge to a stance, peer around the trunk.
A minute passes, two.
“Screw this.”
Staying in a crouch, I jog across the yard, leap into the shadows and press my back against the slatted side of the house. I exhale, listen.
Nothing.
Slowly, I creep along the shadows until I reach the back door.
Still, silence.
Heart pounding, I push open the door and step over the threshold.
Only hours earlier I stood in this exact spot, while Rhett pinned Crystal to the corner of the kitchen.
The house appears to be silent and I wonder if whoever snuck in has already snuck out and somehow we’d missed it.
Maybe it was nothing more than a quick drug deal?
My pulse thrums as I step through the kitchen, using the moonlight to illuminate my way.
I pause under the arched entry to the hall.
Just then, a faintthudsounds from upstairs. Another, then another.
My knees are shaking as I reach the staircase. One step, two, my eyes bulge from their sockets trying to see through the darkness.
Once I reach the second floor landing I stop, listen, and hear it again. Shuffles, thuds from a room at the end of the hall.
I take a step but am halted by a hand clasping my arm. Before I can scream, another hand covers my mouth.
“I told you to stay outside,” Rhett hisses in my ear.
I’m too startled to speak.
“Jesus,Sylvia. I told you to stay outside.”
He releases me. I spin around. Though his face is concealed by shadows there is no mistaking the anger in his eyes.
“Itoldyou—”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper-hiss.
He shakes his head. “Just stay behind me.”
I nod, feeling like a child after being scolded for sneaking into her mother’s bedroom.
