Pers let out a loud bark, startling him, just before the power went out.
“Crap.” He knew they had a backup genny, but didn’t know anything about it. Mandaline had shown him where the instruction booklet was in back but that didn’t help him in the dark. He looked out the front windows and saw even the streetlights were out.
“Dammit.” He fumbled around in the blackness until he remembered his iPhone.
“Duh.”
He started to dig it out of his pocket when a soft scritching noise came to him, from his right.
“What the fuck?”
He felt Pers run past his ankles toward the noise as the little dog began barking hysterically. He finally freed his phone from his pocket and found the home button. When he turned, in the soft glow from the light, he found himself face-to-face with Julie.
He let out a scream and nearly dropped the phone.
“Go,” she said. “Now. Believe!”
A loud clap of thunder made him jump. The phone fell from his hands and hit the concrete floor, where the screen broke.
The lights chose that moment to come back on. He was alone in the store, but in the zen garden, someone had written, GO NOW!
His phone, the screen shattered, lay faceup on the floor.
“Fuck!”
He grabbed the shop phone to call Ellis, but silence met him. When he tried to turn the TV back on, the cable box wouldn’t respond. The phone line, part of the cable service, was out, too.
He ran his hands through his hair. “What the fuck do I do?” He grabbed the cell phone from the floor and started to put it in his pocket when he realized there was something else in there.
Sachi’s keys.
In the dark Ellis sat at his desk, his laptop on battery power, and drummed his fingers on his blotter. He was debating whether or not to plug his wireless modem into the computer when the power returned.
Unfortunately, the cable, which was also his Internet connection, didn’t.
“Crap.”
He sat back in his chair, several tabs open in his browser containing information about what happened to Sachi Bloomfeld. He wished there was something he could do for their Sachi. Hell, even if it was just trying to hook her up with a friend, to make her life better.
Then again, a good date isn’t going to exactly make up for her mom getting murdered and her getting raped and having to live under an assumed name.
He minimized his browser and pulled up a file he was working on for a client and tried to immerse himself in that. The cable—and Internet—didn’t come back on. By nine thirty he was contemplating leaving his jacket and shoes in the office and just making a run for it through the rain. He tried calling the shop but it went to voice mail. When he tried both Brad and Mandaline’s cells, theirs did as well.
“Hmm.”
He stared at his phone. The rain showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. If I don’t want to spend most of the night here I might have to suck it up and do it.
He headed for the bathroom first, then upstairs to check and see if he or Brad didn’t still have a change of clothes, like for the gym or doing maintenance at the office or something, stashed in their private closet.
No such luck. He let out a disgusted snort. “Nothing. I’m really running a Mickey Mouse outfit around…”
He froze. A familiar, and completely unpleasant, feeling engulfed him. Chilling him.
Like when he opened his front door that horrible night to find an FHP trooper standing there with Brad’s wallet in his hands.
“Fuck!”
He tore down the stairs to his office and clicked on the browser to maximize it again. As he reread the obituary for Sachi’s mom, that ice water completely froze his soul. “Fuck!”
He ripped off his jacket and threw it on his chair. He barely took the time to lock the front door behind him as he ran through the rain toward the shop.
The power still hadn’t come back on by the time they both grew too chilled to continue their skyclad rain dancing. Sachi waited in the doorway while a still-buzzed Mandaline staggered and fumbled around in the kitchen until her hand finally closed around the Maglite Ellis had brought her the night she’d discovered the mold. She clicked it on.
“There.”
Sachi shivered. “Great. Let’s get some towels.”
Mandaline giggled. “Oops, sorry. I should have thought about that before we went out.”
“Um, yeah, ya think?” Sachi smiled. “That’s okay. I think you’re a little over the limit to be remembering small details like not catching pneumonia.”
Mandaline giggled again. “I’ll go find towels.”
“Great. I’ll stand here while my tits freeze off.”
Mandaline staggered for the stairs. As she crossed the living room, she thought she saw a shadow move out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked and trained the light there, she didn’t notice anything out of place.
She made her way upstairs and tried one hall closet, which was full of linens and other stuff, but no towels. She tried another one, next to the bathroom. “Jackpot!” she called down.
“Great!” Sachi said, her voice now near the base of the stairs. “I’m freezing.”
Mandaline wrapped one around her, one around her hair, and grabbed two more for Sachi. She giggled as she had to lean against the wall when she reached the stairs. She accidentally hit Sachi in the face with the beam from the flashlight, making her squint. “Whoops, sorry.” She pointed it down the stairs.
Sachi looked down, then her expression changed. She stared back up at Mandaline, terror on her face.
Mandaline had seen her look like that before, but she wasn’t sure when.
As she took a step down, Sachi bolted up the stairs, grabbing her and the flashlight. She turned off the flashlight and clapped a hand over Mandaline’s mouth when she tried to speak. She dragged Mandaline back down the hallway and into the bathroom, where she quietly closed and locked the door behind them.
Mandaline struggled against her, confused and scared by her friend’s reaction.
Sachi pressed her lips against Mandaline’s ear. Barely louder than a breath, she whispered, “There’s another set of fresh wet footprints on the floor downstairs. Shoes. Not us. Large ones. They came in, look like they went back out and then came in again.”
Mandaline froze, fear washing through her. Unbidden, her mind flashed back to her private talk with Sami and Matt the day after Julie’s wake.
“I ran outside and hid behind the house, next to the generator. It had run out of fuel. You could barely hear anything over the rain. Then I heard him coming. George. He came outside to refill it. I ran back inside to check on Julie, but she…”
Mandaline closed her eyes and willed it away. Together they huddled close and listened.
They couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the storm outside.
Sachi once again pressed her lips to Mandaline’s ear. “My cell’s in my purse downstairs. Is yours down there, too?”
Mandaline nodded.
“Shit. Do they have a working phone line here?”
She couldn’t remember. Did they? She fumbled for and found Sachi’s ear. She hoped in her drunkenness she was being as quiet as she thought she was. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He’s going to kill me. He’s going to fucking kill me. Then Sachi’s going to kill me. Then he’s going to make the state revoke my license.
Brad nervously drove through downtown, more cautiously than he had ever driven in his life. Between the storm and his nerves, his fear, and being out of practice driving a stick shift, he prayed he didn’t get in an accident and hurt someone. It had been years since he’d driven. The adrenaline pouring through his system didn’t help matters any.