Where are you????????? You get mad if I don’t answer YOUR texts rightaway!
And soon.
And the semi-familiar number…not Leslie Nakano, but EmilyDelton.
With a sigh, Declan responded to Emily’s text.Sure. I’ll be there at 5:50 to pick you up. Sorry for delay. Wasworking.
Emily responded immediately with her thanks, and that she’d see himthen.
Dec managed to put away his work, shower, shave, pick out something decent to wear, and get out the door just in time. It was only then he realized he hadn’t eaten since the coffee and peanut-butter-slathered toast he’d had at eight that morning. A two-dollar granola bar would be pretty good about now—but he’d left without snagging one. If there were even anyleft.
And he was almost to Emily’s when he remembered he hadn’t brought the piece he’d been working on that he wanted to showLeslie.
“Thank you so much for picking me up!” Emily said breathlessly as she climbed into his truck in a waft of perfume. She smiled at him as she buckled the seatbelt around a trim waist below great tits showcased in a black V-neck tee. She wore a black leather jacket too—for, of course, Michigan had shifted her mood from bitterly cold to pleasantly cool since last night. “Brooklyn would have been so disappointed if I wasn’t there to take pictures. You know how they are about things likethis.”
Right. The girls who had cell phone cameras attached to their hands like another appendage and took photos of everything would have been traumatized if their parents missed the chance to take even more pictures ofthem…
But Declan didn’t say a thing. He washappyto go and take pictures of Stephanie and her friends tonight—and even more happy that she’daskedhim to. He just found it amusing that anyone would think the moment would be lost if one parent missed the photo-takingopportunity.
“What’s wrong with your car?” heasked.
“I’m not really sure,” she said. “It wouldn’t start, and then it kind of did and then sounded really rough…I thought it might be better if I didn’t try and drive it tonight. Just in case I couldn’t get it started when it was time to go home after dinner. You don’t mind driving me back after, doyou?”
Uh. “Sure. No problem,” he said before he realized what he’d just committed to. “We’ll get you home,” he addedvaguely.
Hell, he hadn’t even planned to go to dinner with the other parents after the picture taking…but then again, it would be a good idea to get to know the parents of the kids his daughter was hanging around with. And, of course, he was a small business owner, and you never knew where your next job was going to come from. And he hadn’t eaten, so he’d be ravenous by then (how long did these picture-taking events take,anyway?).
Still…Declan had an uneasy sense that he’d just been neatly manipulated into a situation he didn’t really want to bein.
He just hoped he’d have the chance to see Leslie as soon as he could escape from the clutches of teenagerfatherhood.
* * *
Leslie clawedherself out of a deep sleep and looked groggily at the clock.Six.
She blinked, combing through the heavy shroud of sleep with effort. It took her more than a moment to assimilate that it was sixp.m.,not sixa.m.
No, she’d already seen six a.m. today, unfortunately. She’d been more wide awake then thannow.
Leslie sagged back onto her pillow, trying to work the sleep from her eyes and clear her thoughts. That was what happened when you took a three-hour nap late in the day—it didn’t want to let you go because it thought you wanted to sleep for a full seven oreight.
Nevertheless, five minutes later, she was in the shower and fully awake. And her mind was filled with thoughts of the events of yesterday andtoday.
She’d sent Orbra and Cherry home last night after one o’clock. “There’s no need for you to stay here. Joe Cap—why do you call him that?—said he didn’t think there’s anything to worryabout.”
“But the brokenwindow!”
“You can help me tape it up and then go on home. I’m going to lock everything up, set the exterior lights to stay on, put in earplugs, and have a good shot of bourbon. I’ll sleep like ababy.”
The two older ladies grumbled and argued, and didn’t agree to leave until Leslie faked them out by looking at her cell phone and pretending to have a text from Declan on it. She let them draw their own conclusions, but noticed it was a lot easier to get them to leave afterthat.
Then she did as she told them she would: fixed the lights to stay on, locked up tightly, installed earplugs and put on a sleep mask—and even turned on some white noise on her computer monitor. This was going to be her first night in the house since the ghost’s appearance Wednesday, and Leslie was completely fine if she slept through any supernaturalactivity.
She really did agree with Longbow, aka Joe Cap, that it had been a couple of teenagers who’d broken in, and was certain no one would be coming back. It was already after one-thirty.
But the best laidplans…
Leslie had fallen asleep. She was certain she had, for all at once she wasawake.
