A door leading outside to what looked like a backyard caught her attention. Hope lit her chest. She tried the handle…locked.Jesus.
A door opening near the entrance sounded, then his voice. “Aspen. Get the fuck out here.”
Panic tried to seize her lungs, but she breathed through it. She needed to hide. Someone had left the front door unlocked and the light on…so someone would come back. And that someone might be able to help her.
To the left was a big open wet area with individual dog bathing stalls. And at the end of the hall was a kitchen.
She was out of rooms. She had to choose between the kitchen or the shower stalls.
She ran into the wet area and chose a bathing stall that was second to the end. Even though there were no doors or curtains, there were side walls that shielded her from the hall.
She grabbed a bottle of soap…then she waited.
CHAPTER 31
Stupid adorable dog collar charms. She’d thought they were cute. So cute that she’d rifled through the box while driving to have another look. And what had happened? She’d dropped the entire stupid box everywhere. Yep, that was right.
Sky reached under the seat and yelped when she scratched her arm against something sharp.
Ow. Why was everything a mess today?
A huge…colossal…mess.
Okay, maybe things weren’t that bad. Maybe a certain six-foot-five tower ofannoyingwas affecting her on a deeper level than she cared to admit. She shouldn’tlethim affect her. So he’d temporarily blocked her fence from going up, and now she had to watch him walk outside his house every morning, gloriously shirtless, for a while longer. And so he had a camera pointed right at her driveway and was basically filming her comings and goings. She shouldn’t care so much. She still owned the fence, and as soon as she got therightpermit, it would go up.
Maybe she cared so much because he was annoying. Had she mentioned annoying? It was like he got his kicks out of seeing her angry. This morning, he’d whistled at her as she’dclimbed into her car and followed it up with a, “Hey, peaches,” a nickname he knew she hated. She’d been so startled, she’d hit her head against the doorframe. Then she could have sworn she heard a chuckle.
She hated him. Big move-next-door-to-someone-else kind of hate.
She grabbed the last charms she could find and dropped them back into the box. More would probably pop up. Heck, she’d probably find one a day until Christmas.
Really, she shouldn’t be complaining about thisorher neighbor.
She needed to focus on the good. Her doggy daycare business was going well…really well. Why she was here on a Sunday evening though, she had no idea. Because she didn’t have a life? Because workwasher life?
That should be okay though because she loved her work.
She climbed out of the car, dog charms in hand. There was a parking lot around the back, but she hated entering through there when the place was empty. It kind of creeped her out, probably because it was so dark and quiet.
She stopped at the entrance and frowned. The door was open. Wide open. Only…she hadn’t left it like that. Unlocked? Sure. No reason to lock it in the small town of Amber Ridge when she was coming right back…but not open. She’d once left a door open when she’d worked in a café and a stray bird had flown in. It had taken an entire afternoon to get the creature out. Never again.
She took slow steps forward and quietly set the charms down on the counter.
Was someone here? The thought made a chill sweep over her skin.
Slowly, she moved toward the hall. A voice whispered in her head that this was a bad idea. That she should go back outsidewhere it was safe. But she’d never listened to that voice in the past, so why start now?
She turned into the hall and inched forward, sticking close to the wall, glancing inside empty rooms as she moved.
Silence and stillness surrounded her.
She was just passing one of the dog playrooms when a noise stopped her. A man stepped out of the second playroom—and in his hand, he held a gun. Her heart stopped. But he didn’t so much as glance her way. He turned straight toward the kitchen.
Silently, Sky slipped into the room. The air in her lungs whooshed so quickly she almost felt lightheaded, and when she pulled her cell from her pocket, her fingers shook.
She didn’t want to make the call. She didn’t want to make any noise at all, but she needed help. She didn’t know who the guy was, but the gun told her he wasn’t friendly.
She dialed 911, praying someone could get there, and they could get there fast.
