Someone had been in her apartment.
Jenna latched onto Jon’s arm as if he weren’t already holding hers. She’d put on a brave face at the bakery, when her livelihood had been in danger and she hadn’t had much choice, as the business owner and all, but the truth was she wasn’t one forconfrontation. She hadn’t chosen to watch a horror or thriller movie of any kind since her early twenties, and even that had been a cautious experiment to see if she’d gained the nerve for it. So, the notion of some intruder in her home, when she didn’t have a damn thing worth stealing to begin with, shot her straight to petrified.
Her fingers curled into the hem of his t-shirt sleeve. “So help me, Jon Johnson, if that was a joke—”
He reached around and laid his other hand on her outer shoulder in a heavy, comforting gesture. “I would never joke about your safety, Jenna.” His grip tightened in a lingering squeeze. “But whoever it was didn’t linger. No one else is here.” He paused. “I assume the apartments on either side are supposed to be occupied?”
Jenna pushed out a breath, nodding before she found words. “Yeah. Yes. I barely know them because I work non-standard hours, but there’s a school-aged kid and a single parent in one and I think a pair of platonic roommates in the other. They moved to town last year.”
“That tracks, then.” He let his hand fall away. “Can you think of anyone who has a key? Someone who might have thought you were home, since your car was here?”
She bit her lip for a moment to keep it from quivering. “The only other person who has a key is the landlord. But she’s a sweetheart, and since nothing’s on fire, I doubt it was her.” Her head dropped to Jon’s shoulder before she could process the movement. “I’m so confused.Whattracks? Did the Marines teach you x-ray vision or something, is that how you know no one’s here?” She fought with her breath, fought to keep calm and think logically. “I don’t fit the demographic, Jon. If there is some kind of kidnapping conspiracy going on, I’m too old. Right?”
Jon grunted. “Based on what we’ve heard so far, you do not.” There was a tension in his voice she did not like at all. Itreminded her of when he’d try to withhold things he thought would upset her. But he kept talking. “Obviously I don’t have x-ray vision. I taught myself how to connect with the H2O in my immediate environment and expand my sensory awareness, similar to a radar sweep. Different life forms resonate differently against the thinner molecules in the air or the ones of any native fauna, and from there I can identify animal from human and human from the occasional other.”
Jenna straightened as he spoke, her fear taking a backseat to dumbfounded awe. “What?” She let her hand drop from his sleeve. “You can dowhatnow?”
He arched a brow at her. “It’s not that wild.”
“It absolutely is!” She swatted at him on some old, ingrained reflex. “It was wild enough just knowing someone who could keep me dry in the rain by sheer force of will, or watching my boyfriend turn a dormant sprinkler into a geyser just to ruin some jerk’s day. And don’t even get me started on the whole talking-at-water thing. That one might still compare.”
Jon had the audacity to look like he was trying not to laugh. “You already knew I can share my senses with water. The radar sweep is just another version of that.”
He was trying to make his always-astounding ability sound somehow logical, and Jenna did not have the capacity for that. Sure, he was right. She remembered him telling her he could do such a thing, she remembered him explaining—and demonstrating—how she could talk to an open surface of water and as long as she called to him first, he’d hear her. She also remembered that bizarre concept had limitations. He couldn’t talk back, and they’d discovered it had a geographical range. At least then.
Her favorite of his tricks had been the way he used little rivulets of water like extensions of his touch. He said he could feel just as clearly as if he were touching her with his body, too.
And that was not the sort of memory she needed to be lingering in.
As if reading her mind, Jon said, “As much as I’d like to sit and catch up, I’m not okay dismissing the fact that your home was invaded in the twenty minutes we were gone.”
Just like that, her anxiety returned.You can’t bury your head in the sand, Jenna.There were certainly times she would love to, but Jon was right. Ignoring a problem was not the way it got handled. She’d learned that lesson.
Her brow furrowed. “We were gone more than twenty minutes.”
“Not if you discount the length of time I had eyes on your apartment,” Jon replied. “I would have noticed movement.” His hand loosened from her arm and slid down to grab hold of hers. “And as much as I hate to say it, that means more than likely that whoever it was was already watching when we left.”
Everything inside her clenched. The obvious answer whispered ominously at the back of her mind.No. It can’t be.She was supposed to be notified when the day inevitably came that he was released, and she hadn’t heard a peep.
Jenna stared at the mostly melted milkshake Jon had left behind. “Are yousureyou didn’t leave that there?”
“Jen.” The gentle admonition in his tone struck harder than he’d likely meant for it to.
Jenna reached for her phone. “Let me call my landlady. Maybe something came up that I’m not thinking of.”Like what? She decided to show my place without notifying me?
Jon adjusted his grip until his hand was at her back again and guided her into the sitting room, toward the sofa. “She may have seen something, too. A person or a vehicle out of place. Who is she? Someone I know?”
Jenna dropped to the same corner seat she’d claimed previously, staring unseeingly at the name on her screen. Itwasn’t particularly late. It wouldn’t be rude to call by most standards. “We didn’t really know her as kids, but it turns out she’s LeeAnn Leeland’s grand-niece-in-law. So nowadays she’s practically the last of them.”
Jon made a thoughtful sound as he settled at her side, one arm stretched behind her across the back of the sofa.
Jenna tapped the call button before she could talk herself out of it, and for good measure, she put the call on speaker. It’d save her time later.
Jon rumbled as the ringing filled the room. “Good girl.”
Sweet Jesus, he did not!Before Jenna could do more than draw breath, the line connected. “Hi, Diane,” she said to whatever greeting she hadn’t consciously heard.
The woman on the other end sounded much too calm for Jenna’s fraying nerves. “Oh, Jenna! What can I do for you?”
