Harper grunted his opinion and hung up the phone.
Graham pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it. He needed to call Eric and find out what the hell was going on, and what Eric had told Harper about the case, but he couldn’t get into that now. He needed to focus on the task at hand and be ready to act the moment he was given the go ahead. Whatever petty shit Eric had brought up to Harper didn’t matter. At least not right now.
He narrowed his gaze at the phone and willed the damn thing to ring. His chest tightened and he held his breath, but the generic background mocked him. Screw it. He had to move. A tiny peek around the perimeter of the house wouldn’t hurt. He’d keep his hands in his pockets the whole time.
Graham stepped out of the car and resisted the urge to slam it closed. No cars loitered in the driveway, but that didn’t mean the house was empty. Hunching his shoulders against the constant drizzle, he crossed the empty street. He crept along the shadows, out of range from the flicking streetlight. He turned on the flashlight on his phone and pointed it at the ground. With all the greenery around the house, there were bound to be snakes. He hated snakes.
He hugged the side of the house and found nothing out of place except a pair of woman’s shoes lying in a pile of mud. A tall privacy fence blocked the backyard from his view, but no toys littered any part of the yard he searched. Water sloshed against his heavy footsteps, but the cool night air couldn’t chase away the warmth stirring in his blood as adrenaline spiked inside him.
He rounded the corner of the house and crouched behind the shrubs for cover. The front porch beckoned to him. A quick look would prepare him for when it was time to enter the house. Heglanced around to make sure no nosy neighbors had noticed him skulking around and ran toward the porch.
The stairs creaked from his weight and he stopped and sucked in a breath. Against the backdrop of crickets and rain, the quiet creak was loud. He hurried into the safety of the shadows and the splintered wood of the doorframe caught his eye. His fingers itched to run along the broken wood, but he kept one hand in the pocket of his pants and the other tightly wrapped around the phone. He couldn’t afford to contaminate the scene, and he hadn’t had the forethought to bring a pair of gloves with him from the car.
The leaves rustled along with a gust of wind. The sudden breeze swirled onto the porch, kicking around some trash and causing the door to swing open an inch. Graham pressed his back against the worn paint of the wall beside the door. He slid his phone into his pocket and placed his palm on the butt of his gun. If someone was coming outside, he’d be ready.
Nothing happened.
A whoosh of air left his lungs and he sagged against the wall. He peered around the door and his gaze landed on the broken latch.
Well that’s interesting.
He crouched in front of the door and studied the busted latch. Someone had wanted to get inside pretty badly. Or someone had wanted out.
“Oh my God! Help!” A woman’s shrill shrieks of panic erupted through the narrow opening of the door.
Graham shot to his feet. Removing his hand from his gun, he grabbed his phone and called 911.
“This is Special Agent Graham Grassi. I need backup at 7225 Cleveland Avenue. Distressing calls for help were heard from inside a suspected crime scene. I’m going in.”
He hung up, plunged his phone back in his pocket, and grabbed his gun from the holster at his side. The familiar weight of the weapon brought a sense of calm to his frayed nerves. He pushed the front door open with his foot and entered the house with the gun pointed in front of him.
“Special Agent Graham Grassi entering the house. If anyone’s in here, please come out with your hands up.”
He waited a beat and listened. The subtle groans and shifts of the floorboards were all that answered his announcement. He took a step further into the house and swung his gun into a room at his side. No one was there. Shafts of moonlight bounced inside from the open door and illuminated the living room. Or what he assumed was a living room. Two folding chairs and a rusted metal table sat to one side of the room, a small tube television sat on the other side. He slowly put one foot in front of the other as he pressed farther into the room. Dammit, he’d heard a call for help. He was certain. Where the hell had it come from?
Thump, thump, crash!
He whirled around and faced the way he’d entered the room. He quickened his pace and retraced his steps to the hall. He kept his gun trained in front of him and stepped into a thick wall of stale air in the kitchen. The urge to cover his nose and mouth were overpowering, but he concentrated on the open door on the far side of the kitchen.
He surveyed the kitchen and gave a brief thanks to God for not having to spend another second in there. A dim light lifted toward him from the bottom of the stairs. He pointed his gun down the darkened stairway. “I’m coming down and I’m armed. If you have any weapons, drop them to the floor.”
Graham groaned at how stupid he sounded. If someone had set a trap for him, they wouldn’t willingly lay down their weapons because he told them to—especially when they had theadvantage. The light in the basement was small, but it was better than the dark pit he looked into. Maybe he should wait for backup.
“Graham? Is that you?” The fear and pain in Mickey’s voice carried to him. He’d have recognized her voice anywhere. He hadn’t been able to get it—or her whiskey eyes—out of his head since they’d met.
Shit. What the hell is she doing here?
“Mickey? Are you okay?” He turned slightly so his back wasn’t exposed to an unexpected assailant.
“The light went out when I was coming downstairs. I tripped and fell. I hurt my ankle a little and I think a bat flew into my hair.”
If he wasn’t so pissed she was here, and on edge about entering a suspected crime scene without backup, he would have laughed. “Is anyone else down there with you?”
The light he’d trained his eyes on twisted, leaving only darkness in his sight for a moment. “No.” The word came out on a rush of disappointment.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
