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It was the only reasonable explanation. He’d gone outside but demanded she stay put, which made no sense when she thought about it. She could have watched his back. And he could have watched hers.
Then he’d waltzed through the front door after she had heard the bells and suggested it was time to leave. Coincidentally, only a few hours shy of her winning their bet.
“My keychain has Christmas bells on it. I heard them upstairs.” She pointed to the top floor. “There’s no other explanation for how they moved from down here to up there.” None…other than Marcus taking them when she wasn’t looking and then sneaking up there while she stayed behind to search for them.
“You think I would do that?” he snapped. He was pissed. Well, good. So was she.
“I do.”
“So you think I sneaked back into the house”—he made a walking motion with his fingers—“and silently crept up the staircase, which is held together by rusted nails and optimism, by the way. And then I hid your keys and then slipped back outside so that I could walk in through the front door? All without you hearing me.”
She quirked her mouth. He made a compelling point. She’d heard lots of creaks and bangs tonight, and likely would have heard two-hundred-plus pounds of Marcus trudging up the stairs.
“Okay, well… Maybe you have them in your pocket. And you jangled them before you came back inside.” She patted down his flannel shirt, then his jeans, slapping his back pockets to check for the keys. When she turned up empty-handed, she thrust her hands into his front pockets and felt around in there, too.
“I don’t have them.” He lashed an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against one strong thigh. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “But feel free to keep looking.”
“If you don’t have them, then how—”
Clomp.
Clomp.
Slowly, he lifted his chin and studied the cobwebbed ceiling. She tilted her head toward the sound as well.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
The footsteps ended directly overhead. The silence that followed was a living thing, but she couldn’t be sure about the footfalls. The hairs on her arms stood on end as her brain searched for a rational reason for who or what was standing above them.
“Tell me you have an explanation for that,” she whispered.
“You mean other than the theory that someone is up there?” His eyes met hers. His face had drained of color. The steps retreated.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Then they stopped altogether.
She wound her fists in his shirt. “I take it back. Let’s walk to the road. Unless…you think it’s Clive? Did you ask him to come back here and scare me off?” That didn’t sound like something Clive would do, but she’d take the explanation. She’d take any explanation. “You can tell me the truth. I won’t be mad.”
“I highly doubt that. But no, it’s not Clive. He went home to Joanie hours ago.”
“Raccoons?”
“Wearing boots?” He glanced up again. “Check your phone.”
She did as he asked. The screen stayed black. “Dead. Yours?”
“Died a while ago.”
That’s right. He’d mentioned as much earlier. That brought the count to two dead phones, a pair of unexplained footsteps, and one set of missing keys in the hands of whoever…or whatever…was tromping around on the second floor.
