Shake Down, page 11
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Maybe she should call Shane.
“Don’t get the willies so easily, Janice,” she whispered to herself.
The explanation could be as simple as a couple of tree limbs rubbing together in the yard. Shane’s rental cabin was somewhat woods-enclosed, quite the opposite of Janice’s exposed property.
Inhaling and then slowly exhaling, she commanded her feet to move toward the kitchen, where Shane had showed her a flashlight was kept and she could pick up the handset to the cordless phone. Armed with the flashlight in her stronger hand and the phone in her weaker, she moved from window to window, peering into the gloom.
If someone was out there, no way was she going to click on an overhead light or the flashlight—not yet, anyway—and pinpoint to some intruder her location in the house. If it turned out the sound was human and the person needed help, she would have time enough to produce light and punch in 9-1-1 or call Shane. If the sound had a natural explanation, she could put the flashlight and phone away, start breathing normally again, and go about her evening’s business. A lot of ifs, but she prayed the situation was the latter and that she was creeping around in the dark for no reason.
So far, so good. She’d peeped out the window in the front door and the one over the kitchen sink. Also the one on the south side of the living room. By the vigorous wave of tree branches, the wind must be kicking up from the Atlantic. A brine tang salted the air inside the cabin.
As Janice proceeded to the other side of the living room, the fabric of her pajama pants shushed against a thickly upholstered ottoman that was barely visible in the self-enforced gloom. At the contact, a tiny shiver flowed up her body. She reached the set of heavy drapes that covered the large rectangular panes of the north window and stopped. Janice held herself still and listened. The odd, eerie sound had not repeated itself since she’d begun hunting for its source.
Inside the cabin, silence thickened. Outside, the high-pitched whoo-whoo of the wind in the eaves resembled not at all the low moan that had sent her on this spook-hunt. Not that she believed in spooks, but she was beginning to feel as foolish as someone who did.
With her flashlight, Janice parted the curtains and peered out. Nothing. Not a—
A guttural moan sliced the darkness, jabbing Janice’s pulse rate into a wild gallop. The sound had come from right outside this window!
Sickly green brilliance erupted and a face—skin blue-white and slack like a drowned person’s—plastered itself against the windowpane. The eyes glowed. Not the way a cat’s eyes reflected moonlight, but as if the creature was lit from within. Phosphorescent seaweed draped the scalp and the mouth yawned wide and as dark as a bottomless pit.
A soundless cry gagged Janice as the thing’s tortured moan lengthened and deepened. She stumbled backward. The ottoman caught the backs of her legs, sending her into a tumble, end over end. Pain fizzed up her right arm as her funny bone smacked the hardwood floor.
She lay flat. Sprawled. A scream at last burst from her chest. Ignoring the pain of her fall, she scrambled onto her knees. The face was gone, the moan had stopped, but her heart pursued its attempt to claw out of her chest.
The phone! Where was it?
That lifeline to sanity had flown from her fingers. Whimpering and snuffling, she groped about on the floor and finally found the handset. Her fingers froze over the keys. Nine-one-one or Shane? Of course, she knew she should call the emergency number but how long might it take for help to arrive at this remote location? Shane could race over in minutes. If only she could remember her new number.
“What is it? What is it?” The question streamed between her lips as her brain fought for coherent thought. Then the digits flowed into her consciousness. She’d repeated them to herself during the hike from her place to his this evening.
She stabbed the keys with shaking fingers. The phone rang...and rang...and rang...and—
“Hello?”
Why did Shane sound out of breath? Never mind!
“Come quickly! Someone... Something is outside the cabin. It was just at the window. Come!”
“Hang tight! Atlas and I are on our way.”
Tears burned behind Janice’s eyelids as the line went dead. If the creature was still moaning, she couldn’t hear the sound over the roar of her pulse in her ears.
* * *
“I believe you, honey. Of course, I do.” Shane squeezed Janice closer as she trembled against him in the brightly illuminated kitchen of his cabin.
Had she noticed the endearment that had slipped out? What was he doing getting this close to her? What else could he do but hold her? Her head rested on his shoulder right where he wanted it. What a disaster for his sanity that she felt so soft and perfect in his arms.
“But the story sounds so ridiculous...so unbelievable coming out of my mouth.”
She lifted her head and backed away a step. Atlas whined, sniffing at the legs of the woman he seemed to have adopted as his mistress. Shane commanded his arms to fall to his sides. He needed to get a handle on this urge to wrap them around her again.
“If you say you saw something, you did, and you have every right to be skittish about strange noises. Now Atlas and I are going to scout around outside and see what it might be.”
“O-Okay. Don’t take any chances.”
Her voice trembled and Shane’s hands fisted. What he wouldn’t like to do to whatever culprit had terrified this brave woman so badly!
“While we’re gone, why don’t you heat water for tea? I think there’s some lemon chamomile somewhere in the cupboards.”
An unsteady giggle passed between her lips. “Somehow you didn’t strike me as a tea guy.”
Shane forced a grin. “Healthier alternative than a shot of whiskey after a stressful day in the ambulance.”
“You got that right.” Janice squatted and with both hands ruffled the fur around Atlas’s neck. “Go get ’em, boy. I think the bogeyman has left the grounds, but maybe you can sniff out some clue about what’s going on.” The dog rumbled a brief woof.
Shane hefted the flashlight and called Atlas to follow. The dog practically pushed him over in an attempt to squeeze past his master out the door. An abnormal intensity seemed to have supplanted Atlas’s laid-back nature.
The animal proceeded directly around the corner of the cabin and beelined for the window where Janice said she’d seen the eerie face. Atlas poked his nose into the turf below the sill, sniffing intently. Shane directed the flashlight beam onto that area of the ground. No evidence of the...whatever-it-was showed in the grass, but his dog definitely smelled something not kosher. Shane scanned the light slowly over the entire area—grass, trees, window, wall and even the sky. He could see nothing, at least not in the dark. He’d have to look again in the morning.
Shane heaved a long breath. What to do now? If shenanigans were going on at his place, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the target was Janice personally, not some creep trying to scare off whoever came to Moran Cottage. Who was Janice Swenson that she’d draw this type of attention?
He needed to unearth her secrets, the sooner the better, but he’d have to be careful how he went about that project. He couldn’t afford to scare her off and put an end to his access to the cottage. Unless, of course, he was within minutes of finding what he’d come for. When she had called tonight, he was in the cellar finishing the process of chipping away the mortar around that suspicious stone block. He’d know the answer to that possibility as soon as he went back to the cottage. If only he felt comfortable leaving Janice alone again.
Shane reentered the cabin, Atlas trotting at his side, apparently content once more now that he’d thoroughly sniffed the violated ground. They found Janice pouring hot water from a saucepan into a pair of mismatched mugs. The mellow scent of chamomile trailed upward in the steam. Her head turned toward them as they trooped in and her green gaze shot questions.
He offered a tense smile. “Someone was definitely out there. Atlas smelled the person loud and clear.”
She chuckled. “Smelled loud and clear?”
“You know what I mean.” His face relaxed a bit. “Nothing is there now, but I’d like to take another look in the morning.”
“Unless we find something tangible, I’d just as soon not report this incident to the police.”
“Why?”
“I have this sneaking suspicion they’ll chalk the matter up to a hysterical female on edge because of recent accidents at Moran Cottage.”
“Those accidents weren’t accidental, and they were real enough. The cops know that.”
“Yeah, but this one smacks of those ghost stories that are rife around the island about this area of the coast. I don’t want any part of contributing to such things. Or of encouraging this low-life practical joker by supplying free publicity.”
“Gotcha. I can’t say I disagree in principle, but I don’t like the sense that you could be in danger.”
“Me, either.” She handed him a mug of tea. “But now that I’ve had a chance to calm down and think, I figure that if my sleazy prankster had wanted to hurt me, he could have done it easily. He just wanted to scare me and obviously didn’t care if his antics resulted in injury.” She rubbed her right elbow.
Shane set his mug on the counter and strode over to her. “Let me see.”
She turned away from his reaching hands. “No lasting injury. See?” She lifted her mug. “A mere bruise on my funny bone.”
“Not so funny.” His jaw tightened. “What are we going to do now?”
“Drink our tea and call it a night. The adrenaline rush has left me and I’m absolutely drained.”
“You actually want me to leave you alone?”
“Um, well, maybe this time I’ll let you leave Atlas with me.”
“Done deal.”
Twenty minutes later Shane arrived at Moran Cottage slightly out of breath from hurrying. He’d left the front door unlocked in his rush to get to Janice, but he saw no sign of disturbance as he stepped through the door into the main living area. Not that there was much to disturb in this room. He peered into the kitchen and into the bedroom where he slept, but all remained as he’d left it.
The tension had ebbed from him, leaving an empty exhaustion similar to what Janice had said she’d felt. Still, he couldn’t turn in before revealing whatever lay behind that stone in the cellar.
Shane hurried below as fast as the steep steps allowed. After Janice had left for the evening, he’d made a quick trip to the lumberyard where they’d bought the porch supplies and caught the Larry-Chuck worker getting ready to close the place. The guy helped him grab a chisel and a battery-powered trouble light he could hang from a hook tamped into the more brittle mortar. Not that he told Larry-Chuck what he intended to do with the supplies.
The trouble light hung faithfully aglow where he’d left it. The hammer and chisel lay undisturbed in the dirt where he’d dropped them. But the stone was tumbled out onto the floor and a dark hole gaped at him from the wall, mocking the way his efforts had benefitted someone else.
Shane sank onto a wooden step. That prank on Janice hadn’t been about her at all. It was about getting him away from the cottage. Did that mean Janice was safe now? His chest swelled with an odd feeling. Relief?
Then he dropped his head into his hands as bitterness flooded his mouth. Sure, he was glad the danger was over for Janice...for him even. Why would the Morans bother going after Seth Grange if he could no longer hurt them? He could return to being himself. Return to work even. But he’d failed his father, their family name was destroyed, and the guilty had escaped unscathed.
The Morans had won. Again.
TEN
Janice struggled up the steep ascent from the beach toward the front yard of her property. It had been two weeks now since Shane and she had begun switching places at night, and she was still breathing harder from the uphill effort than she would have liked. Since her brief stint in the hospital a couple of months ago, recuperating from the attack in Denver, she hadn’t found time or energy to go to the gym. Then she received notice about the inheritance and jumped at the chance to get away for a while.
Maybe she should change her mind and look into a fitness club in the area. Her arm was better. A reinforced soft cast now encased her wrist and hand with a Velcro closure. But she still didn’t trust her arm strength to ride a bike, and she was precious little good to Shane in the renovation work. Then again, she could continue to settle for the exercise of long walks along the beach with Atlas. She and Shane were taking turns keeping him overnight. At least the dog was better company than Mr. Grumpy.
What had gotten into Shane? Didn’t he like the cessation of funky incidents? Since the freakish scare-tactic at the window of the cabin, the past couple of weeks had gone smoothly. Well, except for the persistent delay in the arrival of those plumbing parts. Hopefully, that happy event would occur this morning when the ferry docked from the mainland.
At last Janice reached the top of the ridge and stopped to let her heart rate slow while she contemplated the cottage. Except for the new porch, the outside showed little progress for two weeks of work. Shane had kept the sparse lawn around the cottage mowed with a rented push mower, but that was about it. The clapboard siding cried out for paint, but all in good time.
At least the exterior was more presentable than the mess happening on the inside from the activities of the plumber and the electrician. Even though the power worked throughout the building, the wiring and outlets were old and needed to be brought up to current code to satisfy the type of moneyed buyer Janice wanted to attract.
Ultimately she’d had to postpone refinishing the freshly buffed floors until after the professionals were done creating dust. But Shane had swept the chimney and then ripped out those hideous countertops in the kitchen.
Now the two of them made their noontime sandwiches on a card table brought over from his place and ate them perched in two of a foursome of folding chairs on the new porch, watching the ceaseless movement of the ocean. Ships and boats of all sizes and shapes regularly passed beneath their viewpoint, and the gulls wheeled and squawked in the pale blue sky. The weather had been gorgeous these past weeks, except for the storm cloud that constantly shadowed Shane’s expression.
Maybe he was put out that he was still sleeping on the blow-up mattress and that he had to hike over to his place every evening to take a shower then scoot back to her place for the night. It was a huge commitment, truly going above and beyond, and perhaps the arrangement was wearing thin. Yet, yesterday when she’d suggested that the shenanigans appeared to have run their course, and maybe they could drop the switcheroo, he’d nearly bitten her head off. Sure, he’d apologized immediately for his strong reaction, but she was left once more with the sense that Shane Gillum had a hidden agenda.
Deep woofs carried to her from inside the cottage and the front door opened, releasing a giant fur ball that torpedoed toward her, tongue flapping from jaws grinning in doggy glee. Shane sauntered outside, cradling a mug and calling a warning to his enthusiastic pooch. The animal stopped just short of bowling Janice top over tail down the hillside. Atlas stood still, adoring her with his eyes and wagging his hind end nearly in circles. Janice laughed and scratched the animal behind soft, fuzzy ears.
“You missed me, eh, boy?”
Atlas was another bone of contention between her and Shane. Honestly, if she didn’t know better, she’d think the guy was jealous of how much his dog seemed to love her. Then why did he so happily give his blessing every time she wanted to take Atlas out for a walk along the beach?
Was she that much in the way of progress in the cottage, or did he feel regret for holding and comforting her when she was so scared that night? He had made it abundantly clear in his actions and attitude since then that he had no personal interest in her. They shared no more suppers together. If they went to a restaurant in the evening, it was on their own. She got the picture already, so couldn’t he lighten up?
If not for the nightly comfort of reading a few entries in her ancestress’s diary, the rejection might hurt. More than it actually did, anyway. Shouldn’t she be relieved that he was nipping in the bud any attraction they might have felt for one another?
“Hi, Camper.” Janice waved at her amateur handyman.
To her great surprise, he smiled at her today, and her heart tripped over itself. She would have to schedule a stern talk with that contrary organ.
“Come on in, Loafer.” He waved her onward. “The coffee is on.”
She followed him into the kitchen and he poured her a steaming mug. As he handed her the coffee, he gazed somberly into her eyes from beneath those stunning lashes.
“I’ve been wrestling with a decision,” he said. “Maybe you’ve been able to tell.”
“Ya think?” She quirked one side of her mouth at him then slurped at the hot brew.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bear. Truly.”
How did a girl stay irked with a guy who looked at her with the same big puppy-dog eyes as Atlas did when he was wordlessly apologizing for some faux pas? Well, at least she could pretend to keep the guy on probation.
“Hmm. You might be forgiven. It depends on the nature of this decision. You’re not quitting on me, are you?”
“No...no, I’m not. That idea has been on the table, though, due to some things in my personal life that I didn’t want to burden you with.”
“It can be nice to share a burden once in a while.”
“True, but this...this issue involves another besides me.”
She locked gazes with him. Unless she was grossly misreading him, he was sincere as all get-out. But who was this other person? She dropped her gaze.
