Her pulse exploded, her gaze darting back and forth, probing the windows, the perimeter, searching for movement.
Nothing.
He was inside the house.
The jacket that once belonged to Caroline Milton sat on the seat beside her. She grabbed it and slowly stepped out, her boots crunching the baked dirt. Her palms slicked with sweat, her stomach a wasteland of nauseating energy.
Despite the covered windows, she felt eyes on her as she tramped across the trackless sand to the door. The hair on her arms rose at the unnerving feeling of being watched. Whispers of dust spun up beneath her feet. And the hush… It was deafening, thrashing in her ears.
If she screamed, no one would hear. If he fired a gun, no one would come. If he buried her body out here, no one would know where to look.
Any outsider would think she was batshit crazy for walking in alone, unarmed, and without a phone. Maybe she was crazy. But she trusted her instinct. Her training and in-depth understanding of Tommy’s personality had guided her here. Her wits and intuition would keep her alive.
“Tommy,” she called out a few feet from the door. “I’m alone.”
Silence greeted her.
He’d often mentioned how the unfathomable quiet served as a protective barrier around his home. When something penetrated the stillness, he heard it. No one could sneak onto his property.
No doubt he’d detected her approach long before she’d driven into view. She’d anticipated that. Just like she knew the left floorboard would groan when she entered the house. She knew a small kitchen sat off to one side, opening to the sitting room where his mother lost her fight to cancer.
Two bedrooms in the back shared the bathroom between them, and a problematic hole above the shower let in geckos and scorpions. He’d patched it dozens of times, and the creatures still found a way in.
She knew every nook and cranny of his childhood home, thanks to his detailed descriptions over the years. So many dreams had been conjured within these walls. So many hopes crushed. But not forgotten. He chased their shadows through the rooms, the ghosts of those he loved, which was why he hadn’t set it afire like the Milton’s home.
“I’m not armed.” She held up her hands and stepped over the threshold into darkness. “This is Caroline’s jacket. Since you don’t have any of her possessions, I thought you’d want this. I’m just going to set it down.”
A track of clean wood gleamed along the otherwise dusty floor, tracing a path from the threshold to somewhere beyond the shadows. A trail recently made by footsteps. She toed the dust layer around it, noting the thickness. No one had moved outside that track for months. Probably years.
Placing the jacket on the clean path, she straightened and returned her hands to the air. “I’m standing directly in the sunlight. No weapons. No phone. You can see for yourself.”
No response.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, her breaths quickening with the rush of her words.
“My name is Rylee. Originally from El Paso. I moved from there ten years ago because…uh… Well, I’ll get to that. I know you have a gun trained on me. I don’t blame you since you don’t know me or trust me. But believe me when I say I’m more afraid than you are right now. I mean, I can’t see you, but you can see me. That puts me at a disadvantage. So I’m just going to keep my hands up and slowly step inside. You said this floorboard creaks so…” She put her boot on it, listening to it protest beneath her slight weight. “Don’t shoot.”
With the windows covered and the door wide open, a single beam of sunlight stabbed through the darkness, illuminating dust particles like sparkles of glitter.
They made their way into her lungs, and she coughed, cringing as the hacking sound echoed through the house. Dusty boards, dusty drapes, dusty furniture. In the middle of the desert, there was no escape from the powdered sand that covered every surface and filled every crack. She coughed again, stirring up a maelstrom of dirt into the torpid air.
“I know you’re here, Tommy.” She squinted at the impenetrable shadows, her scalp crawling with dread. “Please, talk to me.”
A rustling sound swished on her left, and she spun toward it, gulping. “Tommy?”
Another soft noise whispered behind her. She whirled again, and the door slammed shut, dousing her in pitch blackness.
Sharp, icy fear shot through her, stiffening her joints and freezing her lungs. She tried to speak, but her voice abandoned her. She needed to move to a window and rip off the drapes, but her legs wouldn’t work.
Why hadn’t she thought to bring the flashlight from the truck?
Another dry cough erupted from her chest, and the wheezing unleashed her voice.
“I’m just going to start talking and try to explain, okay?” She cleared her throat, trembling with unease. “I married the love of my life twenty-three years ago. We had a beautiful life, a promising future, yadda, yadda, lots of superfluous words.” She hugged her waist, fighting down old anger as her senses strained in the dark. “Ten years ago, I walked in on him banging another woman. Maybe it’s not the same loss you experienced with Caroline, but I loved him. Every breath in my body was his. You know what it feels like to lose your entire world. But I’m not as strong as you. I wasn’t. I died that day and had every intention of killing myself for good. I told you how I acquired Caroline’s jacket. I never should’ve logged into the account you created for her. But there I was, standing on the edge of the Pecos River Bridge, when you sent the first email. I wasn’t going to read it. I was just going to delete the account and jump. I was going to die, Tommy. I had no reason to live. Until I saw the subject line of your message. I need you. Do you remember it?”
Her question hung in the dry air, her eyes wide and unblinking. The memory still hurt. The sticky, hateful slime in her stomach never faded. But she’d managed to keep breathing, keep functioning, even if she was dysfunctional as fuck.
She held still, listening for the sounds of his breaths, footsteps, anything to give away his location.
Seconds of tingling silence passed. He hadn’t shot her in the head yet, so that was something.
“You must think I’m a nutjob.” She wiped at the sweat gathering on her brow. “Anyone would think that if I told them about you. I haven’t. No one has seen your emails. But here’s the thing, Tommy. I’m not suicidal anymore. I want to walk out of here unharmed. So I made copies of your messages. They won’t be discovered unless I go missing. If I don’t return home when I’m expected, the authorities will find those copies and know that I drove here to meet with Tomas Owen Dine. I don’t want that to happen. I’m not here to hurt you. I have nothing to gain from that. I just want to talk.” She caught her breath. “Turn on the lights.”
Please, don’t kill me. Please, don’t kill me.
He didn’t make a sound. Nothing.
The longer he kept her in the dark, the more fearful and furious she became.
“I know you’re pissed.” She forced bravado into her tone. “Fine. Yell at me. Let me hear it. Act like a fucking adult and confront me.”
He still had some anonymity because she didn’t know what he looked like. But this wasn’t about him hiding his face. He was fucking with her.