“Mom! Mom!”
“What? I’m right here. What?” Jamie had half-fallen asleep while reading, but now she sat straight up, wide awake from Harley’s shrieking voice.
“It’s Marissa! Someone broke into the house and came at her with a knife!”
Chapter Sixteen
“What? What?” Jamie leaped out of bed. She was still in her clothes, having fallen asleep in them.
“She’s . . . she’s . . . in the bedroom, hiding with the kids. . . .” Harley’s voice was shaking and tears stood in her eyes.
“Did she call 9-1-1? Is he still in the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus Christ!” Jamie was full of horror.
“I’ll text her.”
“I’ll call 9-1-1,” Jamie said, waking fully to the horror of the moment, her hand scrabbling on the bedside table for her phone.
“She did! She called 9-1-1,” Harley declared in relief, staring at the screen of her phone. A rush of sudden tears ran down her face.
“Good. Good. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Jamie hardly knew what to do.
She glanced down the hallway to Emma’s closed door, then pulled Harley inside her tiny room and closed the door. “We need to . . .”
“We need to do something!”
“Cooper. Um . . . I’ll . . .” She was already scrolling through her favorites for his number.
He answered almost immediately. “Jamie?”
The lilt of expectation in his voice made her nose sting. “Cooper, Marissa called 9-1-1. She says someone broke in. She called Harley.”
A beat. “When?” His tone had changed to hard and cold.
“Just a few minutes ago?”
“My phone’s ringing . . .” And he was gone.
Harley looked at Jamie. They stood frozen for a moment, then Harley hurled herself into Jamie’s arms, sobbing wildly.
* * *
Cooper broke all records driving to the Ryersons’. He’d been called by Marissa, who’d told him the police had arrived from her 911 call and that everyone was safe. There was no one there and no sign of an intruder. Her voice was shaking. He’d asked her about the kids, who’d been asleep through most of it and now were wide-eyed, crying and staring at the police: two officers who hadn’t realized Marissa was Cooper’s stepdaughter.
“Did you call your mom?” he asked her.
“No. But I did call Mr. Ryerson.” He could hear the unshed tears clogging her voice.
“Good. Call your mom. I’ll be there in ten.”
He made it in five.
As soon as he entered, he saw Marissa on the couch, a twin under each arm. She bounded up and ran to him, burying her face in his chest. The twins’ crying grew louder, and Cooper gently unwound Marissa from his arms and told her she needed to make sure they were okay. She followed his advice but kept tight hold of one of his hands. The officers, Crake and O’Hara, stood to one side. Crake lifted his chin at Cooper, indicating he wanted to talk to him.
“I need to talk to the officers.”
“I need to tell you what happened,” said Marissa.
The twins, a girl and a boy, were sniffling and staring at him with wide, scared eyes.
“Stay with the kids. I’ll just be a minute.”
“You’re not leaving?” she asked on a gasp.
“No. I’m just talking to them.”
He gently moved away from Marissa. She was clearly traumatized. But she stayed put, rubbing the kids’ backs absently, her eyes seeing some other horror.
Crake gestured for him to come through the kitchen and into the small access room by the back door. Cooper remembered the layout from the pranking. Nothing much had changed with the decor since. The creaky window by the back door was closed, but he suspected it would still creak if he opened it.
“She said a guy in a ski suit and mask came after her with a knife.”
Cooper felt a distinct shock. “What?”
“Came in through the back door,” Crake went on. “There was no sign of anyone when we got here. No break-in. Your daughter ran into the bedroom both kids were sleeping in, shut the door, and jammed a chair beneath the knob. She was on the phone with a friend. Got off it to call 9-1-1.”
“You came in through the back door?”
“Yeah. Front was locked. We cleared the place. She and the kids were in the bedroom. Nobody.”
Something in his tone caught Cooper’s attention. “You think she just got scared and called and now’s making it up?”
“I don’t know.”
He could buy that she might’ve gotten scared and called 911. Marissa was imaginative enough. But she wasn’t an out-and-out liar to cover up a mistake. “If she says someone was here with a knife, I’m going to believe her.”
Crake bent his head. “She’s certainly scared enough,” he agreed.
Cooper went back to Marissa, who grabbed his hand again. The kids clung to her.
“Why?” Marissa asked him, her voice teary.
“I don’t know.” Cooper squeezed her hand.
Why was the question he still asked himself about Emma. And now a second time? At the same house? While someone was babysitting?
A screech of tires sounded from outside, and suddenly Laura was there, hugging Marissa hard and scaring the twins. The two children, Oliver and Anika, Marissa managed to tell him, allowed Cooper to kneel in front of them and talk to them. Then Ted Ryerson was there, rushing in from the back, looking wild-eyed. Upon seeing their father, the twins burst into fresh tears and jumped forward to meet him.
“I’ve got my daughter,” Laura told Cooper when he turned his attention to Marissa again.
“Mom . . .” Marissa protested weakly.
“Can I talk to her a moment?” Cooper asked. The two officers, upon checking with Ryerson and making sure everyone was fine, left the scene to Cooper, and Ted Ryerson took his twins into his bedroom because they refused to be away from him.
“Tomorrow.” Laura put her foot down.
“It’ll be quick,” Cooper promised her.
Laura wouldn’t let him
