“Well, it’s pretty necessary, and my grandmother is berating me now because I helped Grandpa get a basset hound, and apparently now the two are inseparable. She wanted him to take her shopping, but he doesn’t want to leave Leo.”
Jessica chuckled. “I can see that happening too,” she said. “I think pets are good for older people.”
“Pets are good for all people,” he said.
“So, you are only here temporarily then, right?”
He looked up at her with that piercing blue gaze and shrugged. “Nothing in my life is permanent right now, and what that means is that all options are on the table.”
“Wow,” she said, “that’s a unique way to live.”
“Not necessarily. I have military benefits, so I have money coming in,” he said. “I just haven’t figured out what I want to do on a full-time basis now.”
“Well, you’re great with the dog,” she said, “so you can do any kind of training with animals.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Sometimes I think about going into law enforcement, but just watching these guys at work reminds me why I don’t want to get involved with that.”
“I don’t think you handle authority all that well, do you?”
“Wow,” he said, looking at her in surprise. “When I was in the military, I did very well, thank you very much.”
She chuckled. “That’s not what I mean. What I really meant was that you don’t suffer fools gladly. You don’t, do you?”
“No, that I do not,” he said, his smile widening. He got up to check the food in the oven. “Dinner’s almost ready,” he said, “maybe another fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d be hungry, but it smells delicious.” She got up to set the table, and, before long, they were eating. “It seems like all I’ve done is eat today,” she remarked, after finishing a plateful.
“When we’re tired and stressed, sometimes we need extra just to keep going.”
“So says you,” she said. “I’m just eating extra because it tastes so good.”
He burst out laughing. “And nothing is wrong with that either.” He reached out and snagged another sausage and put it on his plate. As he went to grab a few more vegetables, the lights in the dining room went out. She gasped and stared at him. He looked around slowly. “It’s not just the dining room light,” he said in a hard voice. “All the power’s out.”
“Just my house though, right?”
As she went to get up, he said, “Stay seated. Don’t move.” He got up and walked over to the kitchen, then checked out the window and nodded. “Just your house.”
“And that means what?” she asked, her voice turning faint.
“It means we’ve got company,” he said. “I want you to take Danny and Kona up to your room. Now.”
Immediately she snatched up Danny, and Kona, already knowing something was wrong, was right on her heels. Jessica went up the stairs to her bedroom, then sat on her bed, clutching Danny, completely terrorized, but knew that, with Kona and Greyson, they were in the best position possible to survive this. She just hoped it was enough.
“Only a couple reasons why the power would be out,” he muttered to himself. “One is an accident, but then it should be more than just this house.” As far as he could see, the outage was isolated here.
That meant somebody had interrupted the service to the main part of the house. Which would be foolish because there was no need for it, and it just alerted everyone that the guy had returned. And, if the kidnapper was back and didn’t know Greyson was here, the guy would find out now.
Greyson pulled out his pocketknife from his back pocket and shifted it to his front pocket, where it was a little more accessible. And then, with the rope in his hand that he’d used for Kona earlier, he slowly moved through the downstairs, looking out each of the windows to see who and what might be moving outside. But, of course, nobody was moving. It was quiet as a mouse out there.
But somebody had done this.
He quickly sent out a message to Badger and then to the cops that Greyson was checking the grounds for an intruder. He didn’t think anybody at the police station would care because it wouldn’t be enough of an issue yet. But he didn’t want to see this go down with nobody knowing they had a problem.
Badger immediately called. “Watch your back.”
“Already in progress,” he said, “just not terribly comfortable right now.”
“Did you contact the police?”
“I did,” he said. “Not sure they give a shit though. I’m pretty sure they think we are nothing but problems.”
“I’ll contact them,” Badger said. “Keep that little boy safe.”
“I plan to keep all of us safe,” he said, “and, if Kona wants a fresh leg bone to chew on, I’m okay with that too.” And he meant it. He’d about had enough of this asshole tormenting Jessica and Danny. He hung up with Badger and crept upstairs to tell Jessica. “Stay here with Kona and Danny. I’m gonna sneak out and do a sweep of the property. Be right back.”
“How soon?” Jessica asked, the fear evident in her gaze and her tone.
“Give me fifteen minutes.” He nodded, patting her shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
Jessica did as instructed and waited. What a long time fifteen minutes became in this situation. Finally, just as the lights turned back on, Greyson texted to say he was at the French doors. She slipped downstairs let him in. “Nothing?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I also checked the utility pole and your outside meter. The meter had been turned off. I flipped a switch, so obviously you have power again.”
“But you didn’t see Frank or evidence that he had been here?”
“No.”
“You should have taken Kona with you,” Jessica said, yet the fear remained in her gaze.
“Not leaving you and Danny without a guard.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait for him to return.”
Greyson figured Frank
