Frustrated, Paige slammed the laptop shut. The hedges rattled outside her house. Her spine stiffened as she crept to the window. The yard drowned in deep shadow, as if a black tide rolled through the neighborhood. Overhead, a street lamp flickered and died. Perfect. Just what she needed. Whatever had crawled through her yard, it wasn’t there now.
Accepting sleep wouldn’t come to her, even with the trooper stationed outside, Paige padded barefoot to the kitchen and searched the refrigerator for a snack. She settled on a Greek yogurt and set it on the island. The deck door rattled. Her eyes flew to the glass as a shadow vanished from view.
Paige’s heart was a jackrabbit. All speed and terror as she edged away from the glass. A tree cast a grotesque shadow against the deck door, amplified by the moonlight.
Grabbing her phone, she dialed the state trooper’s barracks. The dispatcher sounded half-asleep and irritated she’d called. He assured her she was safe as long as the trooper remained outside.
“But there’s someone behind the house. The officer can’t see my backyard from the street.”
Footsteps crunched through the grass below the kitchen window. She yelled out and backed into the living room.
“He’s circling the house. Tell the officer the intruder is here, the psycho who broke into my home.”
“Remain calm, ma’am. I’m sure it’s just an animal pawing around the yard. I’ll radio the officer and have him take a look.”
Incompetent fool. Paige ended the call and swung her gaze from the door to the upper landing. Instinct told her to flee while she had the chance. Fear kept her rooted in place, her legs blocks of ice that refused to respond.
A knock on the door snapped her head up. It must be the officer checking on her.
She unfroze her body and hurried to the door. Peered through the peephole. Saw nobody on her stoop.
Was this some kind of trick?
She craned her head toward the cruiser and spied the officer in the front seat, his face bathed in darkness, the moonlight glimmering off the hood. The lazy ingrate hadn’t bothered to check her property.
Paige huffed and marched to the kitchen, intent on calling the dispatcher again to give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she snatched her sweatshirt off the table and pulled it over her head. She donned sandals and exited the house, her glare arrowing at the officer. Paige threw up her hands as if to say, “Well, are you going to do anything about the prowler?”
Hands stuffed in her pockets, she crossed the lawn and bee-lined toward the cruiser. Her scowl should have warned him he was about to get an ear full. Yet the window didn’t descend, and the officer stayed put in his seat, ignoring her.
“Hello? Did you not see the person knocking on my door? What the hell is wrong with you people?”
Oh, heads would roll tomorrow. She’d call the officer’s supervisor, the idiot sheriff, the mayor. A dog barked from a few houses away as she rounded the vehicle. The officer leaned against the headrest. Paige issued a mirthless laugh. The son-of-a-bitch was asleep on the job. No wonder he hadn’t responded to dispatch. She bet the jerk had turned his radio off so he could snooze. Meanwhile, the prowler might be inside her house.
Paige pounded her fist against the hood. A blast like a kettle drum. Hoping to jostle the trooper out of his dream, she paused when he didn’t stir. Strange.
She moved to the window and tapped her fingernails against the glass. The driver’s side window was halfway down to let in the summer air. As she tried to get the officer’s attention, his head lolled over and struck the glass. Blood, as black as midnight, curled down from his neck and soaked his uniform. Paige opened her mouth to scream when footfalls thundered behind her.
She whirled and raised her arms as the pick ax arced through the night. The pointed end buried into her skull, splashing fresh blood against the macadam. Paige’s hands grasped the air as though a ladder to heaven descended from the sky. Her knees buckled. Eyes rolled back in her head.
Paige Sutton crumpled against the blacktop as the shadowed killer vanished into the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Sunday, August 15th
12:25 a.m.
Aguilar was already on the scene when Thomas drove into Paige Sutton’s neighborhood. A throng of state troopers and Harmon police officers canvassed the block, shining their flashlights at every shadow and into every hidden corner. The police presence always grew with a killer at large. But when an officer died, the magnitude of the search increased tenfold. An air of hostility hung over the officers. They wanted to tear the neighborhood apart, piece by piece, and hand out frontier justice. Payback for taking one of their own.
Thomas hopped down from his truck and met Aguilar on the curb.
“What have you got?”
“A neighbor discovered Trooper Jamie McBride dead in his vehicle with his throat slashed outside Paige Sutton’s house.”
“Anybody see anything?”
“The woman across the street claims she heard a scream a little after eleven. She peeked out the window, expecting kids were screwing around, and noticed the state trooper cruiser. Assuming the situation was under control, she closed the curtains and went back to her television show. Rocky Cooper, who lives three doors down from Paige Sutton, got home from the late shift at eleven-thirty. Says he thought Trooper McBride had fallen asleep. Cooper stopped his car and spotted the blood. A cruiser was already on the way, because McBride hadn’t responded to calls from dispatch.”
Thomas glanced at Paige Sutton’s house. The door stood open, the house lit like a landing strip while officers searched the residence. The investigation team hadn’t moved McBride’s body. He sprawled in the driver’s seat while the crime scene techs worked. A crowd gathered along the curb and gawked. A pair of officers held them behind the barricade.
“Take pictures of everyone in the crowd,” Thomas said to Aguilar.
