Her fingers curled tightly around her pepper spray. She didn’t know whether to freeze or run back and look, but at least her pepper spray was aimed and ready.
There were two locks, she reminded herself: the lock on the knob and a dead bolt above. No one was getting in that way.
But there was a small glass-paned window in the rear door, too. If the intruder smashed it in, then reached through for the knob and the dead bolt...
“Devin, you there? Devin?”
She jumped at the sound of Rocky’s voice on her phone. “Yes,” she whispered. “He’s at the back door.”
“It’s locked, right?”
“Yes. But...”
“But what?”
“I don’t hear anything. I think he moved,” she said.
She was shaking, she realized, but then something snapped inside her and she realized she was angry even more than she was afraid. She moved quickly across the room, phone in one hand, pepper spray in the other. She wasn’t going to crouch like a cornered rabbit by the wall. If someone came in, she was going to get them first.
Light suddenly flared out front, quickly growing until it sent an amber glow through the drapes and into the parlor.
“He’s out front and something...something’s happening,” she whispered.
“I’m on your street. Stay where you are.”
Devin hugged the wall, silent, watching the mysterious glow.
And then she smelled the smoke.
“Fire,” she said. “He’s trying to burn me out.”
*
Rocky jerked his car onto Devin’s lawn, shocked to see that the lawn on the left side of the house was ablaze.
He slammed the car into Park and jumped out, pulling his gun. Racing to the front door, he shouted her name. He could feel the heat of the fire ripping through the slight chill of the night, but despite his fear for Devin he realized that it hadn’t been set where it would ignite the house.
The front door flew open. Devin was there, a fierce light in her eyes along with the fear, her dark hair spilling over the long white T-shirt she wore. Unharmed and well, pepper spray clutched tightly in her fingers.
Not a typical damsel in distress, he thought wryly. She might welcome help, but she was also ready to fight to her dying breath. “It’s all right,” he told her, reaching her and lowering her hand. “It’s me.”
“The yard’s on fire.”
“Yes,” he said. He had his phone out as he scanned the yard and dialed 9-1-1—and then Jack Grail.
“A fire?” Jack demanded. “Someone set a fire in her yard?”
“Yes, it seems to be in a circular pattern,” Rocky said, then turned to Devin.
“Get back inside and lock the door,” he told her.
“Like hell! Everyone knows not to split up,” she said.
“Devin—get in and lock the door. No one’s in there, and you’ll be safer inside.”
And there wasn’t going to be anyone in back, either. Whoever had been here had escaped into the woods and was probably long gone by now.
They’d come to torment Devin, not to hurt her.
But why?
Even though he knew he wouldn’t find anyone, he wasn’t about to take chances with Devin’s safety. He moved carefully around the house, circling toward the back.
As he suspected, he didn’t find anyone. And though he scanned for footprints, he didn’t find any of those, either, because the ground was too hard.
By the time he circled back to the front door, he could hear the sirens of the fire truck and police cars that were on the way.
The fire had already died down, though, which meant that with the moonlight, he could see the pattern burned into the lawn.
It was a pentagram—a pentacle, actually. A five-pointed star surrounded by a circle.
He headed back to the front door, where she’d been watching for him, and she opened it as he reached it.
“Gone?” she asked.
“Yes, we’ll get men searching the woods, but...yeah, long gone. I’m betting he took off the minute he lit the fire.”
A fire engine arrived then. Men started working on what remained of the blaze, and the chief approached Devin and Rocky.
“Chief Lindy,” he said. “Anyone hurt?”
“No, we’re fine,” Rocky said.
“What happened?” the chief asked.
Rocky presented his ID and told Lindy, “Someone was walking around her house—apparently trying to break in. But I believe his real intent was to set that fire.”
Devin looked at him, then to the place where the firemen had already put out the blaze.
Chief Lindy followed her gaze. “Looks like he used an accelerant to draw a pattern. We’ll get our experts on it,” he said grimly.
“Thank you,” Rocky told him.
Police cars were already pulling onto the grass. Several officers got out, but Jack was the first one to reach them. He looked haggard.
“You all right?” he asked. Frowning, he, too, studied the burned pattern on the lawn. He turned to Rocky. “So...someone came here to burn a pentagram into Devin’s lawn?”
“Looks that way,” Rocky said.