Then it hit her. He wasn’t looking at the sky. He was looking in her bathroom!
Furious, Sloan spat out the toothpaste and hastily rinsed her mouth. She stood and wiped her face with a towel as she turned toward the window. She was this close to giving the pervert a piece of her mind.
Angry, she threw the towel down and said a few choice words under her breath. She started out the door and froze. Her sleepy brain had finally woken up.
She knew that face.
Boyd.
Slowly, Sloan turned and peeked out the window, praying he didn’t see her cowering. He was upright. No wheelchair in sight. And staring at her. He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch, and didn’t take his eyes off of her.
Heart beating out of her chest, Sloan slung the door open, ran out of the bathroom, and grabbed her cellphone from her room. As she ran down the stairs, she fumbled through her contact list until she found the number for Detective Mary Morgan. The detective had said to call her if she needed anything. Well, Boyd standing across the street sure counted. She needed her.
“Hello. Detective Morgan.” A lady answered on the second ring as Sloan reached the bottom of the stairs. Her tone sounded business as usual. Not even a hint of sleepiness on Monday morning.
“He’s here!” Sloan yelled as she put her hand on the door handle.
“Who? Is this Sloan Bridges?”
“It’s me. He’s here.” Sloan flung open the door and ran down the steps so she could see the sidewalk parallel to the bathroom better. “He’s…” Gone.
Nothing. No one across the road from her. She made circles in the grass, looking everywhere for him. It hadn’t been two minutes since she’d seen him. He couldn’t have gotten away that quickly.
Feeling brave, she ran across the road to where she’d seen him. Sure enough, when she looked up, she saw her bathroom. It made her sick that all this time anyone could have peeked in without her knowing it.
“Sloan! Sloan!” She heard yelling in the phone in her hand. She’d completely forgotten about Detective Morgan.
Sloan raised it to her ear as she kept scanning the area. “He was here. I saw him.”
“Who?”
“Boyd.”
There was a pause. “Boyd Lawrence? He was at your house?”
Sloan took a second to catch her breath. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt. “I saw him looking in my bathroom window.”
“Your bathroom is on the second floor if I remember correctly.”
“It is, but he stood across the street. You can stand at a certain angle and see in the bathroom.” She didn’t have time to explain geometry to her. “The point is I saw him, and he saw me.”
“He was in his wheelchair, Sloan. With a monitor on it. We didn’t get an alarm that it left his house.”
Did she not get it? Why wasn’t she sending officers to check on her? Why weren’t they going to Boyd’s house? “No wheelchair. He was walking. Please. Send someone here to check it out. He could still be around somewhere.”
She turned her phone off, giving help plenty of time to get to her house quickly. Detective Morgan, the police, the cavalry, it didn’t matter as long as they showed up and showed up now.
“Where are you? Where are you?” Sloan whispered and tapped her phone nervously on her fingers. She had evidence Boyd had been there — her eyes, but the police wouldn’t believe that. They’d need something concrete, and she’d give it to them. If only she could find it.
Sloan turned when a car slowed behind her, scared it might be Boyd to grab her and drag her off to finish want he started in December.
It wasn’t Boyd. The silver Honda only belonged to one person: her best friend Mackenzie Woodard.
“Looking for something?” she asked, slightly amused as she drove slowly with the window rolled down.
“I saw him,” Sloan blurted out.
“Who?” Mackenzie slammed on the brake and put the car into park.
“Boyd!” She probably shouldn’t have yelled, but she needed someone to believe her.
“Boyd?” Mackenzie jumped out of her car and ran to Sloan’s side. “Boyd Lawrence was here? Where is he?” She looked all around them. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. I was brushing my teeth, and I saw him looking in the window at me from this side of the street. You can see… see?” Mackenzie’s eyes followed Sloan’s finger until they reached the bathroom window.
“I do see. You need to keep your blinds down.”
“Obviously.” Immodesty was the least of her worries.
“And you are sure it was him?”
“No doubts.”
“How did he get his wheelchair here all the way from Brown Hollow Road? Did someone drive him, you think?”
“He wasn’t in the wheelchair.”
Mackenzie’s eyes widened then her brows furrowed. Sloan felt the same way.
Confused.