Her stepfather had finally come home.
Erin forced her breathing to stay even as she heard keys jingle outside the house’s front door. She was crouched on top of a washing machine. Had been for what felt like hours. The laundry room included a back door leading to the garden, so she’d been semi-comfortable waiting there, bright sunshine turning to dusk and finally darkness. The only other door led into his kitchen, but he couldn’t trap her from both sides. She had an out if she needed it. Please don’t let me need it.
For almost four days, she’d been following Luther. From the courthouse, he’d gone back to a Motel 6 near O’Hare. She couldn’t get to him there, though. The fear of being cornered in a room with only one escape was too intense. So intense she’d had to work through a panic attack behind the adjacent 7-Eleven with her head tucked between her knees. The lack of sleep and fuel hadn’t helped, but her hunger and exhaustion had paled in the face of not having Connor.
Early the next morning, Luther had left the motel on a bus. By that time, she’d been sitting in the front seat of a Buick she’d hot-wired in anticipation of following him. He’d met a realtor at this house. The realtor had left almost immediately, but her stepfather had stayed inside for almost twenty-four hours. Had he bought the house? Rented it? It was almost completely unfurnished, apart from a few odds and ends the previous tenant had likely left behind.
So she’d waited…hoping to what? She didn’t know exactly. Scare him into leaving her alone? Appealing to a man who had an irrational hatred of her because of something that happened when she was a child? On top of the long shot that he would even listen to her, since when was she capable of convincing anyone of anything? She didn’t exactly have a reputation for being coolheaded and reasonable, especially when it came to this man.
No, she was far more comfortable in the darkness, holding a metal skillet in her hand, as she was at that moment, although she wished it were a book of matches instead. She inhaled and relished the scent of the kerosene she’d splashed strategically around the house’s inside perimeter. Yeah, matches would be a bad idea.
Located in Park Ridge, not too far from the airport, the house had an almost identical layout to his home in Florida. Setting foot inside it hadn’t been easy. Memories had threatened to breach her walls, but she breathed through them.
The weight of the skillet was reassuring. Over the course of the night, it felt like the only thing keeping her from floating up and hitting the ceiling. With each passing hour, she felt less and less real. After nearly four days without exchanging a single word with another person, namely Connor, she was beginning to feel insubstantial. The way she’d felt in solitary. A twist on the age-old question about the tree falling in the woods. If no one was around to communicate with her, did she really exist? She was slipping. Slipping back into that cave without light, and it scared her. She’d never needed anyone before, but she needed Connor now. Needed to be held and made to feel real.
What am I doing here?
That question was the only thing helping. In the past, she’d never once second-guessed her impulses. If she wanted to whack her stepfather upside the head with a blunt object, burn down his house and cackle at the moon afterward, she did it. For so long, she’d existed without a regard for consequences. So what if she ended up in prison? She’d just get herself out. So what if she got another charge on her record? Harvard wasn’t exactly an option at this point anyway. Yet as she sat in the darkness, she found herself anxious. Wondering if there had been any new developments on the Maxwell Stark case. Had the squad solved it without her? The very fact that she didn’t want to be in her stepfather’s house lying in wait, that it felt wrong, told her something inside her had changed for the better. She couldn’t identify it or name it. Right now, it was only a feeling. But she held on tight to it because it made her feel human when in reality, she was someone else’s monster hiding in the darkness.
Ice formed in her veins when her stepfather’s heavy tread moved down the hallway. She didn’t have a plan. Didn’t know what she would do when faced with the man who’d spawned so many nightmares. Her modus operandi had been to avoid him. He wouldn’t expect her to show up. The smile on his face outside the courthouse had been smug. Secure. He thought she would run.
Not this time. If she ran, he would follow. He continued to prove that over and over. Now that the money was being released to her, he’d be twice as tenacious. It would never end. She would never again sleep as soundly as she had in Connor’s bed. His specter would hang over the bed like a ghost, no matter what she did. It would smother her. Knowing him, he would find out her weakness for Connor and use him against her. My Connor.