Chapter Five

The minute she said Joe was taking a bath, the alarms began going off inside me. It wasn't the fact that Joe always bathed right before breakfast that set off those alarms. It was remembering what Mitch said earlier about Thomas possibly having help sliding under the bath water that had me breaking speed limits to get to Joe's place.

I felt pending danger the instant I laid eyes on that sweet-looking skinny woman. It was not sweetness I saw when I looked into those glossy eyes of hers, though. It was what I didn't see inside that gave me so much fright.

The rational side of me attempted to warn that I was jumping to the wrong conclusion. But the other side knew there were people without souls. People like the ones I ran a newspaper story about a few months back. Unscrupulous individuals who prey on the elderly. Those brilliant scam artists who can con a senior out of everything they own without a second thought about the devastation left behind by their crime. In the worse case scenario, the senior is not only taken for everything it took a lifetime to acquire, but their lives have been taken as well.

That thought is why I stepped on the gas.

The rain had finally stopped, but a blinding fog was settling in right behind it. Joe's house appeared dark except for the yellow glow coming from the back porch light.

I stepped out of my car and headed toward the light. The sound of a twig snapped somewhere behind me. I refused the urge to look over my shoulder, but picked up speed until my sneakers landed on the paint blistered porch floor. I felt safer in the glow of the porch light and slowly peeked over my shoulder. When a pair of eyes flashed through the haze from a tree branch, I dashed for the door, rattling the knob and banging on the glass top.

The kitchen light came on, but I didn't let up my attack on the door. I heard the deadbolt slide over and turned the knob and pushed. I was greeted by her. The emotionless creature I already decided I did not like.

Before she had a chance to protest my intrusion, I made my first demand.

"Where is Joe?"

"Mr. Wise is not here."

"I'll just check that out for myself," I told her as I brushed against the silky sleeve of her nightgown.

The entire time I went from room to room, lighting up the house like a Christmas tree, I was calling out Joe's name. The search took several minutes to complete. In the end, I hadn't found Joe.

I was halfway down the open staircase when Miss Frosty appeared in the foyer.

"I told you Mr. Wise wasn't here," I was reminded in a tone that made my flesh crawl.

"Who are you anyway?"

"Angel Adams." Angels don't have killer eyes. "I'm Mr. Wise's housekeeper."

"What happened to Ethel?"

"Ethel?"

I was too frustrated to explain to this stranger that Ethel had been Joe's housekeeper and companion for longer than I could remember. I breezed past her and headed back toward the kitchen. At the back door I stopped, looked over my shoulder, and made direct eye contact with her. "You be sure to tell Mr. Wise Fay Cunningham was here," I said.

Her cutting gaze followed me out the door and off the porch into the fog. I felt it. As much as I wanted to make a mad dash for my car, I did not do it. Instead, I stood tall and bravely marched onward. That is until an owl gave out a chilling screech that put me in my car in two giant leaps.

The drive home was a nightmare. If it had not been for the lines down the center of the road and along the edge, I would not have known where the road began or ended. I drove at a snail's pace, hoping-praying, for a set of taillights to follow. No taillights miraculously appeared. But I did spot a reflector on a mailbox, alerting me the road to my place was just ahead. For the life of me though, I could not find it in the haunting fog. Out of nowhere, pair of headlights shot at me from behind, blinding my vision even more.

It was impossible to slow down anymore without coming to a complete stop. I was too afraid to increase the car's speed. So I coasted toward the berm, holding my breath a drainage ditch wasn't there. I finally got lucky. My Lincoln didn't take a nose dive. I also managed to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything or being rear-ended.

Once the blinding headlights shot out around me, I wheeled back onto the road and made a uey. With that successfully accomplished, I flipped on the air vent to blow dry the perspiration that was beading up at various spots on my face.

Calm. Remain calm. Breathe deeply. You'll get there. So how come I doubted the voice that was whispering inside my head? Suddenly headlights gave me another blast from behind. I had no way of knowing if it was the same vehicle from minutes before, but I had a hunch it was.

Don't panic. Stay calm. Don't let your imagination run wild. Then came, don't slow to a stop again. Hit the gas and get this buggy moving. Which is exactly what I did. I was moving, and so was the vehicle behind me.

Adrenaline rushed through me, zapping at my nerve endings and pounding into my flesh. When the driver behind me flicked his lights on high, a second after being blinded by the flash, I caught sight of the road sign. The turn off to my home was upon me. I whipped the steering wheel to the right. My foot came off the accelerator a split second before I went into a spin.

Somehow, I managed to steady the wheel and straighten out the car. It was impossible to level out my breathing until I saw the lights were gone.

Whoever was following me hadn't made the turn. This did enable me to breathe a slight bit easier. But I did not let down my guard as I crept along until I spotted the reflector on my own mailbox.