Teased to Death (Misty Newman 1) (9 page)

I looked into Jax's eyes, unable to decipher the emotion staring back at me.

I cleared my throat and whispered softly, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? You've still never explained why you up and left. But even so, you never came back, didn't look back one damn time at what we had—do you
know
how much that hurt?"

Jax had moved forward, and now his chin hovered just above my lips, which trembled with the close proximity, the emotions between us running deep.

"I
did
come back." My voice shook slightly. "I ran away to college because I didn't know any better. They offered me a full scholarship, and I didn't think I could turn it down."

"Didn't
want
to turn it down…"

"Don't you understand that, Jax?" I peered up at him. "Haven't you ever felt the desire to get up and leave this town, if only for a second? Little Lake will always be here. Don't you understand that urge?"

It was Jax's turn to breathe quietly, at a loss for words.

"Between my crazy family, this nosy town, and my desire to be successful at the one thing I was good at—school—no, it didn't seem like an option to turn down the scholarship."

Jax opened his mouth, then shut it for a moment before he spoke. "But you didn't come back. I didn't hear from you once you left."

Jax had proposed to me the night I graduated high school. He was a few years older, already studying to become a police officer. At the time, I knew we'd had something special, but I figured it would still be there, waiting for me in a few years. Or I'd find someone just as special somewhere else.

Plus, having kids wasn't on the foreseeable horizon for me, and adventure called. I'd been given a full ride to a prestigious college out in Los Angeles—but it came at a cost much larger than tuition. Jax was bound to Minnesota, since he'd already started the police academy. He didn't want to move across the country and start over. His family was here. His life existed in Little Lake.

His proposal had been clear: stay in Minnesota and get married.

There'd been no
long distance
clause or a four-year waiting agreement. It was the ultimate ultimatum. I'd chosen the safer route, or so I'd thought at the time, and I opted for college. Had I been right or wrong? Impossible to say.

"But I did come back," I said softly. "I flew back three weeks later to tell you I was sorry, and I saw you in the window of Lenny's with another girl. You'd moved on."

I cleared my throat, beads of dampness lining the corners of my eyes. I couldn't look at Jax, but I could feel his gaze on me. Without a word, he strode past me and climbed into his cop car without looking back. Just as I'd done ten years before, driving off to California.

A small sniff escaped, but I refused to cry anymore over my past. As they said,
every sinner has a future, and every saint has a past
. My past just happened to be not all sunshine and roses and smart decisions. Because as it turned out, college wasn't my calling after all. But burlesque had been just around the corner.

I'd dyed my hair neon pink and purple ombré, slipped into my first pair of fishnets, and the rest was history. I'd vowed never to let school keep me from following my heart ever again.

As luck would have it, I ran into one of my new dance students as she pulled up and parked.

"Hey, Misty," Anna said. She had longish brown hair, a quiet disposition, and a sweet smile.

"Hey! How are you, Anna? I'm just headed home. Taking my sister shooting on Friday." I held up the pack of BBs sheepishly.

"Oh, that's great. I wouldn't trust myself around a squirt gun, let alone a BB gun." She winked. "But I imagine it's great bonding time."

"Oh, of course." A sudden thought occurred to me. "Actually, do you have a cell phone I could use really quick? I was going to stop over to her place, but I don't have my phone with me."

"Ah…I hate when I forget mine."

She pulled a demure, dark-brown case out of her purse and handed it over. "There's no pass code."

"Thanks." I smiled and turned away. She didn't need to know that
not having my phone with me
was code for
didn't need it, since it didn't have service anyway
.

"What's up, Sis?" I listened for a moment as Harmony excitedly greeted me. "Hey listen, I'm coming to get you. Feel like playing with Donna's kids tonight?"

"Yay!" Harmony shrieked. "I'll get all my stuff ready."

"It's just dinner. No need to pack a suitcase."

"But I need books, and I got a new craft weaver that I want to show Lisa, and I also—"

"Yeah, yeah. As long as it can fit in a backpack and you don't whine when it's time to go. I'll be there soon."

I hung up. "Thanks a lot, Anna."

"You're good friends with Donna?"

"Yeah, we've been best buds for a long time," I said.

"Ah…so you must know her brother, then?"

"Her brother?"

"Jax," she said.

"Oh…yeah. Vaguely." Even though his name warmed me to the depths of my soul. Whether out of anger or passion or love or confusion, I couldn't be sure.

"Man, he's
scorching
." Anna fanned herself. "I didn't know he was going out with Sarah from class. I'm envious. A cop
and
a hunk…all from small town Little Lake, born and raised? Whooooeee."

"Yeah, I think they're a new couple."

"That's why I hadn't heard anything. Ah, well. Maybe they'll break up, and we'll all get our chances—am I right?" she tittered.

I gave her a halfhearted smile that I hoped passed for whole-hearted. "I gotta get going. Sister's waiting."

"Of course. See you Monday!"

With a quick wave, she was off into Al's. It was still only late afternoon, so I had some time to kill before heading over to Mom's to pick up Harmony. Walking the short distance home, I ran through my mental checklist of things to knock out with my extra time. Maybe a shower wouldn't be so bad. I took a whiff of myself. Definitely, a shower couldn't hurt.

I headed up my driveway a few minutes later, lugging the BBs under my arm. I pressed the kitchen door open, deposited the BBs on the sink, and took a quick handful of Froot Loops from my backup stash above the sink. I needed energy somehow to power through a shower and make it to Donna's, and then proceed to have enough energy to deal with her cute, energetic little rug rats. All five of them.

I jogged up the steps, skipping the crooked one, and headed into my bathroom. Climbing into the shower, I cranked the water as hot as I could handle and let it wash over me.

When I heard the first thunk, I thought I'd bumped my elbow against the wall. But when the second thump sounded even louder than the first, I shut off the water. The sound of footsteps sprinting down my stairs—the stairs
inside my house
—was unmistakable.

Someone had broken in while I'd been showering.

Or—a thought sent chills up my spine—someone had been inside this whole time, and I'd happened to catch them in the middle of their snooping.

I froze, my heart leaping into my throat and pulsing in my ears. The silence was so absolute that my thoughts sounded loud. The front door, or so I guessed from upstairs, banged as if it'd been flung open against the wall.

Grabbing the fluffy blue towel from the rack next to the shower, I leapt onto the mat, enveloped myself in the cloth, and hightailed it to the stairs.
I should probably call the police
was a passing thought that came into my head and then flew right on out of it.

There'd be time to call the police after I caught a glimpse of the intruder. Chances were high it was related to Anthony Jenkins's murder. If that was the case, I needed to find the intruder. This terrorizing, first of my studio and now of my home, needed to stop.

By the time I skidded into the entryway, the flapping front door hung slightly crooked on its hinges, and a huge black mark was gouged out of my wall where the knob had cracked into the paint. I flew out the door, still dripping wet and clothed only by the towel.

"Stop," I shouted, running a few paces down the driveway.

A figure bolted away down the road, a bulky, dark-gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants disguising the basic outline of the person. The person was fast. The figure leapt onto a bicycle that'd been stashed off to the side of the road a few blocks down. I hadn't noticed it during my lackadaisical trip home, as it'd been tossed into some lilac bushes.

My shoulders heaving, breath coming in huge gulps, I slowed my pace. I came to a complete stop a few steps later, and put my hands on my knees. I'd never be able to capture the intruder while I was barefoot and they were shoed. Especially if they had a bike. Or a…
a cop car?

The intruder stopped a few blocks down the road, and if I hadn't raced out into my driveway, I never would've noticed the fact that there'd been a cop car parked at the gas station. The man, or so I assumed, threw his bike into the trunk of the cop car, hopped in the front seat, and squealed away, lights blinking blue and red.

There's no way I would've been able to catch a bicyclist. But there was
definitely
no way I'd be able to catch a car. Especially one with flashing lights.

Eventually, I picked up my spirits enough to reenter my home. This time, I took careful stock of where everything was placed as I slowly swept my way through my grandmother's old house. Nothing in the kitchen seemed amiss, or in the living room, dining room, or the den. In fact, the first floor seemed completely untouched, except for my now-slightly-crooked door and the black ding mark against the wall.

Before I went upstairs, I considered calling the police. But I realized that calling the cops on themselves wasn't the best plan I'd ever had. Not to mention, I couldn't even act on the plan if I wanted.

Get a phone, Misty
, I told myself.
So you have the option
to call someone
.

First thing tomorrow, I'd stop at Al's. Even if I only had ten dollars to my name, I was getting a ten-dollar phone. Or a walkie-talkie, whichever worked better.

Oh well, it was time for me to head to Donna's house anyway. I considered rescheduling but decided against it for multiple reasons. The first was easy, as I didn't have a phone to reschedule
with
. Also, I didn't exactly feel like being alone tonight. It was a bit creepy being in this old home all by myself, knowing that someone else had been in here with me while I was showering minutes before.

I trooped upstairs, anxious to discover the damage that'd been done. It was looking less and less like it had been a random burglary, based on the fact that none of my things were taken.

A simple thief would've at least grabbed
something
. Although, in his defense, it's not like I had a lot of stuff lying around to grab, anyway. When I reached my bedroom, nothing immediately looked astray. My purse, credit card, and the single pair of tiny diamond studs my grandmother had given me were all safe and sound, just where I'd left them. More and more, I felt confused. What did the culprit want?

If he'd been there to hurt me, then why had he run away?

If he'd been here to take something, had I scared him away, or did I simply not have what he was looking for?

Seeing nothing out of place in any of the rooms I checked, I returned to my bedroom and grabbed a sweatshirt and my stretchiest pair of jeans. One needed to be able to binge after a nerve-wracking event like this one.

Reaching for my sock drawer, the realization that something was off hit me. My fishnet stocking drawer was slightly ajar. I'd closed it this morning for sure. It bothered me when drawers were open a titch, so almost a hundred percent of the time, I kept my drawers shut firmly.

"So strange," I muttered. "Fishnets?"

I yanked the drawer the rest of the way open. It was impossible to tell whether or not anything was missing, since I had a plethora of stockings, none of them matched up in pairs. I wasn't a huge fan of wasting time rolling my socks together.

I poked around a bit more. Maybe they were looking for money, I thought. That gave me a chuckle. If they wanted money, all they needed to do was show up at my studio—that's where all my money had gone. Into the sparkly mirrors, the shiny floors, and the men's shirts dangling from the closet. Any money I hadn't spent there had gone to the measly stocked pantry full of dry pasta noodles and boxes of Froot Loops.

I stretched up, scanning the rest of my room and not seeing anything else terribly out of place. I was starting to feel a bit of the heebie-jeebies being in my home alone, especially with no phone, so I quickly threw on some comfy yoga pants instead of the jeans, and a droopy, white knit sweater. A quick glance in the mirror above my dresser, and I deduced I was ready to rock and roll, the off-the-shoulder sweater even making me feel a bit fancy.

I gave the fishnet-stockings drawer a once-over again, but if anything was missing. it was one measly stocking. There was nothing else to take.

The next thought struck me like a gong: What if it was the killer, coming by to take more of my stockings for another murder?

My heart rate sped up exponentially, and the creepy-crawly feeling intensified, the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck prickling. With no car and no phone, now was not the time to be a half mile away from my neighbors. I slung my purse over my shoulder and hustled out the front door. Though I locked it and double-checked it twice, it didn't make me feel much safer. Plus, the sun was sinking, and by now it was almost dinnertime.

I scurried down the road in the direction of my mother's house, glancing over my shoulder the entire while. I couldn't shake the feeling that a missing stocking was a bad sign, both for me and for the next victim.