Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (13 page)

Cracking my eyes open, I glanced around the room. Everything looked fine until I noticed specks of red all over my ivory comforter.

Red rose petals were strewn all over my bed.

Shrieking, I sat up and scrambled backward, bumping into the headboard.

Rose petals were scattered in a path that led from my bed out the open doorway into the hall.

My heart hammering in my chest, I got out of bed and rounded the corner into the hallway, terrified of what I’d find. The petals continued down the hall and led to my sofa, which was now covered in red splatters, eerily similar to Momma’s sofa after her head had been bashed in by Daniel Crocker with her rolling pin. I fought hysteria and swallowed to keep from throwing up as I inched closer, terrified the red stains were blood. A wooden rolling pin covered in red on one end lay on the middle cushion next to a geode with purple crystals, both pinning a piece of paper in place. I carefully pulled the sheet out, my hand shaking so hard I could barely read the handwritten note.

My dearest Rose,

You and I have business that I’m
very much
looking forward to finishing.

Eternally yours, Dan

I stumbled into the bedroom and grabbed my phone off the nightstand, trying to get my fingers to cooperate to dial Mason’s number. But I was having trouble breathing and my vision was blackening around the edges.
I will not pass out
. After two more deep breaths, my vision returned to normal, but a new thought hit me.

What if Daniel Crocker was still in the house?

My clumsy hand dropped the phone and I fumbled to pick it up as I ran down the hall and out the kitchen door. Standing in the driveway in my spaghetti strap nightgown and barefeet, I struggled to see the numbers on my phone through my tears.

Get it together, Rose
.

I blinked and the screen cleared enough for me to find Mason’s speed dial.

“Rose?” He sounded alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

Do not freak him out
. I was freaked out enough for both of us. “How did you know something’s wrong?”

“Because you’re calling me at six-thirty in the morning and you’re crying.”

“Someone’s been in my house.”

“Get out of there.
Now
!”

“I did. I am.” I shook my head. “I’m standing in my driveway.”

“Go to Heidi Joy’s. Or even better, Mildred’s.”

That cleared my head. “I’m not going to
Mildred’s
house.”

“Did you call 9-1-1?”

“No, I called you. And he’s not here anymore.” I was starting to feel more in control. “He got his point across.”

“
Who
? What happened?” He sounded breathless. “Never mind. Tell me when I get there. Just go to Heidi Joy’s.
Now
.”

“Do you want me to call 9-1-1?”

“No. We’re already on our way.”

“We? You’re with the police? At this time of morning? Why?”

“I’m with the sheriff and he’s already got someone on the way. Are you at Heidi Joy’s yet?”

“No, I’m on the phone with you.”

“
Go over there
!”

“He’s already gone, Mason. I’m safe.” For now.

“Rose, just humor me.
Please
.”

“Okay. I’m going,” I said, climbing her front porch.

“Stay put. I’ll be right there,” Mason said before hanging up.

But I couldn’t bring myself to wake Heidi Joy up. She had looked so exhausted the last few times I’d seen her that I didn’t want to steal her precious sleep and scare her half to death by telling her that someone had broken into my house. Again.

I sat on a chair on her front porch and wrapped my arms across my chest. Now that my shock had worn off, I was getting cold. I considered going back inside my house to get a robe, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I hadn’t lied to Mason when I said that I was sure Daniel Crocker was gone. But the horror of what happened was hitting me.

Psychopath Daniel Crocker had been in my house—while I’d slept—and I hadn’t known it. He could have easily killed me; he’d chosen to taunt me instead.

But how? The last I heard, Daniel Crocker was cornered in a warehouse in Shreveport.

Two police cars turned the corner and pulled up in front of my house, lights flashing and sirens blaring. This had happened so often over the last six months that I was surprised my neighbors hadn’t signed a petition to get me kicked out of the neighborhood. I couldn’t say I would blame them.

A car from the sheriff’s office pulled up next, and Mason’s car was right behind it. His door flew open and Mason bounded across the yard, shrugging off his jacket. “Rose, I told you to go into Heidi Joy’s house.” He pulled me out of the chair and put his coat around my bare shoulders.

“No. You told me to go
to
Heidi Joy’s. I just couldn’t wake her and scare the living daylights out of her. Although I’m sure the sirens did it for me.”

He glanced down at my feet. “You don’t even have any shoes on.”

“I saw…
it
and just grabbed my phone and ran out the door.”

“What is
it
?”

“Go see for yourself.”

Heidi Joy’s front door opened and Andy, Sr. came out wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a stained T-shirt, running his hand through his bed-head hair. “What’s going on?”

Mason put his arm around my shoulders. “Can Rose wait inside for a bit? Someone’s broken into her house.”

“
Again
?”

I cringed.

“Rose, there’s something I have to tell you first,” Mason said. Taking a deep breath, he turned me to face him, keeping a strong arm around my back. “Daniel Crocker wasn’t in the warehouse in Shreveport.”

“I know.”

His face paled. “How do you know?”

“He left me a note.”

He pushed me inside the front door and turned to Andy, his face hardening. “Do
not
let her out of your sight.” Then he hurried across the yard, intercepting the policemen who were about to go through my open kitchen door.

I stared out the front window, wondering why these things kept happening to me. I had lived a simple, boring life until Daniel Crocker showed up at the DMV that Friday in May, just five months ago.

Mason came back about ten minutes later, carrying a pair of shoes and clothing wadded up in a ball. He handed them to me, looking embarrassed. “I figured you’d want some clothes. Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll take you for breakfast. We can talk about what we found.”

“Okay.” I grabbed the clothes and started down the hall. As I unwrapped the wad, I quickly found the source of Mason’s embarrassment. He’d gotten me a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, but he’d also picked out a pair of panties and a bra. It had to be pretty apparent that I was braless in my nightgown. I closed my eyes, taking a moment to wallow in my humiliation.

When I finished changing, I put on my shoes and Mason slipped his hand into mine and led me outside to his car.

“Don’t you have to stick around?”

“No, Sheriff Foster and Jeff are in there and I trust them to do a thorough investigation.” He opened the passenger door and climbed behind the steering wheel. “Are you okay, Rose?”

“Yeah,” I said, watching several sheriff’s deputies walk into my house. This was a new twist to the law enforcement invasion of my house. I’d never entertained the sheriff before. “I’m fine.”

We were silent as Mason drove through town, heading away from most of the restaurants that were open this early. He kept his gaze focused on the road, but I could tell he was upset.

I turned toward him. “I thought we were getting breakfast.”

“We are. At my house. I don’t think you should be in public right now.”

“You mean out in the open.”

He didn’t say anything and my stomach revolted. I looked in the side mirror and realized the car behind us had been following us through several turns. Inhaling sharply, I turned to Mason in a panic. “Somebody’s following us.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand. “It’s okay. It’s a sheriff’s deputy in an unmarked car. He’s protecting us.”

Nodding, I pressed my knuckles to my lips. How was this happening? Panic bubbled up in my chest and I took deep breaths to calm down.

Mason squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, Rose. It’s going to be okay.”

I closed my eyes, telling myself I had nothing to worry about. Half the law enforcement officers in southern Arkansas were looking for Crocker. But it was the reassurance of the man next to me that made me believe everything could be okay.

He turned into a section of condos in the newer part of town, one that bordered Violet’s cookie-cutter neighborhood. The condos were all upscale, with stone and brick and stucco exteriors. But as we drove past the well-manicured lawns, I couldn’t help noticing how boring the landscaping looked.

When he pulled into a driveway, I looked through the windshield at the two-story four-plex that loomed ahead. “So this is where you live?”

“This is it.” As he led me through the front door I noticed the car that had been following us was parked at the curb across the street. Mason locked the door.

“Do you think he’d come here looking for me?”

Mason stopped and hesitated as he searched my eyes. “Yes. Crocker is bat-shit crazy and obsessed with making you pay for what he thinks you’ve done to him. I have no doubt he’d come here or anywhere looking for you.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t the answer I expected.

“Stay away from the windows.” He disappeared upstairs and came back out carrying a handgun.

“Is that really necessary, Mason?”

“Yes.” He set it on the kitchen counter.

He was being so matter-of-fact, so different from how he’d been last night, that I suddenly worried he’d decided I was too much trouble. “Mason, are you mad at me?”

His head swung around, his eyes wide as he placed a box of pancake mix on the counter. “Why on earth would I be angry with you?” He came around the counter and pulled me into his arms. “No, I’m freaked out. He was in your house with you and he could have…” His voice trailed off. “I should have stayed with you. I should never have left but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to resist you if I stayed and Jeff was so sure—”

“Mason, stop.”

He squeezed me tighter. “Jeff said they had Crocker cornered in Shreveport, but it just didn’t make sense to me that he would have run that far.”

“Why?

“Because he’s obsessed with you.” He released me. “Do you like pancakes?”

I blinked, stunned by his bombshell followed by a complete change in topic. “Yeah.”

He grabbed a bottle of syrup out of the cabinet.

“I’m beginning to think everyone eats better than I do.”

He glanced over his shoulder as he spooned pancake mix into a measuring cup. “What do you usually eat?”

“Canned soup.”

He grimaced. “Then just about everyone
does
eat better than you.”

“Thanks.” I laughed, but it was forced. I was eager to find out what Mason knew. “I know that I shouldn’t have touched the note he left, but I wasn’t thinking straight.” I shrugged. “I saw the sofa and I just—”

Mason turned around to face me. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Do we have to eat now? I keep thinking about him being in my house and it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.”

He was around the counter in seconds, pulling me off the stool and into his arms.

I rested my cheek on his chest and wrapped my arms around his back. “You found the note?”

“Yes.”

“Was that blood on the sofa?”

“No, it was catsup.”

“Thank God. I was worried someone or some animal had gotten hurt.”

“No one got hurt. That I know of.”

 I leaned my head back to look up at him. “How do you know he’s obsessed with me?”

“I did some digging after what that boy from your neighborhood said about Crocker’s guys threatening you.”

“Oh.”

“The sheriff’s department has been investigating, but they didn’t do much legwork because they seemed like idle threats. Crocker’s known associates had been lying low and Crocker was behind bars. Until the guards at the county jail realized he wasn’t in his cell around three a.m. two days ago.”

I shuddered.

“I get the rose petals and the rolling pin.” His voice softened. “But why the geode?”

I stiffened, remembering the day of Crocker’s arrest. “I guess it wasn’t in the report.” I forced a smile. “And I know you’ve read the report. Sometimes I think you know more about me from reports than I do.”

He grimaced.

“I’m teasing—or trying to. If you were investigating Crocker’s threats, of course you would have looked at the report.”

“There was nothing about a geode in there.”

“When I went to the warehouse to save Joe, I got Crocker to take me upstairs to keep him distracted so he wouldn’t shoot Joe. I may have…questioned his masculinity.”

“That wasn’t in the report, Rose. All it says is that he took you up to the office, then the bust unfolded and Joe came upstairs to save you.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how it happened.”

He guided me to one of the chairs at the kitchen table and then disappeared for a moment, returning with a legal pad and pen. “Start from the beginning. The first time you saw Daniel Crocker was at the DMV, correct?”

“Yeah, when I saw the vision of me dead on Momma’s sofa with my head bashed in. I passed out before I could blurt out that he was going to murder me. He left his paperwork and disappeared.”

He nodded. “Okay, I have that part down.”

“The next time I saw him was at the bar in Jasper’s. My blind date had left while I was in the bathroom, so I decided to head to the bar and scratch an item off my wish list—drink wine.”

Mason looked up from writing. “Wait. Some guy left you at Jasper’s?”

“To be fair, he didn’t want to go out with me at all. Violet coerced him into it. And he was terrified that I had killed Momma.”

Mason shook his head and lowered his gaze to the paper. “What an idiot. What happened next?”