In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)(85)

“No problem.”

As she moved through the kitchen, she said, “I’m sending out a few packages, Tyler. Help yourself to milk and sugar for your coffee, and I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.” Tyler sounded depressed again. Obviously, she’d done the wrong thing by discussing their dead and insane mothers to try to cheer him. Grimacing, she hurried to the study, trying to think of different conversational directions that might make Tyler feel better, instead of worse.

The grimace turned into a smile as she toted a stack of carefully wrapped packages toward the front door. “Good-bye, demon dolls.” They’d both sold for much higher than she’d expected, and now they were leaving the house. It was a good day. “Soon you’ll have brand-new families to terrorize—especially you, Fangs.”

Shifting the boxes around to free up one hand, she pushed the unlock button. Bill’s eyes went wide when he saw her standing there, holding open the inner door.

“Daisy! Nice to meet you in person, finally.” He looked pretty much how she’d pictured him, with a graying goatee and a good-sized belly. His smile was warm and wide.

“You too.” She grinned back at him. “Pretty soon, I’ll be meeting you at the curb.”

“Can’t wait.” He took the boxes from her and retreated through the outside door. “See you next time!”

“See you.” Giving him a wave, she made herself wait until the outer door had closed completely before shutting the inside one. As she headed back for the kitchen, she turned one of her steps into a skip. It really was a good day.

“So, Tyler—” Her words stopped as he brushed by her, almost running toward the front door.

“Gotta get back to work.” He didn’t look at her as he yanked open the inside door.

“Okay. Bye,” she called after him. The door closed with a thud, and she stared at it for a moment. “Weird kid.”

With a shrug, she headed into the kitchen to see if she could find all of her groceries. Two and a half bags were on the counter, waiting to be put away.

“What was his hurry?” She unpacked the bags and stashed the food, a little relieved that she could put everything where it usually went with the care it deserved. Her poor eggs had almost gone the way of Humpty Dumpty in Tyler’s hands. Daisy hoped he hadn’t gotten a bad-news text that had made him fly out of her house like his jeans were on fire.

Once she’d unpacked, she headed to the study to sort the children’s books she’d gotten from her dad. As she crouched by the box, she realized that she hadn’t heard from Gabe in a while, so she sent him a cheerful text letting him know she’d sold both dolls. After a few minutes, her phone chirped with his return text consisting of one word—good. Shaking her head, she returned her phone to her sweatshirt pocket. At least she knew he was still alive.

The books only held her interest long enough to pull them out of the box and stack them on her desk. Buzzing with energy from the whole Chris thing, she decided she needed to do something more active. Since she’d already worked out very, very early that morning, exercising twice in one day would reveal her to be the training-obsessed person she was. Besides, it was officially supposed to be her rest day.

“Rest day, schmest day,” she muttered, and then laughed at her immature pouting. The training group was coming as usual the next day for their Saturday session, so Daisy figured she should probably clean the equipment in preparation for that. She walked into the gym, groping for the light switch next to the door. Ever since that strange night when she’d thought she’d heard someone in the house, the windowless training room had seemed almost menacing, especially when it was dark and she was alone.

She paused with her finger on the switch, feeling the usual prickle of unease as she glanced around the heavily shadowed room. Although she told herself she was being silly, a part of her didn’t want to stay in the gym.

“I’ll just grab some water first,” she said, knowing it was just a stall. Leaving the room in darkness, she headed for the kitchen. Once in the doorway, she stopped, her nose wrinkling. Something was wrong. There was a bad smell, one that made alarm bells go off in her brain.

It was gas.





Chapter 18


Hurrying toward the stove, she checked all the burners, but they were solidly in the “off” position. The odor was stronger there. Daisy looked more closely at the stove, but everything appeared normal. Her appliance knowledge was pretty much limited to turning things on and calling a repair person if it stopped working, so she wasn’t sure if she’d even recognize the problem if she saw it. She definitely wouldn’t know how to fix it.

“Think, Daisy. Think.” She tried, but all that came into her head was the exploding-house scene from a movie she’d seen with Chris the week before. “Okay. I need to stop the gas. There has to be a main valve that’ll turn it off. Where would that be?”

As she searched inside the cabinets on either side of the oven, she continued her monologue. Talking kept her breathing without hyperventilating. When she couldn’t find any gas valve around the stove, though, she felt her heart start beating double-time.

“Next step.” It was harder to smell the gas, but she figured that was just her nose getting tired, rather than the leak stopping. “Okay. I need help.”