Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(82)
“What? Nate Jennings? Why would I do that?”
“So you didn’t?”
“No. Why?”
“Either someone else did, pretending to be you—or who knows, maybe the crazy bastard just imagined the whole thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
Listening to the sirens in the background as Ben explains the situation, and seeing the hint of confusion meld with the guarded expression in her husband’s eyes, Allison can’t help but feel uneasy again.
“I’m going to call Jennings and figure out what’s going on,” Ben decides.
“First,” Mack holds the door open and steps back, gesturing him inside, “I need to call the monitoring service.”
Ben walks past him, but Allison hesitates before crossing the threshold.
Mack touches her arm. “Hey. It’s okay.”
No, it isn’t okay.
Looking up into his eyes, she searches for some real reassurance, but finds instead that familiar mask of emotional restraint. He’s worried—he has to be—and afraid, too, but he isn’t letting on.
Allison forces herself to walk inside.
Stepping into the front hall—seeing the three framed baby portraits on the wall and breathing the familiar scent—she’s swept by an unexpected wave of homesickness.
Yet she can’t get past the knowledge that he was here, whoever he is; that he violated this sanctuary.
She’ll never feel safe in this house again.
Walking across the hardwood floor and through the archway into the living room, she takes in J.J.’s ExerSaucer, the children’s’ books lining the lowest built-in shelf, the stacked throw pillows on the end of the couch where Mack likes to lie at night . . .
With an ache in her throat, she realizes that for the first time in days, she feels comforted.
This is what’s missing at the Webers’ house: being surrounded by familiar things that remind her of all the good times. Everywhere she looks there are mementos and photographs of smiling faces; colorful shards of a mosaic that tells the story of their life, hers and Mack’s and the kids—her hard-won happily-ever-after.
She picks up a framed snapshot of the five of them together on the beach last summer. Lynn snapped it on one of the few days Mack was able to be there with them. Sand and sea as a backdrop, smiles squinting into the sunshine—even J.J. looking alert and cheerful.
That was such a great day—and she didn’t even know it at the time. She remembers feeling frustrated that Mack couldn’t be there for the whole week with them, wistful every time she saw another family stroll by, intact with mother and father and children . . .
Things could have been worse for us, she tells her own image in the picture, forever frozen in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. You lost sight of that somehow. You were focusing on what was wrong instead of what was right, and now . . .
Now, she and Mack and the kids are living in someone’s guest room.
It isn’t fair. This is her home, dammit. Is she really going to let fear rob her family of their Happy House?
Do I have a choice?
Yes. There’s always a choice.
You can run scared, or you can dig deep for inner strength, hold your head high, and fight for what you deserve.
“Allison?”
She turns to see her husband watching her from the archway. She sets the photo back on the table. Maybe she’ll grab it later when they head back to the Webers’. It would be nice to have it on the bedside table as a touch of home.
Oh hell, it would be nicer to just go home.
“Where’s Ben?” she asks.
“In the bathroom.”
“I thought you were going to call the alarm service.”
“I am.” He looks like he wants to say something else, maybe take the wall down a notch at last.
She waits, holding her breath, willing him to say something, anything, that will make her feel less alone right now.
After a moment, he takes his cell phone from his pocket, and her hopes deflate. He just doesn’t have it in him, under duress, to be that guy. He has to be the strong, stoic one.
Okay, fine.
I’m not going to be the weak, frightened one, though, from here on in. No way.
Mack presses a couple of buttons on the keypad, then frowns.
“They have their number blocked.”
“Who does?” she asks, having lost track of what he was even doing.
“The alarm monitoring company. They called me and I didn’t put their number in my cell yet, so I thought I could just pull it up on caller ID and hit redial, but I guess I need to go look it up. I’ll be right back.”
He disappears.
Allison lowers herself shakily onto the couch and looks around the living room. It seems like a lifetime ago that she and Mack were here, in this house, living their day-to-day life with the kids. Has it really only been less than a week?
Through the doorway to the sunroom, she can see the new pleated fabric shades, pulled all the way down. Is that how they’re going to live from now on? In the dark, afraid to let the sun in for fear that someone is out there watching them, waiting to pounce?
In the far corner is the desk where she kept the Lewises’ spare keys. She pictures him—the Nightwatcher—stealthily creeping across the carpet, opening the drawer, rummaging through it.