Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2)(59)

No, she was far more comfortable in the darkness, holding a metal skillet in her hand, as she was at that moment, although she wished it were a book of matches instead. She inhaled and relished the scent of the kerosene she’d splashed strategically around the house’s inside perimeter. Yeah, matches would be a bad idea.

Located in Park Ridge, not too far from the airport, the house had an almost identical layout to his home in Florida. Setting foot inside it hadn’t been easy. Memories had threatened to breach her walls, but she breathed through them.

The weight of the skillet was reassuring. Over the course of the night, it felt like the only thing keeping her from floating up and hitting the ceiling. With each passing hour, she felt less and less real. After nearly four days without exchanging a single word with another person, namely Connor, she was beginning to feel insubstantial. The way she’d felt in solitary. A twist on the age-old question about the tree falling in the woods. If no one was around to communicate with her, did she really exist? She was slipping. Slipping back into that cave without light, and it scared her. She’d never needed anyone before, but she needed Connor now. Needed to be held and made to feel real.

What am I doing here?

That question was the only thing helping. In the past, she’d never once second-guessed her impulses. If she wanted to whack her stepfather upside the head with a blunt object, burn down his house and cackle at the moon afterward, she did it. For so long, she’d existed without a regard for consequences. So what if she ended up in prison? She’d just get herself out. So what if she got another charge on her record? Harvard wasn’t exactly an option at this point anyway. Yet as she sat in the darkness, she found herself anxious. Wondering if there had been any new developments on the Maxwell Stark case. Had the squad solved it without her? The very fact that she didn’t want to be in her stepfather’s house lying in wait, that it felt wrong, told her something inside her had changed for the better. She couldn’t identify it or name it. Right now, it was only a feeling. But she held on tight to it because it made her feel human when in reality, she was someone else’s monster hiding in the darkness.

Ice formed in her veins when her stepfather’s heavy tread moved down the hallway. She didn’t have a plan. Didn’t know what she would do when faced with the man who’d spawned so many nightmares. Her modus operandi had been to avoid him. He wouldn’t expect her to show up. The smile on his face outside the courthouse had been smug. Secure. He thought she would run.

Not this time. If she ran, he would follow. He continued to prove that over and over. Now that the money was being released to her, he’d be twice as tenacious. It would never end. She would never again sleep as soundly as she had in Connor’s bed. His specter would hang over the bed like a ghost, no matter what she did. It would smother her. Knowing him, he would find out her weakness for Connor and use him against her. My Connor.

Her blood went from cold to boiling. Maybe she could kill him.

With that possibility lingering in her head, she slowly eased off the washing machine, dropping onto the balls of her feet without a single tinkle from the bells. A light went on in the kitchen and she pressed her back against the wall beside the partially open door. Too many potential weapons in the kitchen. If she charged him, he would have time to pick one up. No, she would wait until he got close enough to the door and make her move.

What am I doing here?

Erin shook her head hard to clear the doubt. This was what she’d dreamed of. Confronting the face behind the whirlwind of fire. The man who’d made her helpless. Made her beg. She shouldn’t be considering slipping out the back door and returning to safety. To a man. That was weak. Beneath her.

The thoughts distracted her a second too long. She wasn’t prepared when the laundry room door opened and her stepfather walked inside. All she could do was act. The skillet rose on its own and uppercut Luther in the jaw. She couldn’t deny the satisfaction his shout of pain gave her as he stumbled back, hit the opposite wall, and crashed to the floor.

Her teeth bared themselves. “Ding dong, motherf*cker. Someone just got their bell rung.”

He clutched his jaw, scrambling back against the wall. “You…” The pain of talking caused him to flinch. “You’re here?”

Fear. There was still fear at being this close to him, but she forced it into hiding. “Didn’t expect me, did you?” She twirled the skillet in her hand. “That’s the thing about crazy people. You can’t predict what the f*ck they’re going to do.”

His head moved on a swivel, searching around him. Probably for something to use as a weapon or to block her should she swing the skillet again. Too bad towels were the only things in reaching distance. She saw the exact moment he smelled the kerosene, barely suppressed fear sparking and fading in his eyes. “What do you want, you lunatic bitch?”

Erin clucked her tongue. “That’s no way to talk to someone holding a weapon.” She ran her finger around the metal edge. “Someone with violent tendencies. Someone who you’re trying to screw out of a boatload of money.”

“She owes me that money,” her stepfather sneered. “If not for f*cking around behind my back, f*cking with my life, then at least for saddling me with her illegitimate brat.”

Can’t hurt me. Words can’t hurt me. “It’s too bad you see it that way. I don’t even want the money, but I’d rather send it gift-wrapped to the government than let you have it.”