Dangerous Kiss (The Layton Family 1)

She and Jake sidled up the steps to the wide front porch. The door’s stained-glass center oval had been shattered.

“I’m beginning to think I’m cursed,” she said.

Jake clutched her hand in his, sending a jolt of awareness up her arm. “I’m beginning to agree.” Together, they tiptoed around the glass and through the open doorway.

Once inside, Claire stifled a scream.

The sicko’s tornado of evil had left a destructive wake through the 1900s-era farmhouse. She wanted to pitch a fit and throw things. Too bad the Voice of Doom had already done the job for her.

He’d thrown open the kitchen drawers and tossed the spoons and forks onto the tile floor. She found books that had been thrust off shelves and thrown across the living room. In the dining room, broken family pictures lay whatever they’d landed, glass shards decorated everything. She couldn’t take more than a few steps into the office because of the wreckage there. Dresses, shirts jeans, tank tops and socks littered her bedroom floor. A pair of hot-pink lacy panties hung from the ceiling fan. If she wasn’t so mad, she would have been embarrassed about Jake seeing that.

“Claire! Get in here.”

She hustled back into the kitchen. Jake stood in the pantry’s open doorway, his back to her. His bulk blocked her from seeing inside and she nudged him with her elbow. Without looking her way, he shuffled sideways.

A gas canister sat in the middle of the pantry floor, its fumes wafting out of the doorway. A bright blue bow was stuck to the handle. The killer had left a message in Easy Cheese next to the gas can.

See you soon.

She hated the fear growing inside her. Being frightened never helped anything. It got in the way. Stopped her from doing what needed to be done. But not this time. Too much was at stake for that. She’d have this guy’s head on a pike.

“The bastard is going to fry.” Her trembling lip betrayed the bravado in her words. “No way is he burning down my house. I’ll be waiting when he comes back. ”

“Want company?”

Claire took stock of Jake’s muscular frame. This fight required more than brawn. “You any good with a gun?”

“You bet.” His cold grin didn’t reach his eyes.

“This asshole already threatened my family.”

“Good thing I’m not family.”

She chewed her sore bottom lip. “One condition. You can’t tell Hank about the gift in the pantry.” She nodded toward the gas can.

“He’s the sheriff. He should know.”

“He will, but not now. Hank has to play by the rules. This psycho doesn’t. I don’t.”

Jake didn’t speak for a minute. “Fine.”

Relief flooded her body. She didn’t want to face off against the Voice of Doom alone.

“OK. Let’s see what else the jerk left behind before you call Hank. But when you do, leave this part out.”

“Shouldn’t you call him?”

She eyeballed him. “If I call, he’ll pester me until I tell him every little detail. I haven’t been able to keep a secret from him for longer than twenty minutes in my whole life. You need to call.”

“Yes ma’am.” He gave her a mock salute. She huffed out a breath that sent a few tendrils of hair flying from her face and left to assess the damage in the rest of the house.

Claire’s fury swelled each time she heard a crunch underfoot or felt the ragged edge of something that used to be whole. The psycho was lucky she didn’t find him crouched behind the shut shower curtain because she would have beat him with the curtain rod.

She couldn’t remember when anger had become her default mode when faced with adversity. Probably soon after she’d found Brett and some tall blonde passed out naked in her bed. In response, she ran. She stayed busy. It worked. Mostly. She picked up the shattered frame that held her college graduation photo and wondered if somewhere inside her that trusting, optimistic girl still lived.

“All clear,” Jake hollered from another part of the house.

Today was not the time to find out. She stalked out to the porch and armed herself with a broom and a sour attitude. Picturing the killer’s face in each glass splinter and particle, she swept the sharp pieces into a mound.