“I know you have to take care of business. And it is a long ride back.”
“Four or five hours, babe.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah. I’ll be here most of the day, but I’ll call you when we’re headed back.”
“Okay, honey. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Sky.”
“Shades?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
“Good night.”
“Night, babe.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Sunday—
“Thank you so much for coming,” Skylar smiled at the young couple that had just toured the open house. Closing the door behind them, she pulled back the cuff of her cream silk blouse to look at her wrist watch. Then her eyes lifted to Betty, the realtor she was training with today. “Three-fifteen.”
“Well, forty-five more minutes, and we can wrap it up,” Betty replied.
Skylar peered out the window at the sky. “There are some really dark clouds; it looks like it may start raining.”
A crack of thunder boomed, as if to underline her words, and she jumped.
“Great, that’ll probably be the end of our foot traffic. People never come when it’s storming out.” Betty turned and headed back toward the kitchen. “You wan
t coffee and cookies? We have plenty leftover.”
“Sure. Pour me a cup,” Skylar replied as she began straightening the sales flyers on the table in the foyer. The house they were showing was a beautiful four bedroom brick home in Vestavia Hills in a pretty little subdivision called Stone Ridge. It was the kind of home that Skylar had longed for as a child.
As she turned to again glance out the window, she wondered if Shades was headed back home yet. Late last night when he’d called her and woken her up, he’d said that everything had gone as expected, but that he still had some details that had to be worked out today, and then he’d be heading back.
Another rumble of thunder shook the house. Skylar was glad she’d put the top up on her Miata as she heard the patter of rain begin to fall against the windows. Biting her lip she wondered if Shades would run into rain on his ride home.
“Hey, Betty, have you heard the weather reports lately?” she asked as she walked through the living room to the dining room, which led to the kitchen. She froze in the doorway, the scene before her eyes shocking her almost as much as when she’d found Rusty’s body.
Before her, lying on the floor next to the kitchen island was Betty’s motionless body, partially face down. But the truly terrifying thing was the man squatting down beside her. Skylar had just a split second to take in the long-handled silver flashlight he held in his hand like a weapon, and the black leather vest he wore with the Devil Kings top rocker, the devil’s head center patch and the bottom rocker that read, Georgia.
They’d found her.
She felt her heart drop, a sick feeling forming in her stomach, and her breath caught in her throat as the man looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. Before she could think to run, even though she knew in her high heels and skirt she wouldn’t get far, an arm clamped around her waist, and a hand clamped over her mouth.
A voice whispered in her ear. “Remember us, Skylar?”
The man squatting rose to his feet slowly and turned toward her fully.
Her eyes took in his face. She remembered him.