Crowbones

CHAPTER 55

Vicki

Watersday, Novembros 3

In the dream, I was in bed, surrounded by something warm that wasn’t soft but still felt comfy. Felt comforting. Then I was in the kitchen, wearing bunny slippers made out of real bunnies harnessed to my feet, and we hopped around the kitchen while I tried to start the coffee and put some bread in the toaster. In the center of the table was a round tray filled with pieces of wood that looked like swollen clothespins.

Then something big smacked one of the windows and made the clothespins rattle, rattle . . .

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

Awake now and frightened, I tried to sit up but a weight held me down. I tried to scream but a hand clamped over my mouth.

“Shh,” Julian whispered in my ear. “Shh.”

Julian. Yes.

I nodded to let him know I was aware.

“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’m going to check it out.”

Bad idea. Bad! People who did this in the movies ended up being buried in the cellar or tossed in the wood chipper.

Apparently Julian was going to ignore all the lessons one could learn from the movies. He slipped out of bed and pulled on the jeans he’d folded within easy reach. I’d thought it odd he’d left his shirt and sweater on a low chest I used as a window seat, and he’d put his shoes and socks next to it, but he’d wanted the jeans right beside the bed. Because the mobile phone was in a pocket?

Not a phone. I hadn’t closed the heavier winter drapes, and enough moonlight came through the sheer curtains that I saw the gun in Julian’s hand as he silently crossed the bedroom and eased open the door to my sitting room.

Wishing I’d taken to keeping a baseball bat or a frying pan under the bed in case I had reason to whack someone, I eased out of bed and crept toward the bedroom door.

“Stay here” meant stay in the room, not in the bed. That would be my reasoning if Julian or Ilya or, gods help me, Grimshaw demanded to know what I was thinking.

As soon as I reached the doorway, I felt cold air around my legs. Who had opened a window?

Julian studied the window and said softly, “Turn on a light. Low.”

I felt my way to a two-shelf bookcase. It held a decorative lamp that provided soft light when I watched TV or just wanted the friendliness of a lighted room when I returned to my own apartment. I turned on the light, expecting the girls to be instantly awake. They weren’t. Kira blinked a couple of times, rubbed her eyes, stared at me, and said, “Wha . . . ?” Aggie, perched on one arm of the love seat, barely stirred at all, and that was wrong enough to be frightening.

Julian pushed the open window up all the way, removed a small, high-powered flashlight from his pocket, and shone the light on the ground below. He stared at something. Stared and stared. Then he closed the window and locked it.

That’s when I looked around the room and said to the two bleary-eyed adolescents, “Where’s Jozi?”

Julian Farrow braced one hand on the window frame and closed his eyes—and I didn’t ask again.