Chapter Six - In The Dark

Jaxson turned and, for a second, his face was illuminated in the flash of blue-white light that shone through the partially open curtains.

"There should be a flashlight in the top drawer of the nightstand."

Then he was gone. The soft click of the latch signaled his exit from the pitch-dark bedroom. Well! She huffed out a breath and climbed onto the bed, then leaned over to fish around in the bedside table to find a flashlight. There wasn't one, but she found a small stockpile of thick pillar candles and several packets of matches in the drawer on the other side of the bed. Several long minutes' worth of fumbling in drawers produced a small silver tray that she assumed was meant to hold the candles as they burned.

She struck the match along the side of the rough strip on the edge of the matchbook, pupils dilating as sparks raced along the line and the match flared to life. She lit two candles and settled herself against the pillows, reclining back, kicking her rubber-soled clogs off her feet and onto the carpet, and lying back down to cross her legs at the ankles. Absently, Kate turned her head and twisted the gold ring on her thumb around in slow circles as the flickering flames threw shadows on the delicate, tea rose-patterned wallpaper beside the bed.

She yawned, and her mind began to drift over her very eventful first night back in her aunt's home—her home now, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time since she'd found out she'd inherited the place. Remnants of the storm echoed in the now-soft spatter of raindrops against the roof and the distant rumble of thunder. The midnight soaker seemed to have moved on for the night, further inland, leaving a calm, easy silence in the candle-lit bedroom.

Kate breathed in the peaceful, comfortable stillness, let it soak into her skin, because in the morning reality would once again come crashing down around her. She would have to go back to her own house, and the day after that she was due back at the hospital for a full shift. According to the nursing shift coordinator, Kate was banished to the basement for corpse-sitting duties for another six weeks. Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. At least she wouldn't be alone during her next shift. She'd already been informed that a guard typically completed each night shift alongside the shift nurse.

Apparently, the hospital in Crystal Cove had its share of midnight vandals—kids breaking into the morgue for kicks. She shuddered and turned onto her side, propping her head on her hand and watching the candle's cheery flame dance in the shadows. What kind of kid broke into a morgue for fun? She could see a kid sneaking into a school, sure, or onto a football field to spray paint something, maybe even a movie theater, but the local morgue? No, she just didn't see the appeal. But she could understand why the hospital's board of directors had voted to beef up security and place a nighttime guard in the basement.

What she didn't understand was what she herself was doing down there. Granted, she was fresh out of nursing school, but Kate didn't think she'd ever heard of a hospital employing a third-shift "morgue nurse." Really, what was she supposed to do? Make sure anybody the staff brought down in the middle of the night was really dead? Wouldn't the attending doctors and nurses have already determined that?

Well, at the end of the day it didn't matter, she decided. She had a steady job with decent wages at a small-town but reputable facility. There would be money in the bank every week to pay the few bills that she and Lilly incurred. She could keep the fridge and pantry stocked with food. Cooking dinner for only Lilly at the end of the month, then lying to her sister and saying she'd already eaten, would be a thing of the past. Now that their mother's final medical bills were paid off, maybe she and Lilly could even afford a luxury or two—some news clothes, a girls' night out. So, who cared if her current job description was a shade on the morbid side?

The house was another thing altogether. That did matter. For one brief, wild second, Kate entertained fantasies of trying to sell the old place. Immediately, she put the brakes on that train of thought. Selling the house before Lilly was finished with college and comfortably out on her own would be irresponsible. What if they had some emergency or an illness, or … well, Kate couldn't think of anything specific right off hand, but the reality was, any number of situations could pop up over the next four or five years and severely tax their limited resources. And aside from some distant aunts, uncles, cousins, one grandmother, and a very well-meaning Lindsey, she and Lil were on their own.

Kate felt a twinge of conscience at discounting her family. Okay, maybe she and her sister weren't "on their own."

But it wasn't anyone else's job to take care of the two of them. They all had lives and bills and problems of their own. And to Kate's way of thinking, she'd done a good enough job taking care of her sister these last few years. Even Aunt Charlotte, when she'd made the trek from Louisiana for Lilly's high school graduation, had remarked on what a good job Kate had done. The same family members who had initially balked at the idea of an eighteen-year-old guardian for a fifteen-year-old girl had eventually come around to admit that Kate had stepped up to the plate.

They didn't know about the things Kate had gone without in order to take care of her sister and put herself through nursing school. And it didn't matter now. Her hard work had finally paid off and they'd made it through one of the darkest parts of their lives. Now, there was real hope for a better future and she wasn't going to screw it up by throwing them into debt. She sighed and sat up to blow out the candle.

So, someone had broken into her house tonight, or tried to? She wasn't sure, but thought she may have come home before the intruder had a chance to actually enter the house. She didn't care what those cops said—someone had forced her door open, and not from inside the house, either. Kate had never heard a more ridiculous scenario. Were the police experts on door latch damage? Really, how hard would it be to actually determine such a thing?

A chill crept along her nerve endings as another thought came to mind. Assuming the lock had been damaged from the inside, what if whoever had been on that porch tonight had tried to make it look that way to throw off suspicion for the breaking and entering they'd done? So, this … thief … picks locks on people's front doors, then somehow scratches the latch to make it look like the damage was done from inside the house? Kate frowned but figured it made as much sense as anything else and moved forward to extinguish the last candle. There was only one problem with her scenario: Nothing had been stolen.

Maybe she'd interrupted him before he could go into her house. But if that were the case, why had he already covered his tracks with the whole funky lock damage thing? Kate paused over the candle, lips pursed, but then shook off her anxiety and put out the flame. She could spend the rest of the night attempting to pick apart the actions of a crazy person, or she could get some sleep and in the morning go shopping and splurge for a better lock on her front door.

"Fuck!"

Her head snapped up at the muffled curse that carried through the wall. Sitting in the dark, she bit her lip and giggled at the torrent of curses that echoed from Jaxson's bedroom to hers. Clearly, he had the room next to hers. What was he doing over there? Did she want to know? A crash and a bang effectively finished shattering the peaceful solitude of the house. She clapped a hand over her mouth as her mind whirred through the possible scenarios of what was going on in the next room. Her new neighbor wasn't boring, she'd give him that.

Kate vaulted easily off the bed. Walking carefully in the dark, she followed the sound of Jaxson's grousing and the intermittent thumps to the adjoining bathroom. She and Jaxson had connecting rooms? One hand groped along the grainy, textured wallpaper of the bathroom, and a second later she located the switch and flipped it on. Three large, pale globes buzzed to life over the single wood-and-porcelain vanity, and Kate spied the door at the other end of the cozy bathroom. Apparently so.

She knocked gently and, when a thick silence was the only response, she twisted the knob and slowly pushed the door open. Cautiously, she poked her head around the now-partially open door—and bit her lip at the sight that greeted her.

"Jaxson, what are you doing?" She brought both hands to her mouth and hurried over to the tangle of man and pantyhose on the floor beside the bed.

"What's it look like?" he grumbled, sitting up and reaching for his twisted stockings. This time, he jerked them the rest of the way off and, smooth, muscled legs freed, stood up to face his neighbor.