Trouble Comes Knocking

by Mary Malcolm

  “I can’t go home.” I still couldn’t face Dee. Face the pain of wondering if she knew I was kidnapped and never told me.

  He frowned and tilted his head to one side. “Because of what happened the other night? We don’t have any leads, but it looks like it probably was a Peeping Tom.”

  “No.”

  “Something else?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t have the energy to say more. I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything other than examine the stubble on his face, the swirling browns of his eyes.

  “Don’t want to tell me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay.” He made a call and another officer took his place. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “If I can’t take you to your home, I’ll take you to mine.” He half-pulled, half-lifted me from the floor. “Do you need help walking?”

  What I needed was a good night’s sleep—and for the previous day, well, the previous few weeks, not to have happened. Short of that, nothing much I could do to fix things.

  What I didn’t need was to see where Eli lived, or to spend the night there with him. It was one thing to find myself suddenly attracted to both him and John, another entirely to see his place and be in such a vulnerable state that I may easily do something I would regret. That picture had been the end. I couldn’t take any more, didn’t want to, didn’t have it in me.

  “Lucy. You haven’t answered.”

  “I can walk.” I stood up straight and used the painted concrete wall to give me some balance. It wasn’t that I would fall over again, more I needed to feel something solid that wasn’t Eli.

  He picked up my bag, and we headed out.

  His car, a sensible black sedan, had soft buttery leather seats, and when I sat down, he turned on the seat warmer.

  “I think every car should have a seat warmer,” he said once we were on the road. “Why don’t they, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I looked out the window to avoid focusing on the flexing of his upper arm muscles as he drove. Fall, it seemed, had finally made its appearance. With clouds and overcast skies graying our days and freezing nights, I could taste Halloween candy and pumpkin pie. We hadn’t had a truly cold winter in a long time, so I wondered if this might be the year. Snow on Christmas and all that. “We used to get snow every winter back home.”

  “Arkansas?” He entered the freeway.

  “No. Well, yes.”

  “You miss it.”

  I did, and thinking about it made my eyes sting. The rest of the ride was quiet. I texted John, letting him know where I was and that I was safe. Eli didn’t turn on the radio. I started to drift and saw that room again. Panic boiled in my stomach as I forced myself back awake. Next time I dreamed of the burning building. Then of my sister as a baby screaming and being taken away. Had that been Kat or Julie? Had the same happened to me? I wrapped arms around myself trying to will away the terror. I wished I’d never gone to Elmer. Wished I’d never found out the truth, any of it. Thinking of my parents again, I felt orphaned and very alone.

  Eli exited and soon turned his car into a residential neighborhood, then left onto Onyx Drive. The houses were small, but the yards were tidy and the street clean. “Is this where you live?”

  “Yes. I bought a house here three years ago. That’s it, down there on the corner.”

  Eli lived in a one-story house with cream-colored siding and brick-colored trim. The front door, painted red, and the front yard landscaped with rosebushes beneath the windows and sweet potato plants around a wrought-iron lamppost, practically said, welcome, come on in. A well-worn mat covered in flowers laid at his door. It looked somewhat feminine, and suddenly I realized I’d always assumed Eli was single. My face flushed in embarrassment that I might meet his significant other. That I’d spent all this time both hating and oddly attracted to Eli and that he very well could be in a relationship with someone. No. No, he couldn’t be. “Eli, does someone live here with you?”

  “No, why do you ask?”

  My bones turned to jelly, and I held back a nervous laugh. Inexplicably, it meant a lot to know he was single.

  He didn’t have to help me out of the car, and after he fiddled with his house keys for a moment, the front door opened. He grabbed his mail, and as he looked through it, motioned for me to come inside. “After you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tossing the mail on a table, he took off his gun and placed it inside a small drawer. “You can have a seat on the couch.”

  “I wouldn’t have known about that drawer had I not seen it,” I said.

  He looked up and grinned. “That’s the point.” He paused. “You never answered my question, Lucy.”

  Why did I ask if someone else lived with him? “I don’t know, I guess I was wondering about the house. It’s a little more than most people would get on their own.”

  “Thirsty?” he asked, blatantly ignoring my statement.

  “Yes.”

  He left the room, then came back in carrying two glasses of water and a bottle of aspirin. “Thought you might have a headache.”

  I did. “Thanks.”

  Still standing, he watched as I took the pills with a swallow of water.

  “You look like death.”

  “Geez, don’t hold back.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Now he sat. He leaned forward in the chair and placed his elbows on his knees, arms in front of him, hands clasped. “I mean, you’re putting yourself in dangerous situations, not sleeping. Apparently not going home. The case against Natalie is open and shut, a slam-dunk. I’m in trouble because I shouldn’t have brought you those notes, but that’s on me.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “No, like I said, that’s on me.” He set down his water and sat back in the chair. “Lucy, I know you keep a lot to yourself, but I’m your friend. If nothing, I’m an open ear. Someone safe. Talk to me.”

  I held the water glass on my knees and leaned my chin against the rim. There was no one safe. How could I explain that? Especially when he looked at me so earnestly? No one.

  “Eli, I’m okay. I appreciate you helping me, but I have some money saved, I can get a room to stay in.”

  His lips pressed into a thin line. “You are one of the most stubborn women I have ever met, Lucy Carver.” With that, he stood and left the room.

  I swished the ice around in my glass, not certain what to do next. A few moments later, he returned with a pillow and a thick blanket, took the glass and placed it on the table.

  “Get some sleep. You can figure out what you want to do when you wake up.”

  “Thanks.”

  He picked up our glasses and took them back to the kitchen. I laid my head on the pillow and tucked my feet underneath me on the couch. I thought about Natalie in her jail cell. Her bubbly, sweet nature might get her hurt in a place like that.

  I thought about Elmer. The doctor. My sister, no…sisters. A tear slipped across my nose at the thought of the sister I had lost and the one I might never see.

  I thought about Dee. My parents, or the people I had thought were my parents. Dolores and I were united by a lie, not blood. She knew nothing of my kidnapping, I decided finally. She treated me as her own because she thought she had to. Would she even want me now?

  I thought about John. My times with him kept me grounded. We ate together every day at lunch. He told me jokes, snuck kisses in the lobby. His passion for music radiated anytime he spoke of his band. His smile could fix my worst day. My skin yearned for his touch. The way he stroked my ear, or gently pressed his palm into my hand. Yet, when I needed help most, I didn’t go to him.

  I thought about Eli. He set his anger toward me aside when I needed him. That level of chivalry left me longing to know him better. I’d looked him up on the computer. Eli became detective younger than anyone before him. Why? Why did he work so hard? His house, his car, his job, the way he dressed, his demeanor…every part
of him showed maturity beyond his years. How come?

  Pulling the blanket tight around my chin, I wondered how long I could lie there without closing my eyes.

  ****

  “Lucy, wake up. Lucy.”

  Groggy and incoherent, I opened my bleary eyes to see Eli kneeling over me on the couch, his face a few inches from mine, eyes shining with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  He rolled back on his heels and took a knee. “Your screaming woke me up.”

  It took a moment to register his naked chest. His muscles flexed as he talked.

  “I came in and saw you kicking, screaming. You had a nightmare.”

  Light from outside reflected through the window, leaving his face mostly in shadows. Not enough. What resembled concern when he first woke me turned to pity.

  “I’m okay.” I pushed myself up a little. I couldn’t remember the dream. I’d never forgotten my dreams, even kept journals of them, but this one escaped the second my eyes opened. “A nightmare? Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I thought someone broke in.”

  “Jeez, I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t remember your dream?”

  “Not at all.”

  He stood and his pants slipped a little, showing a smidge of the V of his hips above his boxers.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eleven-thirty. I went to bed an hour ago.”

  Outside, the wind whipped around, reminding me of a couple of nights ago. I wondered if Ana stayed after I left. She had meetings and auditions all week. I’d texted her, but she hadn’t texted back. I wondered if Dee was scared without me there. If Ana went to Bobby.

  Eli walked down the hallway and returned wearing a shirt. He turned on a lamp beside the couch and sat next to me. “Something about what you said earlier keeps going through my head.”

  “What is that?”

  “About Natalie. I didn’t think she appeared right, either.” He turned to me, tucking his leg up under him as he got comfortable on the couch. Arm slung casually over the back, he said, “The reason I’m down in evidence is because I argued with Captain Matheson about her, not because I showed you the paper. They went over the data you brought us, and her name kept coming up. Every time something changed she was there. It looked pretty damning. Plus, she didn’t have a solid alibi for that night. She says she was with her boyfriend, Clive, but we show him logging out of his system and leaving the building during the time she says they were together.”

  “Do you think Clive might have done it?”

  He ran his hand across the stubble on his chin. “I thought about that after you brought me the information about his access to all those files. He doesn’t seem to have any motive. Though certainly could be a likely suspect for setting her up if he did.”

  “So why don’t you think Natalie did it?”

  “No motive. Murder is all about motive and opportunity. She had the opportunity during her unaccounted-for time, but why would she kill him?”

  A fire engine passed outside letting out a low wail, and somewhere a dog howled in unison.

  “I went out of town yesterday,” I told him, feeling a boulder lifting from my chest. “Me and Ana. We went down to Elmer, where I’m from, to try to figure some things out.” I paused, waiting to see if I should keep going.

  “What happened?”

  “I found out some shocking things.” I looked down at my hands, played with the cuticles. “It seems my parents aren’t my parents, they kidnapped me. I have sisters. One of them killed a bunch of people and is dead. The entire town hates me because I look like her.” I glanced up at him, wishing we still sat in darkness. “I think something bad might have happened to me there when I was little, to me and my sisters. I don’t remember it, though.”

  “Lucy, that’s a lot of stuff.”

  I took a deep breath and pushed it out. “Yes. A lot. None of it I’m ready to talk about just yet. But I had to get it out of me. It felt like a swarm of yellow jackets stinging my brain, and I had to get it out. So it’s out, and when I get ready to talk more, I’ll talk more, but not before, okay?”

  “Fair enough.”

  I hesitated briefly. There was something I wanted to tell him but hadn’t. I regretted that now. “I saw another of those green cars on the way back. I know John said it’s a pretty common car, but I swear this one followed us. I can tell you the license plate number. Do you mind looking it up?”

  “Lucy, you should have told me immediately.”

  My thoughts exactly. “I thought you were still angry. I had so much going on in my head.” I hesitated before saying, “Sorry you’re in evidence now.”

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  I welcomed his warmth as I snuggled. “Thank you for thinking Natalie didn’t do it.”

  “You want to talk about your dream?”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “Do you want to talk about your day?”

  A crack of thunder sounded, and then the power flickered and went out. Lightning flashed through the window, followed by another boom. Inside the house, something beeped.

  “The house alarm,” Eli said, as if reading my mind. “It beeps every time the power blows to tell me it’s still working.”

  I shivered. “What if he’s out there?”

  “The guy from the other night?”

  “Him, the murderer, the person in the green car, Roger… I feel like there are so many people after me right now, I just don’t feel safe anymore.”

  Eli shifted on the couch, pulling me closer. “I promise nothing will happen to you with me at your side, okay?”

  I nodded. The storm’s intensity grew. With Eli’s warm body pressed close to mine, all my fears evaporated. I relaxed into him.

  He was out within minutes, his heavy breathing reviving my mind and making me more alert. I pulled a blanket up over both of us and watched the storm. My mind couldn’t stop rolling over The Slotted Spoon. How did it all fit together?

  The restaurant Simon Winters was part owner of stayed empty yet somehow didn’t go out of business. It struck me as unlikely that money would go missing under his nose. The thoughts tumbled over and over until they became a hypnotic melody, and I drifted. Then, in the distance, the beeping stopped.

  I opened my eyes. The lights hadn’t come back on, but the alarm stopped. “Eli,” I whispered urgently, hoping he wasn’t a deep sleeper.

  Ears perked, I listened for any other noises and not hyperventilate. Maybe something happened to the alarm?

  A slight scraping noise came from somewhere in the distance but definitely inside the house. “Eli,” I whispered again, this time shaking him while trying not to cry out in fear.

  “Shh,” he whispered. He squeezed my hand, and we sat quiet for a moment before the noise came again. “I want you to go into the corner behind the TV stand, and don’t move. No matter what.”

  I nodded, but my body tensed, ready to spring. He stood and pulled me to my feet, forcing me into action. He walked slowly in the direction of the noise, moving as close to the wall as he could. He opened the drawer in the table near the front door. I heard the muted click of his gun before he disappeared around the corner.

  Hyperventilating, I waited to hear something else, anything. Then my phone lit up and vibrated on the coffee table. I listened for Eli moving toward the back of the house but couldn’t hear anything. If I could get to my phone, I could call 911 and maybe get someone else here to help.

  Part of me said, Stay, don’t move, do what Eli said. The other part said, To hell with that! I’m not waiting around for someone to shoot my face off. That part finally won out as I inched from my hiding space and toward the coffee table. Just as I reached the phone, a shadow appeared outside the front window.

  Lightning flashed as the figure raised a gun, aiming toward me. A shot rang out. I screamed and dropped to the floor. Eli ran toward the sound, but I ran too, this time toward the back door.

  “Lucy, stay st
ill!” Eli yelled, racing into the room.

  I ran to the dining room and cowered under the table. Lightning lit up Eli sweeping the room with his gun. The face from the window was gone, but then a crash of glass came from the other room, then the sound of boots on the hardwood floor. Someone was in the house.

  It took me a moment to remember the phone in my hand. Eli ran toward the noise and I dialed. Another shot rang out, but I didn’t hear anyone fall. “Hurry,” I begged the operator. “Someone is in the house!”

  “What is your address?”

  “I don’t know, I’m at a friend’s house. He’s a cop, Eli Reyes. Please, someone’s already shot at us. He’s still inside. They have a gun.”

  “Ma’am, I need you to stay on the phone.”

  I heard the sound of fighting, two bodies hitting each other. “God, please hurry!”

  Something hit the wall, hard, and the sounds of fists against flesh echoed through the house.

  The operator asked questions I didn’t hear. I’d never been so scared in my life. The sounds of the two men fighting came closer with each breath. What if something happened to Eli? What if the person came after me again?

  “I can’t stay on the line,” I told the operator. “I have to get out of here.”

  “Ma’am, stay on the line. We can find you better if you stay on the line.”

  I kept the line open, but stuffed the phone in my pocket so I could concentrate. Gauging the distance to the front door, I thought I might be able to run outside and find better cover. I inched from my spot as someone hit a wall. Loud shouts echoed. The two men tussled in the hallway.

  Staying low I snuck toward the front door. I unlocked and threw the door open, running into the rain. Outside red and blue lights flashed against distant windows and I welcomed the sound of approaching sirens.

  The police cars swarmed the end of the street. “Lucy!” Eli yelled from the door. The man slammed into me and I fell. I scrambled to get a look at him.

  He stopped and glanced back, but I couldn’t see his face in the dark. He ran to his car. A flash of lightning showed it was the green Cougar. The police cars approached, and he clipped one before pulling into the street.