Death and the Girl Next Door

He was sorry? For what? I realized then that I was panting too. My legs were weak and I was sure I would have slid down the wall if he wasn’t holding me.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered between raspy breaths.

I was amazing? Had he looked in the mirror lately?

“I’m blind!” Glitch held out his arms as he tried to navigate the room. “What the bloody heck was that?”

“Jared’s light,” I said proudly as I gave him my rapt attention. His lids were closed, his jaw clenched. I placed my fingertips on his mouth, cut to perfection, and he turned into them, kissed each one then brought up my palm and kissed it too, then my wrist, watching me from underneath his thick lashes. Each contact sent goose bumps spiraling over my arm.

“Well, it’s freaking bright,” Glitch said. “I think it burned the retinas out of my eyes.”

Jared continued to stare at me for a long, breathtaking moment, then turned to Glitch. “I think you’re wearing the late Grandma Southern.”

Glitch stopped and patted himself. When the piano hit the wall, the urn must have tipped over and broke. He was covered in ash.

“Get her off me!” he screamed as he turned in circles and swiped at his shoulders. “Get her off me! Get her off me!”

Cameron laughed. He leapt casually over the back of the sofa and sat on an arm to watch. “You scream like a girl, man.”

“She’s everywhere,” he said, his voice tinged with a sad, pathetic kind of despair. “I’ll never get her out of my hair.”

I couldn’t help a bubble of laughter. He still had his eyes plastered shut as he shook his head. A fine cloud of ash surrounded him, reminding me of a character from Charlie Brown.

“Holy moly!” Brooklyn still had a throw rug over her head as she rushed toward the front window. “They’re here! The Southerns are here!” She turned and surveyed the battlegrounds. “How are we going to explain this?”

“I ain’t explaining diddly,” Cameron said. “I’m outta here.” He jumped off the sofa and walked to the patio door. Then he stopped and turned back to her. “Coming?”

Without hesitation, Brooklyn dropped the rug and scrambled after him.

I ducked down and maneuvered around a coffee table to look out the window. I could see two headlights meandering up the drive. Thank God we parked off the main road and walked up.

I glanced back at Jared. He’d followed me to the window.

“It’s too late to go out the back,” he said. “They’ll be able to see us when they park in the garage.”

“Glitch, for Heaven’s sake, get down.”

He was still swiping at poor Grandma Southern. “I can’t see.”

“Down, Glitch. Just let gravity do its thing.”

“And yes,” Jared said, “you can see. Try opening your eyes.”

I had turned back to the window, but I heard Glitch say, “Oh yeah. Thanks.”

Even as scared to death as I was, I laughed. He could be such a nerd. Which was probably why I loved him so much.

“So, what do we do?” I asked.

“We get the bloody hell outta here, that’s what we do,” Glitch said. He stood beside us.

“Actually,” Jared said, “we wait. As soon as the garage door closes, we hightail it out the front and go down the mountain from here.”

“Right,” Glitch said. “That’s what I meant.”

I turned to look at Jared. His dark eyes were glistening as usual. His mouth formed a half smile, dimples emerging at each corner.

“On three,” he said.

I snapped back to earth and waited for the count.

“One,” he said, turning back to watch the garage door slide down. “Two.” He took my hand into his and leaned down teasingly to whisper in my ear. In the quietest, most sensual voice, he said, “Three.”

We jumped up and ran for the front entryway just as the door to the garage was opening.

“Wait!” Glitch whispered loudly. “Did you say three?”

“Come on,” I called back to him.

We charged out the front door, raced over the manicured lawn, and fled into the forest as fast as our feet could carry us. Well, as fast as my feet could carry me. I had a sneaking suspicion Jared and Glitch could have run a bit faster. They were barely jogging.

But when we hit the forest, we got separated from Glitch. Jared yelled directions softly. “Down, Glitch. Just let gravity do its thing.”

I almost laughed. Adrenaline and the taste of freedom—aka, getting away with breaking and entering and some fairly hefty acts of vandalism—rushed through me like a cool wind. We ran so fast, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t falling on my face. But Jared had a firm grip on my hand. He reined in when my feet slipped out from under me, grabbed my arm when I tripped, and kept me semi-vertical more than once.

Then he skidded to a halt and whisked me behind a tree, his movements sharp, calculated. Suddenly on full alert, he threw a glance over his shoulder, then crouched to the forest floor, pulling me with him. Something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

He put a finger over his mouth and led me deeper into the woods. “Listen,” he said after a moment.

“I think I got it all this time,” a man’s voice said.

I almost gasped aloud. Jared pulled me to his side as we peered through a thick bush at John Dell, investigative reporter for the Tourist Channel.