Fatal Inheritance. Sandra Orchard
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up and I’m heading out. You can hang on to them as long as you need them.”
“Will do. Thank you so much. Can I get you a coffee or something before you go?”
He tipped his cap, his mouth spreading into an amused grin. “That’s okay. Maybe some other time when Josh is around.” He winked, then strode across the yard back to his SUV.
Great, now he’d think his friend’s new neighbor was a nervous Nellie. Of course, if he was in the habit of always dressing like Rambo, he probably got that reaction a lot. She flipped the dead bolt and returned to her unpacking.
A door upstairs slammed shut, making her jump yet again. It’s just the wind, you ninny. She should probably shut the windows now that she was alone again.
She made quick work of the downstairs ones, then grabbed another box marked Bedroom and climbed the stairs. She wrestled the end room’s window closed first. It opened to a meadow with a stand of trees beyond. Movement in the trees caught her attention. She squinted, hoping to spot a deer and her fawn. She’d have to find Gran’s binoculars.
The phone rang as she reached her grandparents’ bedroom. She snatched up their bedside extension, an old-fashioned rotary dial. “Hello.”
Once again, an ominous silence greeted her.
“If you don’t want to talk to me, stop calling.” She slammed the phone down with a satisfying thwack. If the creep called one more time, she’d have him blocked. There had to be a way for the phone company to do that, even if he was hiding his number. She shut the back windows and was about to move to the front bedrooms when the phone rang again.
If she had a whistle, she’d be tempted to let it blast. She smiled to herself, then puckered up and put her thumb and forefinger between her lips as she lifted the receiver. She didn’t say a thing and when the person on the other end didn’t either, she let loose for a full ten seconds.
After a second’s pause, a voice came on the line. “Bec? Is that you?”
“Josh? Uh, sorry about that. Someone’s been calling here and not saying anything and then hanging up. I figured I’d give him an earful.”
“When? How many times?”
His staccato questions set her pulse racing all over again. “Three times in the last half hour or so. I tried star sixty-nine, but the guy blocked his information.”
“I’m on my way now. That’s why I called. If the phone rings again, don’t answer it. When I get there, I’ll get hold of the phone company and have them trace the call.”
Outside, Tripod started barking.
Sure, where was the dog an hour ago when Rambo showed up? “Your dog’s going nuts over something outside.”
“Probably a cat again. Can you see him?”
Becki unwound the phone cord from behind the night table and moved to the window to try and see what had him riled. A noise sounded from downstairs. The dog?
She couldn’t see him from the window. From his barking, it sounded as if he was prancing back and forth along the west wall. She moved toward the bedroom door, straining to hear if the sound had really come from inside.
Another thump sounded.
“Josh,” she whispered, “I think someone’s in the house.”
“Where are you?”
“Upstairs.”
A voice spoke in the background, and then Josh barked orders to send a cruiser to her address. “Help is on the way, Bec. I’m fifteen minutes out.” Through the phone, a siren whirred to life, while at her end, silence reigned.
The dog’s not barking. She clenched the phone to her ear. “Josh, the dog’s not barking!”
“It’s going to be okay. I want you to hide in the bathroom. Lock the door.”
“But I’m on an old plug-in phone, I’d have to hang up.”
“Listen to me. You need to hang up. If the intruder sees a light on the downstairs phone, he’ll know someone’s in the house.”
Her fingers tightened around the receiver at the thought of breaking the connection.
A loud pop and whoosh cracked the silence.
She gasped.
“What is it? What’s going on?” The urgency in Josh’s voice sent her pulse careening.
“A... It sounded like a gunshot. Outside.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t one of the bangers that scare birds from the vineyards across the road?”
Her heart pummeled her ribs as she tugged the phone as far as it would reach and tried to see out the front windows from the hallway. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
A second shot sounded. And a puff of dirt kicked up in the yard.
She dropped to her belly. “No, it’s real. Someone’s shooting at the house!”
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