Feeding the Fire Read Online Free

was pretty pleased with herself when she was finished. It actually looked better than her own kitchen, which stung just a little.
    As she stepped down off his porch and onto the sidewalk, the patio light flickered for a moment, then went out. A streetlamp up the block made it bright enough to walk without tripping, but the sudden darkness was disconcerting.
    The street was quiet. Too quiet. She looked around and didn’t see a single person out and about. No cars, no people walking dogs or coming in and out of the grocery store. On any other day, she wouldn’t have given a second thought to it, but after that conversation today about the peeper, she found herself a little on edge. All of the victims had been single women who lived alone. There had been no rhyme or reason to the nights, no patterns to anticipate when he might strike again. Whoever he was, he could be out there watching her right now.
    The rustle of leaves sounded on her left, and she snapped her head around to look. There was no breeze tonight, but a bush at the corner of Logan’s foundation was moving. She told herself it could be a cat or rabbit and forced her feet down the sidewalk to her car.
    Logan’s house was only about five blocks away from Pepper’s, but she’d opted to drive tonight not knowing how late she’d finish. She rounded her car quickly and checked the backseat for crazies before she climbed in. She shut the door and locked it as soon as she could. From there, it was a short, uneventful drive. The whole town was quiet tonight, including her street, Daisy Drive.
    When she parked and turned off her car, she eyed the area around her house and prepared to make a run for it. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but she was spooked nonetheless. It was a short walk from her driveway to her front door, and she made certain she had her house key ready in one hand and her pepper spray ready in the other. Miss Francine had told her to get a big gun or a big dog, but that wasn’t really her style. When she moved out of her parents’ home, her daddy insisted she have some way to protect herself, so she special ordered the police-grade pepper spray from the Internet. If it could drop a violent three-hundred-pound drunk, it could handle whoever might be looking in the windows of Rosewood homes.
    Pepper’s house was two blocks off the main square, just across from Whittaker’s restaurant. The restaurant could get a little loud on the weekends and during the summer when they stayed open later, but on the average weeknight, they closed up at nine. Not even the dishwashers were still there tonight.
    Both of her neighbors were older. Miss Phyllis owned the antiques store and was almost completely deaf. Instead of wearing a hearing aid, she opted to crank the volume up on her television so loud that Pepper knew exactly what she was watching at all times. The silence indicated she was in bed already. On the other side were the Jacksons—Art and Connie. They owned the gas station, and Art usually got home late from closing up.
    Not the most dangerous place, but that didn’t keep her from climbing her stairs two at a time and lunging for her front door. She unlocked it quickly, stepped inside, then shut and bolted the door. Only then did she let out a sigh of relief mingled with nervous laughter. “You’re being silly,” she chided herself, then immediately turned and pulled the curtains closed on her front windows. Why would the peeper come to watch her? Really, there wasn’t anything exciting to look at.
    Pepper switched on the lamp by the front door, illuminating what she liked to refer to as her livbedoset —a combination living room, bedroom, and closet. Her couch, bed, television, dresser, and a makeshift clothing rack occupied most of the free space in the room, making her feel sometimes like she had a studio apartment instead of a thousand-square-foot house.
    She dropped her purse and pepper spray on the table by the door and made her way