Jaxson's Song Read Online Free

home, had she asked her to. But that would have meant
explaining why she was loathe to stay alone in the rambling old
house, and Lilly was too young to have clear memories of that time
in their lives, to remember…
    “ Shit.” Kate closed her eyes. Why hadn’t she left a lamp
burning? A porch light, anything. The creepy old house—which, in
full light did not look at all charming—was flat out menacing in
the dark.
    Sharp-peaked turrets
stretched and blurred with the black sky, and shadows danced in the
windows with the reflection of a line of cars that passed down her
street. A grinning teenage boy leaned halfway out the window of the
middle car and shouted a greeting to Kate. Radios blared, then
faded as the cars turned the corner. The street was once again
quiet, deserted.
    A gust of wind kicked up a
pile of dead leaves on the sidewalk near the porch. The breeze
propelled storm clouds in from the beach far beyond the house,
bringing with it a salty air that fairly crackled with static
electricity. At the end of her driveway, the street lamp flickered
ominously a split second before it went dead. Thick, dark swaths of
cloud scudded across the moon. The world went black, and Kate was
lost in its shadows.
    She gasped, finally
spurred to action. The outside no longer felt any safer than the
house’s interior and the fine hairs at the back of her neck became
cold and shivery, lifted by the breeze that whipped around her as
she hurried up the walkway. Sagging wooden steps creaked beneath
her weight as she took them two at a time, stumbling onto the porch
and skidding to a stop before the ornately carved and beveled front
door. She took a deep breath and grasped her key in one hand,
clutched the knob firmly in the other. Her heart began to thud
painfully in her ears as she attempted to insert the key into the
lock. The door swung inward at the slightest pressure. It was
already open.
     

Chapter Three
    Boy Meets Girl
     
     
    T here was someone in her house. It
took Kate all of ten seconds to figure this out, to know beyond the
shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t alone. The creak sounded like a
shot in the dark, echoing through the pitch black foyer and robbing
Kate of breath as she trembled in the open doorway.
    Earlier, when she’d left
for work, the door had been locked. Olivia had mentioned in passing
that the door had a tendency to stick unless the handle was wiggled
just-so, and Kate distinctly recalled twisting the key in the lock,
then jiggling and testing said lock on her way out the door. And
since she hadn’t yet given Lilly a key of her own, that only left
one possible explanation. Someone had broken into her house
tonight. Her eyes bore into the gaping darkness of the foyer,
unable to discern so much as the outline of the entryway
furniture.
    The intruder could still
be in the house. Ice washed over Kate, and she told herself to
move, to run—but she couldn’t. Oh, God, she couldn’t move. It was
just like those dreams she used to have. Nightmares where she was
surrounded by the dark, running through deserted, fog-shrouded
streets and she knew that someone was chasing her, that she needed
to run like hell, but…couldn’t. Her muscles coiled now, ready to
spring, and still she remained glued to the porch, a fine cold
chill working its way over her skin. This was no dream; this was
reality. A twig snapped, somewhere to her left, on the other side
of the wrap around porch.
    No ! Kate sprang into action,
turning her back on the open doorway, whirling away from the
scuffling sound at the other end of the porch, closer now. She
stumbled down the steps, tripped over her own feet on the last one,
righted herself, and sprinted across the yard. Her gaze darted to
the house next door. The windows were all dark; oh Lord, what if
there was no one home? What if her neighbor was sound asleep and
the intruder grabbed Kate before anyone even answered the door?
What would Lilly do without her?
    Was the man still