Page 26 of Requiem & Reverie

Snaking out of the car, I keep my eyes glued on the camera, waiting for him to step in front of the dresser, where I’ll see his face in the mirror’s reflection.

“C’mon, asshole, a little more.” I blindly cross the street, unwilling to divide my attention with anything else. He moves deeper into the room, but when he finally stands before the mirror, his face is hidden behind a black mask, shiny, as though made from latex. As I get closer to the house, a flash of headlights beam up ahead, and I duck behind a nearby row of bushes, while Jonah and Nola creep up the drive.

Fuck.

The two exit the vehicle, talking about another sweep of the woods Jonah is planning for the following day.

“Shouldn’t we be looking for someone?” Nola asks, sliding out of the passenger side of his truck.

“I’ve canvassed this entire neighborhood. Not a single person saw anyone coming, or going. We have no witnesses, no suspect.”

“Any chance it might be the same guy who murdered those women?”

“That’s not his MO. There are no male victims.”

He’s wrong, though. Jonah just hasn’t stumbled upon the one male victim I’m certain Carl’s eliminated, just because he got in his way.

I glance down at the phone app again and watch as the shadowy figure peers out the window. An upward glance shows him staring down at Nola and Jonah, who seem to remain totally oblivious to his presence.

My heart is racing. I want to bust into that house and tackle the little bastard to the ground.

Taking my eyes off him only long enough to catch the two of them entering the house, I glance back up to the bedroom and see he’s gone. I scroll through the cams, to see where he might’ve disappeared. The motion detectors sense Jonah and Nola, throwing me off as they alert their location instead of the other.

I scroll back to the upper part. He’s nowhere.

The lower part, where I catch Nola and Jonah, as she makes her way up the staircase.

Jonah stops abruptly.

I turn up the volume and watch him lean over the bannister, looking toward the kitchen. Swapping the living room for the kitchen view, I zoom in on the backdoor, which stands wide open.

Tucking the phone in my pocket, I make a dead run toward Nola’s backyard, passing the open backdoor. A figure ahead of me scales the fence to the neighbors.

“Hey! Stop! Police!” Jonah calls out behind me, but I’m already scaling the fence after the stranger.

Through the yard, he races toward another fence, which he scales with ease, and he’s on the next block. A dog barks somewhere, and it’s not until I hop the fence, I notice the Rottweiler chained to a tree. As I sprint after the figure, the dog barrels toward me and nips at my coat, just out of reach.

Through the front yard, I pound pavement after the guy, who’s about a block ahead of me, dashing up the sidewalk. Just a few feet beyond him sits the white van.

He hops into the driver’s seat, and I push speed from my legs. The squeal of tires signals his retreat, and I just make it to slam my hand against the side panel of the van, catching his masked stare in the sideview mirror, as he takes off down the street.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Out of air, I lean forward, resting my palms against my thighs to catch my breath. Even if I raced back toward my car, at this point, the bastard is long gone.

The sound of a siren signals Jonah’s approach, and with a groan, I duck out behind the adjacent house. The bright beam of a spotlight misses my hiding spot behind a bush, and the moment it’s gone, I book it over the fence, and the next, until I’m back in Nola’s yard.

She stands outside the door, arms crossed, blindly searching, until her eyes find mine. “Voss! Was that you in the house? Jonah heard something, and I thought it was you, so I told him to ignore it. Of course, he wouldn’t.”

“And good thing he didn’t. Wasn’t me.”

“He was in my house?”

“I’m guessing he entered after you and Jonah left.”

“You stayed?”

I don’t have time to explain that I’ve watched her house every night since I left. That my habits of stalking probably rival the serial killer’s at this point, in my efforts to catch the slick bastard. “I have to go before he notices my car. Get back in the house. Lock the doors, windows, everything, you hear?”

She nods, and I lean forward to kiss her.