Free Watch Me by Brenda Novak

grabbed Sheridan had either opened the door after she’d unlocked it or simply used the key, as Cain had. Or maybe she’d let him in.
    Ned and Amy, or one of the other two policemen on the Whiterock force, had visited the house while Sheridan was in the hospital and made a mess dusting for prints. Powder in contrasting colors covered almost every surface. But they hadn’t found anything useful. He knew because he’d called Ned to see if they’d located Sheridan’s purse, and learned that they had—the contents were spilled all over the kitchen floor.
    Now that the police were done, Cain planned to gather up her belongings and take them to his place, where Owen was looking after her in his absence.
    A radio played in a back bedroom. Cain assumed it’d been on since Sheridan arrived. Maybe she’d been hoping to make the house feel less empty. Set on a rhythm-and-blues station out of Nashville, it broke the silence,but given the stagnant air and closed-up feeling of the place, the music seemed more forlorn than comforting.
    Several flies escaped as he walked in. Bees hovered amid the kudzu that had taken over the front planter areas. The yard smelled like warm earth, but a far less pleasant scent emanated from the kitchen, where Cain discovered a brown-paper sack of groceries sitting on the counter. Blood soaked the bottom of the bag.
    After what he’d seen the night he rescued Sheridan, the sight made him uneasy. Surely whoever had dragged her out of here hadn’t left some sort of disgusting present….
    No, the police would’ve found it first. He’d obviously seen too many horror movies.
    A quick inventory of the contents revealed nothing worse than a pound of spoiled hamburger. Apparently, whoever attacked Sheridan had made his move just after she’d returned from the grocery store. Maybe he’d followed her home.
    He frowned as he noticed blood spatter on the kitchen window and could instantly tell that it had nothing to do with the rotting meat. There’d been a struggle here. A chair had been knocked over. Everything in Sheridan’s purse was spilled out on the floor. Even the fridge doors were hanging open. The rattling, overworked motor managed to provide a faint puff of cool air in the otherwise stifling room, if he stood right in front of it, but the ice cream in the freezer had melted. And water pooled underneath. The police hadn’t bothered to turn off the radio and close the fridge?
    “Callous assholes,” he muttered. Amy had probably left it this way on purpose. She wasn’t happy aboutSheridan’s staying at Cain’s place. But seeing the house exactly as it’d been the night Sheridan had been attacked gave him a clearer sense of what’d happened. At least he knew where the trouble had started.
    Unfolding one of the paper sacks Sheridan had emptied before being interrupted, Cain began picking up the cosmetics, papers, pens and other things that’d been in her purse. Her compact was cracked, a tube of lipstick had melted and the battery in her phone was out of power. He wondered if her friends and family were trying to reach her, what they must be thinking after so long without word.
    As he stood to go in search of her luggage and cell phone charger, he spotted a wallet he’d missed. After dragging it out from under the table, he realized it contained photos—photos he had no business seeing, but he was curious enough to look at them anyway.
    There was a picture of her younger sister in a wedding dress, her parents standing by a Christmas tree, and her with two other women posing in front of a glass door that read The Last Stand . When he saw a picture of Sheridan sitting at a formal event with a man who had his arm around her, he took an extra second to study their body language. Was this man significant to her? Was he worried because she hadn’t been in touch? Had he made love to her the way Cain had twelve years ago?
    Shoving that question—and the persistent memory that went with it—to