Free The Second Man by Emelle Gamble

home filled her with panic. She held her breath, listening.
    Is whoever did this still here?
    Goosebumps rose on her naked skin and she soundlessly reached slipped on her robe.
    Where’s my phone? She looked around wildly, remembering she had laid her purse on the counter in the kitchen. She took a step and the doorbell rang.
    Without another thought, she ran for the front door.
    Max. He must have decided to come back.
    Her heart pounded so hard that she could not hear herself think. She grabbed the doorknob, threw the lock, and pulled it open.
    “Max! Thank god.” Jill stopped, clamping her teeth together abruptly.
    Andrew Denton stood in her doorway, a quizzical look on his face.
    Jill sucked in her breath. Frantically, she looked past him, but the driveway was empty. Max was long gone. “What are you doing here?” she said.
    “I sent a note saying I needed to talk to you. I know it’s Easter Sunday, but I thought this might be the best time to catch you, so I risked coming by. I left you a phone message, too, about an hour ago. Didn’t you get it?”
    “No.” Not that it would have mattered, Jill thought. “Look, I don’t have time right now. I need to call 911.”
    “Why? What’s happened? Are you all right?”
    Jill pulled the belt on her robe tight. “I got home ten minutes ago and discovered the house has been broken into, so I need to call the police.”
    Andrew whipped out his phone. “Sit down on that bench. You look like you might faint. Do you know if whoever broke in is gone?”
    Jill stared at her house. “I didn’t see or hear anyone, but I haven’t searched the place.” She turned. “Wait, no, don’t call the police from your cell, I’ll do it from inside.”
    Too late.
    Andrew held up a finger to silence her. “Yes, Operator. My name is Andrew Denton. I need officers at the scene of a residential break-in at . . .”
    Jill listened numbly as Andrew gave the police the address, her name, and described her as uninjured. Her arms and legs began to shake and she sat down on the stone bench beside her front entry. Surreal was the only word that came to mind to describe her life at that moment.
    She stared at the car at the curb.
    “What rooms did you go into when you got home?” he asked.
    “I stopped first in the kitchen, and then went to my bedroom. It’s been ransacked.”
    “But you got undressed?”
    “I got undressed in the dark. I didn’t notice the mess until I turned on the light.”
    “It must have been a fun night out.”
    “It was,” she said, not liking the tone in his voice.
    “Have you been drinking?”
    Jill squared her shoulders. “What the hell, Andrew, why are you questioning me like this? You sound like a freaking cop.” She pointed to the curb. “You better leave now, before the real ones get here.”
    True to form, Andrew walked closer. “I’m asking what the police are going to ask. And I should stay until they get here, because I called in the report. You don’t want to explain you sent me away because you can’t stand the sight of me. They might treat your story of a break-in differently if you begin the interview by recounting a story that ends with you shooting me in the head.”
    The sound of sirens echoed around Jill, louder with every second that passed. “I just winged you.”
    “Dick Cheney would be proud.”
    Jill scowled at his attempt at a joke. She got up. “I’m going to go in and put my clothes back on. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
    “Don’t touch anything else,” Andrew said. “And put some shoes on. People feel much more vulnerable to questioning when they are barefoot.”
    Jill had the urge to flip him off, but instead she stomped into the house and grabbed her clothes off the floor and dressed, and then slipped on her shoes. She fretted about why Andrew was back again, and what the hell Pandora Security was.
    Is he armed? With that sobering thought, Jill stepped out of the bathroom two minutes later and found him in