Chapter 6

As he turns and heads back to the commotion down the hall, high-pitched voices and heavy footfalls, a bar of light from the harsh white fluorescence flashes across his soft features. But something changes in his expression.

As our gazes lock and I glimpse his hard stare, a cold shiver crawls down my back.3

Deputy Hawkins is still manning the front door when I toss my booties into a trashcan by the foyer door and step out into a drizzly warm night.

“You look like a mannequin standing under the porch light,” I say, smiling and wishing him a goodnight.

“Fuck you, Ballinger,” he retorts, a hint of humor in his deadpan delivery.

I laugh and wave a hand over my shoulder at him. I cross the spongy front lawn and reach the sidewalk.

The street looks like a scene in a horror movie, as I walk through a thick blanket of fog to get to my car. It is as if smoke is being pumped from a machine, obscuring the leafy limbs of sycamore trees around me.