Instantly I’m annoyed with myself. I just escaped a high-security silo, swam in a river, and tried to seduce a dangerous man.
I will not freak out about a mouse.
Colette moves to the next room, but my mind is still admittedly on the critter in my house. I’ve been here for six months while I nursed my aunt as she faded away. I never saw any evidence of mice.
I turn on the light over the stove.
But I see it now.
The package of bread on the counter has a hole in it, and little dribbles of dried crumbs litter the surface.
What’s different now, since I left? Is it just because the house was never empty before? It was only one night.
I spot a bit of rice on the floor near the pantry. That shouldn’t be there either.
The door is slightly ajar and I open it wider. I never leave that door open and I’m quite certain I didn’t before I went to bed last night, before Jax arrived.
I step inside and flip on the light. A bag of rice also has a hole, more grains spilling out. Two cereal boxes are turned on their sides.
Dang it. How am I going to get rid of it? Trap it? Maybe I can borrow someone’s barn cat.
I lean my head against the door frame. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to deal with a big empty house alone. My need for Jax rises up, overwhelming me. It’s ridiculous. I barely know him. He was horrid to me. Tied me up. Stole me. Then foisted me off on his friend.
But the things he made me feel. So much power. And passion. This can’t be very common, what has happened between us.
Maybe it is for him. Maybe all his women feel like I do when he leaves.
I kick at the rug that has been on the floor of this pantry since I was a child. I cock my head. It’s turned the wrong way.
No one would notice but me. But there’s a frayed corner from where the door always catches the edge.
And that corner is opposite the door now, near the back wall.
Someone’s moved this rug since yesterday.
I want to back out of there, call for Colette. Fear sluices through me as I think about some stranger going through my things.
But then I remember — Jax.
Maybe it was just him. I think he said he looked around.
I pick up the end of the rug and slide it back.
And then I see it.
A hatch.
There’s something hidden in this pantry.
Colette is no longer quiet, and I hear her footsteps coming up thehall. “All clear!” she calls out.
I shove the rug back in the pantry and close the door.
She pops her head in the room. “You okay?”
“Just the mouse,” I say, gesturing toward the bread on the counter. “I hate mice.”
“Get a kitty,” Colette says. She turns on the overhead light. “Cozy little place.”
