A/N: I was too tipsy to post this last night. Posting early morning Monday! So sorry for it being late!
——
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Seriously, what time is it?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“Ah, shit,” Emma flailed around in the bathtub, head pounding, world spinning, mouth dry and throat scratchy, until she finally managed to grasp the side of the tub and hoist herself out. Hoist was a strong word. She sort of rolled, lifted and pushed herself out of the rub to her knees on the bathroom floor, holding her head steady in her arms. “Why is the world still spinning?”
“The world isn’t spinning, only the toilet’s spinning,” was Kat’s response and Emma heard some unsavory sounds which only made her feel worse. “Babe, can you die from a hangover?” “Don’t ask me that right now,” Emma managed to stand up and took a quick survey of her surroundings. A pillow and a blanket lay crumpled at the foot of the bathtub which explained why she hadn’t woken up with hypothermia, but didn’t explain why it was still so freaking cold in her house. She could literally see her breaths coming out of her mouth in puffs and the startling chilliness was waking her up pronto. “Is it just me or is it -.”
“Bumfuck freezing? Yeah, no it’s not just you.”
Feeling like her head was splaying apart, Emma forced herself to pull it together and get moving. Nothing sounded more inviting right now than to just go back to that porcelain bathtub and drift away to a world with no responsibilities but if her gut was onto something, and it usually was, she was already in deep shit and needed to figure things out.
After washing her face, downing an extra-strength Tylenol with half a litre of water, and changing into clothes that didn’t reek of booze, she found her phone and turned it on.
11.57AM
Ok.
Right.
So she’d completely slept through her alarm and had missed her ‘shift’ at Hunters. She groaned, dropping her head to rub her temples. Crap. Crap. Crap. She’d had an inkling of a suspicion that this had been the case, from the moment she’d seen how bright it had been in that bathroom. The sun didn’t come up till eight thirty, and it was well into the sky when she’d peeked outside of the bedroom window.
She already knew that Hunter wasn’t going to let this one down easily. She bit her lip, not even knowing what to expect. When it came to Hunter, all the rules had officially been thrown out the window. She was having a hard time navigating the playing field, and didn’t even really know what team she was playing on or what the game was.
Emma simply sat there for a few minutes, soaking in her misfortune before she let out a deep breath and shook it off. Whatever. She’d missed a shift. She’d deal with his grumpiness later.
The next item on her list was of more pressing importance. Why the hell was it so cold?!
Getting up, and stepping over Clayton’s lifeless (but very alive) corpse on the living room carpet, she made her way to the utilities closet to see if maybe a wire had short-circuited or a switch had gone off. Not that she really even knew what the wires meant, she opened the closet to see that every wire, button and switch was in place. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It looked just like it had when she’d first glimpsed in a few weeks ago.
She furrowed her eyebrows and closed the closet. Walking back to the living room, she fiddled with a small lamp that had survived the vandalism attack.
Nothing.
The gas, and electricity were off again. But that made no sense. She’d just paid her bill! Thankful that her phone was still somewhat charged, she sat on the sofa again and dialed the local utilities company. She could hear snoring coming from the room upstairs which she attributed to the two boys that Kat and Clayton had dragged in along with them, Adrian and Jason. A flash It took a good twenty minutes to get through the security questions and waiting but finally, a dull, bored voice sounded in her ear piece.
“Newcastle County utilities customer service line, how may I help you?”
“I just paid my utilities bill yesterday but I think you guys turned my gas and electricity again off…”
“Okay, ma’am, can you provide me with your name and house address please?”
Emma went through the motions, an odd feeling of nervousness growing inside of her as she did. Something felt slightly off here…
“Ma’am, can you hold while I look up your details on our database?”
“Sure.”
She waited a few minutes, tapping her fingers against her thigh until the man finally came back. “Ma’am, all your utilities should be running. We haven’t cancelled anything from our end. Have you checked your circuit board, pipes, and cable lines?”
“Uh…” the nervousness began to uncoil in an all too familiar feeling. This couldn’t be happening
to her again, “I checked the circuit board but I’ll go outside to check the pipes from outside.” “Would you like me to stay on the line with you?
“No, it’s fine,” she hung up before he had the chance to answer, and she began to layer up in a nervous, frantic, yet eerily calm haze. She should’ve known better than to let her guard down, even for one night. The creepy fucker must’ve come back, screwed up her gas pipes and cable lines while she was busy playing a childish game of never have I ever with the group of people currently passed out unconscious in her house.
After lacing up her winter boots and pulling her hat down over her ears, she opened the door and her mouth parted in a quiet oh as she saw how heavily it had snowed. Five feet – easily of snowfall had graced Harbordale and someone had come around to shovel out her driveway. Pillows, tufts and mountains of snow stretched around her for miles and she shivered as the wind crept inside of her scarf and down the thin of her back.
If Hunter asked why she hadn’t made it at seven thirty in the morning – this was why. She’d have needed a snowmobile to navigate through the snow. Walking was out of the question. Regardless of how deep the snow was, she pushed through it to go around her house to the back. She wasn’t much of a homebody but she’d lived alone with her mom for enough years to know what places to check when power or water stopped running – which was unfortunately more times than she cared to count.
When she reached the back, she began to dig away at the snow. She was already knee-deep
and didn’t have a pair of gloves, so once the snow began to bite her fingers, she untied the scarf from her neck and wrapped her hands in it before she continued.
It was as if the snow had literally blanketed the entire forest around her in a quiet hush because it was ethereally quiet. All she could hear, as she spent the next fifteen minutes digging around, was the crunch of her fingers digging into the white sheets of ice around her and the puff of her breath as she struggled to stay energetic.
Finally she saw the cable box and her heart dropped before she even fully unearthed it.
“Fuck,” was all she whispered as she ripped off an envelope that was hanging off the steel box in a plastic ziplock baggie.
Her hands were nearly frozen but she pulled out the envelope and threw the plastic baggie to the ground. Nose red, and heart in her stomach, she pulled out a small card from the envelope.
Just giving you a friendly reminder not to get too comfortable. I’m always watching, Emma.
- Your biggest fan
Her reaction wasn’t what even what she expected. A surge of anger filled her and she gritted her teeth, crumpling the note in her fist as she finished digging out her cable box before she pulled the box open. As expected, the cables were ripped, neatly cut in different areas. She slammed it shut, not bothering to look for the gas pipes. Feeling fury, she stomped back to her house and slammed the door shut as she got in. Even though she’d been traipsing through icy snow, she felt nothing but hot anger. Her entrance was loud enough that she’d woken up Clayton, and she heard his voice as she pulled away at her shoelaces.
“How you doing?”
“Fine,” she snapped back, unable to deal with him right now. Memories from last night were blurry around the edges but one thing she did remember was Clayton hadn’t left her side even once which had begun to annoy her to no end.
“You okay?”
“Yep,” let her scarf drop to the ground, and with her hand still clutched the note, moved to the kitchen.
“Damn, it’s cold,” was all Clayton said before she entered the kitchen and closed the door behind her. It was the only place in her house that she had some privacy, what with Clayton in the living room, Kat in the bathroom and the boys in her bedroom. Shaking with anger, she leaned by the kitchen sink and took a few deep breaths.
This wasn’t ok.
This asshole was teasing her now, literally fucking teasing her. The sadistic piece of shit enjoyed watching her squirm, and making her miserable. How fucked up was that? She shouldn’t get too comfortable? This was her home. She’d suffered enough, she’d weathered enough. She deserved to stay here if she wanted to.
She was dialing Hunter’s number before she knew it. She didn’t want to deal with the police right now. Just the Sheriff.
He picked up quickly, but she could tell he wasn’t impressed. “Finally awake?” was all he said, and Emma felt herself calming at his voice, even though she could hear the aggravation in his tone. “Whoever’s after me cut my power lines and I don’t have heating or electricity again. They also left a note.”
There was silence on his end before he returned. When he spoke again, his voice was authoritative and business-like, the playfulness completely gone. “What does the note say?”
She read it out to him, “just giving you a friendly reminder not to get too comfortable, Emma.
I’m always watching. Sincerely, your biggest fan.”
“Who else have you told about this?”
“Nobody. I just called you.”
“Where did you find it?”
“The cable box, outside my house, near the backyard. It was buried in three or four feet of snow.”
“What did the snow look like?”
Emma raised her eyebrow, “I don’t know. It looked like snow?”
Hunter sighed, “No – I mean, did you see footprints? Did it look freshly disturbed? Was it packed?”
Emma bit her lip, trying to remember. She’d been so preoccupied with her job that she hadn’t really taken it in. “I don’t know. I had to dig pretty deep and I didn’t notice anything out of place when I got there…”
“So they must’ve done it early on in the night. Do you remember when the power went out?”
“No…” Emma was hating herself now, “I was drinking and.. I think I passed out early.”
To her relief, Hunter didn’t berate her on that. “Was anyone acting suspicious last night?” She paused, his suggestion entirely out of the blue and something she hadn’t thought about at all. “What? Are you suggesting…”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking you if either Clayton, Kat, Jason or Adrian were acting suspicious last night.”
“I don’t… I don’t think so?” A new feeling of paranoia filled her then, and she suddenly felt a different kind of nervousness. “I don’t think either Kat or Clayton…” that would be a disturbing kind of betrayal. “Kat was with me the entire night.”
“You just said you were drinking. Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure.” She was throwing up in the bathroom for God’s sake – when would she have the time to go out in the snow and cut all the lines? And in Clayton’s case, he had a broken leg. The other two, she couldn’t account for but they seemed docile enough. “Hunter, it wasn’t any of them.”
“Ok – just stay put. I’m sending a team your way.”
The dial tone sounded and Emma simply stood there, dread filling her and debilitating her entirely.
x.x
Twenty minutes later, Detective Jackson, Hunter and two other cops filed into her living room and the group from last night looked quietly alarmed as they shuffled around, getting their things together, ready to leave.
“Babe, all good?” Kat murmured quietly, looking hungover as hell, but genuinely concerned. “Yeah, everything’s fine,” Emma responded emptily, not knowing how to explain anything and not knowing if she was even allowed to.
“Do you need us to stay?” Clayton asked as he buttoned up his jacket but she shook her head from her seat on the couch.
“Its fine, you guys should go before you get hypothermia anyway.”
Kat gave a tight smile and Emma knew what that look was. Kat wasn’t stupid. Four cops didn’t just show up for no reason and send everyone away for fun.
“Kay, I’ll see you around.”
Emma gave a half-hearted wave from her seat on the couch, looking away as everyone began to leave. So when Clayton hobbled over on his crutches and gave her a small peck on her forehead, she completely froze, not expecting that at all.
She didn’t look at Hunter, and didn’t even smile as Clayton walked away with a dopey grin.
Where had that come from?!
Shit. Just what had she said to him last night? Could this day get any worse?
When the door closed behind them, she found herself blushing as Hunter stared her down. She would’ve done anything to know what was going through his head in that moment. On second thought, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. If looks could kill…
Thankfully for her, he kept it professional. “We’ve had Officer Robbie and Officer Dania stationed outside your house for the entire night, keeping watch. They confirmed that the only person they saw was Edward Appleton – one of your neighbors – come by with one of his snow shovel to clear out your driveway. He does it for everyone on the street. He didn’t get off his machine once, so it’s not him. Correct?”
The two officers, who were standing by the door, nodded in unison and Robbie added the time and details with which Edward had come around.
Jackson took over, “we’re taking the tapes in now, of the surveillance footage but it’s a long shot. The area where all the cables were… it’s out of sight from both of the surveillance cameras.”
“Do you still have the note?”
“Yeah,” Emma said, unrolling the ball of paper from her pocket to hand over to Hunter.
“Although I doubt the person would be dumb enough to leave fingerprints.”
Jackson took the paper from Hunter and slipped it into an evidence bag. “Always worth a shot.” “Sorry to interrupt – but it’s freezing in here. Should we maybe move Emma to the station while we get the utilities company to fix her lines again?” It was Robbie who spoke, the younger one of the four cops that filled her living room. His cheeks were rosy and his nose was beginning to sniffle. Jackson was nodding, “we’ve got to take Emma in for questioning, so that works. Officer Robbie, Dania – follow protocol and survey the room for prints and anything out of the ordinary. After you’re done here, and once Officer Heath gets here for surveillance duty, I’d like you to pay the four kids who were here last night a visit and question them too to see if they noticed anything.”
Emma almost laughed, but didn’t. Back at the police station – a place that was literally becoming her second home.
x.x
Forty-five minutes later, she was in Hunter’s office, relishing in the heat and whirr of the rotating heater that was perched by the door. A few officers had even said hello as she’d walked in, asking her how she was. That was a sign, if there was one, that she was becoming too familiar with this place.
Even though it was nearly one in the afternoon, Hunter had brought in a piping hot cup of coffee for her along with a few pastries from the local bakery. Despite the snowfall, it seemed the folks of Harbordale had still managed to wake up the sleepy town and get to business as per usual. It was only when she smelled the cheesy croissants that a pang of hunger hit her and her appetite came back twofold.
Hunter came back a few minutes later, leaving the door ajar which she didn’t miss. He wasn’t risking anything.
Expecting him to berate her about not showing up at his house at seven-thirty, about Clayton and that kiss, or about drinking so recklessly, she was surprised when all he said was, “are you okay?” She took a tentative sip of the coffee, enjoying the way it caressed her throat on the way down.
“What do you mean?”
He gave her a guarded look, “as in – are you okay? You’ve had a rough few hours.”
“Yeah…” she wasn’t really familiar with how to talk to Hunter in a normal, friendly way. “Yeah, I’m okay. Been better.”
“We should’ve caught the guy last night. He – or she – is getting brave by constantly showing up to your house,” he dropped a few papers on the table, sighing. “Jackson will be here soon to ask you a few questions about last night.”
“Okay,” was all she said before the two fell into a comfortable yet pressing silence. Finally, she said something that had been weighing on her mind since the morning. “It’s someone that knows the house well.”
Hunter didn’t say anything but she pressed on, “think about it. They managed to break in without me hearing much a while ago. They knew where the cable box was, and how to maneuver around the cameras -.”
“Those cameras are hidden.”
“What if the person knows that they’re there?”
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. I just think the person knows me and knows the area well. They know when I’m home and when I’m not. The only stretch of peace I’ve had in this place is when I was staying at your house. So they might know you too.”
“I don’t want you to worry about this. You’ll drive yourself crazy,” he actually looked concerned, and after a heavy pause, “we’ll get ‘em. Ok?”
“You’ve been saying that for a while.”
“The braver they get, the more likely they are to make a mistake.”
“What Dateline episode did you get that from?”
“Are you making fun of me?” Hunter asked, a tone of incredulousness in his voice.
“Making fun of you makes me feel better.”
He gave a tight smile, “I can think of a few other things too.”
It took a few moments for the comment to settle in and when it did, she felt herself smiling.
“Sheriff Stone, behave yourself. You’re at work and the door is open.”
“Since when have you ever called me Sheriff Stone?”
“When I’m trying to make a point.”
“I’ll be making a few of those when we’re alone next time. You have a lot to explain, Miss Adenson.”
A rush of nervousness and excitement filled her, the playfulness a nice distraction from the seriousness of the morning. Before either could say anything further, Jackson came in with a file of his own. “Want to come with me, Emma? Nothing serious. Just want to see if we can figure out some clues from what went on last night.”
“Sure,” she tried not to look at Hunter, knowing that every time she did, her heart jumped a little. Following Jackson into his own office, she couldn’t help herself but look back to sneak a glance at the Sheriff. When she saw that he was shamelessly watching her leave, she blushed and looked back, embarrassed that he’d caught her looking. She felt like a fourteen year old girl.
“Okay Emma, let’s start from the beginning,” Jackson said as she closed the door behind him, “why did you lie to me about your relationship with Hunter Stone?” x.x