***
My hands shook on the steering wheel by the time I pulled the car onto my street, heading for home. I would finish reading there, then decide what to do. Sleep was high on my ‘to do’ list. I tried not to look at the clock that was flashing neon green in front of me. Last time I checked it was after three in the morning. Maybe if I didn’t see what time it was then I wouldn’t feel so tired, because I couldn’t afford to get tired at the moment.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that my house was already occupied. I gave a silent thank you that even in my exhausted state I was still sharp enough to take note of the little things. Little things like my pitch-dark house. I was certain I had left nearly every light on when I had left for Mike’s apartment. How was I certain of this? Because I had never turned a light off in my life.
I stopped down the block, considering. The home that normally looked spacious and inviting was now dark and foreboding. I rubbed my hands over my face in the dark cocoon of safety the car provided. There was no way I was going into that house. It wasn’t safe anymore. I had expected that when I left Mike’s place a short time ago. Truth be told, I was a little surprised that no one had been waiting for me in the parking lot of the quiet apartment complex. If I were correct in the little I had managed to read, then I was now in danger.
Glancing over at the bag that held the cursed documents, I unconsciously shifted it lower in the seat while I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to think…not that I had much to think about. The truth was plain enough. Whoever had searched my brother’s apartment had surely searched his computer as well. This meant that as soon as the people looking for him knew I had the contents of that file, I was no longer of any use to them. Quite the opposite, I figured grimly. Judging by the dark house in front of me, I had to assume that they already knew I had the file.
Well, shit. I needed to go home at some point. What was I going to do? And the notebooks, damn it, the notebooks—the translated versions—were all still in the house. Why hadn’t I thought to bring them with me? I groaned again, stared pensively at my house, and tried not to panic. Maybe the power went out, I reasoned. Yes, that had to be it. I was just letting myself get spooked when there was obviously a rational explanation for the lights being out. Who would want to kill me?
I gasped as I pulled up a little farther and saw it—the faintest of movements, but I caught it—a curtain settling back against the window. To the credit of whoever was now in my house, I probably wouldn’t have seen it if they had turned the flashlight off. Shit. Okay, so people wanted to kill me. So much for going home. I hit the brakes and did a quick U-turn, doing the only thing I could think of right then. I went to a motel…not one in town, of course, but an hour away.
Red eyed and barely hanging on, the adrenaline crashed and the reality of the situation hit. I was on the run—really and truly running for my life. The credit card was shoved back into my purse along with my I.D. before I slowly weaved a path to my room for some much needed sleep. Most people would think that one would be too keyed up to actually sleep, what with fearing for one’s life and all. But truth be told, I was tired. Maybe it hadn’t fully sunk in yet, but I slept like the dead that night.