Girl Next Door - The Complete Series (40 page)

I hurried home and ate a quick dinner and prepped for the flood of kids that usually came to the door every year. I always loved seeing the kids in their costumes.

Right on time, at five-thirty, the doorbell rang for the first time. Most of the kids were neighborhood kids, but some of my piano students came by, which was adorable. I took pictures with them and sent them on their way with a reminder to practice.

My thought that some of the kids in high school knew where I lived was proven correct when a group of them came by and tried to clean me out of candy. I made it clear that only at Halloween was it okay for them to drop by when they felt like it.

By eight o’clock I was exhausted. I decided to turn off the porch light in a half hour and take a nice hot bath before I slipped into Troy’s surprise. The doorbell rang once again, so I walked over and picked up the candy bowl that was sitting on the small table next to the door.

I almost screamed when I opened the door. A young woman stood in front of me, dressed all in white, her skin almost as pale as her dress. Her eyes were dark brown and surrounded by dark circles. Long dark hair tangled around her hair and face. She looked like a cross between the ghost from
The Grudge
and the girl on the tape in
The Ring
. It was actually a very effective and terrifying look.

Putting my hand to my pounding heart, I laughed breathlessly. “Oh wow. Your costume is amazing. Definitely creative.”

I thought that she was a little old to be trick or treating, but to each their own.

“Where’s your candy bag?” I asked, dipping my hand into the bowl.

“Right here,” she whispered in a voice that sounded strangely familiar.

It wasn’t until she raised her hand and pointed a very big gun at me that I realized how I knew her. This was Theresa Garrett, Grayson’s wife, and she was definitely not in jail as I expected her to be.

I dropped the candy bowl.

“Get in the house,” she said in a rough whisper. “And don’t say a fucking word.”

I backed away from the door with my hands up. She followed me inside and shut the door behind her.

I huddled on my sofa and watched Theresa Garrett pace back and forth across my living room, muttering to herself. Now that I knew who she was, she scared the shit out of me even more than any ghost or ghoul could have.

I quickly realized that the gun in her hand was a .38 revolver, and I knew enough about weapons to know that it would leave a very nice sized hole in me. One that would hurt like hell and bleed a lot.

I watched her pace; her dirty, tangled black hair flying behind her as she moved back and forth quickly, turning sharply on her heel each time she ran out of room.

“I warned you. Warned you that he belonged to me. You shouldn’t see married men. It isn’t right. Women like that should just be shot.”

The first time she said that during her monologue, I thought she was going to shoot me right then and there. Instead, she paused in her pacing to stare at me for a moment and then went right back to talking to herself.

Now that she’d said it about twenty times, I was still scared but I didn’t think that she would shoot me just yet. She was waiting for something.

A knock sounded on my door and we both went still, staring at it. I opened my mouth to tell whoever it was to get lost, but Theresa pointed the gun at me.

“Not a single fucking word. He’s here. I want him to see what happens when he give in to temptation.”

I had a sinking feeling that the person on the other side of that door was Grayson Garrett. When she walked over and opened it up, my premonition was correct.

“Holy shit, Theresa. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t come in here and terrorize Amy like this,” he said.

Theresa just pointed the gun in his direction and he shut up immediately.

“Get in, Gray. I want you to see something.”

Shit. Shit. SHIT! I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I couldn’t just sit here on the sofa and let the crazy bitch shoot me. I looked at Grayson hoping he would try to step in, but I was sorely disappointed. He just stared back at me with wide scared eyes. No help there.

I turned my focus back to Theresa.

“Theresa, please listen to me…” I started to say.

She whirled, waving the gun wildly. “Shut up, bitch. I don’t want to hear one thing you have to say. You shouldn’t fuck married men. When you sleep with a married man, you’re a whore. You’re no better than dirt. And you deserve whatever punishment you get from the wives.”

I shrank back into the sofa when the gun barrel swung in my direction. Shit, she was going to end up shooting me by accident.

Grayson finally did something. He stepped closer, drawing Theresa’s attention away from me. Of course, he had to open his stupid mouth and make things worse.

“Baby, I never slept with her. She turned me down.”

I rolled my eyes. Fucking hell, he just admitted that he tried to get into my pants. That wasn’t going to calm her ass down.

Theresa turned her back to me so she could face Grayson and she started yelling.

“You told me that it was a moment of weakness. You said that you felt horrible and that she seduced you. So, who’s lying? You or her?”

I knew this might be my only opportunity, so I got to my feet as silently as I could manage. I started backing slowly down the hall. If I could make it to my bedroom, I could go out the French doors. I couldn’t go out the front door because the two of them were standing in front of it. The door to the carport in the kitchen was right in her line of sight. Only the hall to the bedrooms was still behind her.

“T, honey, please. Don’t do anything that you’ll regret. I’m telling you the truth now. She and I never slept together. When I told you all those things, I was hoping that you would forgive me for the infidelity I committed in my heart.”

I almost gagged at Grayson’s words. God, he was a pig. He was laying that shit on thick, and I knew that he probably didn’t mean a word of it.

I was almost at the end of the hallway when Grayson’s eyes shot over Theresa’s shoulder to lock onto me. The freaking idiot’s reaction drew her attention to me. His crazy wife turned, her eyes wild when she realized I was no longer on the couch but standing at the end of the hall. She raised the gun, and I made a run for it. I dashed through my bedroom door, straight to the French doors. I fumbled with the lock, hearing the loud bang of the gun. The insane bitch shot at me.

I managed to unlock the door and fling the doors open. I jumped off the porch and vaulted over the fence between my yard and Troy’s and sprinted around the house. I opened the side gate and burst out of the yard to find myself caught in the bright beam of two headlights.

The door of the car opened, and Troy climbed out.

“Amy? What’s wrong?”

Sobbing and struggling to breathe, I ran headlong into his arms.

“She’s here. Theresa Garrett is here,” I managed to choke out.

At the same time, we heard Grayson’s voice.

“Theresa, don’t. Stop. Let’s just go. She’s gone.”

Troy shoved me behind him and down so that the car door hid me. He drew his gun from the holster under his jacket. When Theresa and Grayson came through the gate, he trained the gun on them both.

“Stop right there and put down the weapon,” he ordered.

Grayson put his hands up, freezing immediately. Theresa took another step, the gun hanging loosely from her hand at her side.

“She has to pay,” she said. “It isn’t right. She has to pay.”

I almost felt sorry for her. It was obvious that she wasn’t quite right in the head and she was married to a world-class assclown.

“I won’t tell you again. If that gun isn’t on the ground in the next three seconds, I will shoot you,” Troy barked.

That seemed to yank Theresa out of her homicidal haze. She raised her other hand and bent slowly at the waist to place the revolver on the ground.

“Okay, now lace your fingers behind your head and take five steps forward.” He waited until they both did as they were told. “Get on your knees and do not even flinch.”

When both of them were on their knees, Troy pulled out his cell and handed it to me. “Call nine-one-one and then give the phone back to me.”

I did as he said and handed the phone back to him when the dispatcher came onto the line. I didn’t hear exactly what he was saying because there was a dull roar in my ears, and it grew louder and louder until it sounded like I was standing right next to a jet. A cold sweat broke out all over my body, and my knees went weak. Unable to hold up my weight, I sat on the ground next to Troy’s car and focused on not throwing up.

I had almost died. All because I had dated a man that I thought was the antithesis of the losers I normally dated. He turned out to be the biggest loser of all, and it had almost gotten me hurt. Black dots danced in front of my eyes, and I wondered if I was about to faint for the first time in my life.

“Amy! Amy! Look at me!”

I blinked and saw that Troy’s face was right in front of me, and he looked concerned.

“Slow down your breathing, babe. You’re gonna pass out if you can’t control it.”

I focused on taking slow, deep breaths. The dark spots began to recede, and the shaking of my limbs slowed a little. I looked over and saw that Theresa and Grayson were both on their bellies with their hands cuffed behind their backs. I guess Troy had secured them while I was having my meltdown.

“Is it over?” I asked.

“Yeah, baby. It’s over,” Troy answered.

My response was to burst into tears and throw myself into his arms.

Almost One Month Later…

“Amy, get your ass moving!” Troy yelled.

“Coming,” I replied as I brushed one more coat of mascara on my lashes.

It was Thanksgiving, and Troy and I were going to his parents’ house for lunch and then having dinner with my family.

The last three weeks had been hard yet surprisingly easy. Yes, I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it was completely true. The hard parts were the nightmares and flashbacks I had since the night that Theresa Garrett came here to shoot me. It was also that I was more emotional than usual for a week or so. I flew off handle at the smallest provocation. I started to calm down after a few days, and now I was almost back to normal in regards to the emotional rollercoaster I had been riding right after the attack.

The easy part was settling into a routine with Troy. We spent almost every night together. It surprised me that he didn’t seem to want time apart. Usually this early in a relationship, spending that much time together would make me want to poke myself in the eye with a sharp object.

Instead I felt safe and cherished. Troy watched me carefully, took my mercurial moods with a grain of salt, and held me at night when I woke up sweating and shaking in the throes of the same nightmare I’d had since that night. The dream in which I didn’t escape Theresa’s gunshot. What I didn’t tell Troy was that he had come in to save me, and the crazy bitch had shot him too. I usually woke up from that dream with the image of Troy’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood, and his sightless eyes staring straight at me.

For a guy that seemed like such an inconsiderate ass a month ago, he proved himself to be generous, sweet, and even nurturing. I couldn’t believe how wrong I had been about him. He was everything I wanted in a man.