Innocent Target. Elisabeth Rees

couldn’t afford to lose it. Until recently she’d housed a tenant in the self-contained apartment attached to the house, but he’d moved out two weeks ago, and money was tight.

      “Okay, I understand,” she said finally.

      “Great. Give me your latest piece and I’ll get it in tomorrow’s edition.”

      Kitty clicked off the phone, walked to the open window and gazed at the beautiful Chinese pistache tree in the yard. Her father had planted the tree ten years ago as a memorial to Kitty’s mother, after cancer had stolen her from them. Her death had been the catalyst for Harry’s drinking, the coping mechanism he had so recklessly chosen in his grief.

      A floorboard creaked above and Kitty called out to her little black cat. He would no doubt be hungry, having waited patiently for his dinner while his mistress furiously tapped on a keyboard.

      “Shadow,” she called. “I have some nice fish for you.”

      She went into the kitchen, retrieving a plastic tub of cod fillets from the fridge and turning on the radio for company. She was beginning to feel terribly lonely in her lakeside house, set in beautiful woodland but secluded and isolated.

      There was another floorboard creak overhead. “Come on, Shadow. Where are you?”

      A meow sounded at her feet and her cat wound himself through her legs. She froze for a second, a lump building in her throat. If Shadow was here, then who or what was upstairs?

      She swallowed hard, telling herself not to panic. She put down the tub of fish and walked into the hallway, peering up the staircase.

      “Hello?” she said tentatively. “Is somebody here?”

      As a precaution, she took her cell from her pocket and punched in 9-1-1. She didn’t intend to actually place the call, but it didn’t hurt to be ready, just in case.

      Ascending the stairs, Kitty kept her ears attuned to any sounds. A sudden noise made her jump. Flattening her back against the wall in the upstairs hallway, she placed a hand over her heart to try and steady it, telling herself that there must be a rational explanation for the sound, like an object falling to the floor.

      “There’s no one here, there’s no one here,” she chanted, as if repeating these words would calm her nerves.

      She then thought of the small figurine that she kept on her dresser by the window in her bedroom, a gift from her parents for her eighth birthday. Maybe the new drapes had gotten caught in the wind and knocked it onto the rug.

      Pushing open her bedroom door, she went into the neat and orderly room. There on the floor was her little figurine, lying on its side beneath the open window, exactly as she had suspected. She stooped to retrieve it just as the door slammed shut behind her with an almighty bang. She sprang up and swiveled around. There was a man standing just a few feet away, a ski mask covering his face, a long-bladed knife in his hand. She screamed, but he remained as still as a statue, his chest rising and falling with heavy breathing.

      “Wh-what do you want?” she managed to stutter.

      His chilling reply let her know that this wasn’t a burglar.

      “I want to kill you.”

      She replied with the only thing that came to her terrified mind. “Why?”

      “Because you wouldn’t leave well enough alone,” he said, advancing toward her.

      She began to back away. “What do you mean?”

      “You should’ve accepted that your father killed Molly.”

      “But I know he didn’t.”

      “You know too much,” the man said. “And that’s why you must die.”

      He lunged with his knife. She had no time to think. There was a gun in her dresser, but she had no opportunity to retrieve it. She grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a vase of flowers, and hurled it at the man’s head. The heavy glass bounced off his shoulder and he yelled a curse word, dropping his knife. Kitty tried to snatch the handle but he was too quick for her. Within seconds, the weapon was back in his grasp and she was again at his mercy.

      Then she remembered the cell in her hand and hit the call button with her thumb, backing away to the open window. Not daring to bring the cell to her ear, she heard the emergency operator’s faint voice, asking which service was required.

      “Police,” she yelled. “62 Lakeside Drive, Bethesda. There’s an intruder.”

      Her rear end was now against the windowsill. There was nowhere to go except through the opening. She turned and leaped from the room, out into the clear air, landing in a jumble of limbs and leaves of the old oak tree. She tumbled down, hitting branches as she went, which knocked the breath from her lungs. Her cell flew from her hand and she came to rest on the grass with a thump. She was sore and scratched, but not seriously injured.

      She looked up and saw the man leaning through the window, watching her haul herself to her knees. For a brief moment he appeared to be considering descending the same way as she had, but then changed his mind and disappeared from view. That meant he intended to reach her via the stairs, which would take only a matter of seconds. She picked herself up and ran toward the main road, not daring to look back or imagine what would happen if she failed to outrun this wild attacker.

      “Help!” she screamed into the empty woods. “Please somebody help me.”

      * * *

      Chief Deputy Ryan Lawrence surveyed the quiet street outside the station. When he’d taken the job as the chief deputy at the Bethesda station one week ago, nobody had warned him it would be so quiet. His hometown of Lawton, with its almost one hundred thousand residents, was huge in comparison to this little town of barely three thousand. He’d agreed to transfer to the small satellite office in order to take a promotion that would put him in line for the sheriff’s election in a few months’ time. He just hoped that landing his dream job as county sheriff was worth the endless monotony of this sleepy town.

      The radio clipped to his belt crackled to life: “We’ve got a report from Kitty Linklater of an intruder at 62 Lakeside Drive. Immediate assistance required.”

      He grabbed the radio and spoke into it as he retrieved the truck keys from the hook. “I’m on it.”

      Ryan raced along the road that led to the Linklater home—the former residence of the murderer Harry Linklater. It was the place where Harry’s daughter had dreamed up ridiculous notions of proving her father’s innocence and freeing him from prison. Ryan had hoped he’d be able to steer clear of this misguided woman, but she apparently needed his help, so his personal feelings would have to be put to one side.

      He knew that Kitty was deeply unpopular in these parts, reviled for her unwavering support of her father and regarded as sullying the memory of the murdered girl through her newspaper articles questioning the jury’s verdict. Molly Thomas had been a gifted musician and a straight A student, a girl whose only mistake had been to accept a lift from Harry Linklater when hitchhiking to a party. Molly’s last known words were a text to a friend: Catching a ride with Mr. Linklater, see you in ten minutes. But she never made it to the party and was found dead a few hours later. Molly’s untimely death had shattered the whole county, and now perhaps someone wanted vengeance.

      He turned onto the lane that led to the lake, instantly seeing a woman who he assumed was Kitty sprinting in his direction, covered in leaves and twigs, blood trickling down her face. And behind her was a man dressed in jeans and a hoodie, a ski mask covering his face. Ryan slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting Kitty, jumped from the truck and raised his gun at the suspect.

      “Stop right there,” he commanded, pointing his weapon. “You’re under arrest.”

      Kitty stood in the lane, her eyes wide with fear, her hands trembling at her sides. The masked man stopped dead, looking between Ryan and the lake, as if assessing his escape routes. Then he turned and ran toward the water, a blade glinting in his hand.

      Ryan