He took a deep breath. It was time to let his training take over. The front yard was clear. He was ready to move around to the back, when he saw her in the front window. It looked like she had a flashlight in her hand and she was glancing out into the yard.

When she caught sight of him, she threw open her front door. She rushed out, and he was so damn happy he made a habit of having dispatch inform him of 911 calls. Not that there were ever many. In a couple of weeks, the new deputies would be trained and he wouldn’t have had the chance to tell night dispatch to hold off, that he would handle it. Then Lila would have been running toward a man she didn’t know and he would be carrying a gun.

As it was, he was disappointed when she stopped herself before she got to him. Her arms had been up briefly as though she was running to him and ready to throw her arms around him.

“Someone’s trying to open the back door,” she said, and he could see plainly she’d been crying. “Or something. I don’t know. It won’t stop. I wanted to call my sister. I’m stupid because I don’t know her number. She’s a button on my phone. There’s no damn button on a landline that says ‘Lisa.’”

He put a hand on her shoulder and wished he had the right to hug her. “It’s okay. I’m here and I’m going to take care of this, but I need you to go in the house and lock the door.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“I’m going around the back of the house. I need to figure out if we’re dealing with a person or a critter. If that critter happens to be a gator who isn’t as lazy as Otis, I’ll be at the front door as fast as my damn legs can run and we’ll call animal control.” He’d grown up here but he didn’t wrestle alligators.

“Okay.” She sounded breathless, but it was obvious she was under control again.

“Why are the lights off, sweetheart?” He probably shouldn’t call her that, but he liked her and she was afraid.

She sniffled. “I don’t know. They went off after I tried to get the stove to come on and that’s when I heard it.”

He pulled his flashlight. “All right. Get back inside.”

She hesitated.

“I’m going to be okay. You get inside and I’ll figure this out. When I’m done out here, we’ll get your lights back on, too. If anything goes wrong, you call 911 again and lock yourself in the bathroom. You don’t come out until you’re sure it’s my deputy. Her name is Roxanne.”