“Dan! If someone was in the attic, how would they get the stairs down?” she asked him as he yanked on the rope.

He ignored her, headed up the dusty stairs, found the chain for the single electric bulb and pulled it. Light flooded the space. It was clean and neat with only a few boxes.

No one was hiding there.

He headed back down. She was waiting for him in the hallway.

“Okay?” she asked him.

He headed back down the stairs, determined to check out the back door, the kitchen door, again.

He remembered there had been a second door.

The house was built up on pilings, so there might well be a basement. There was. Like the attic, it was clean and neat. It contained yard tools, an extra refrigerator, a Ping-Pong table and heating equipment.

Little windows looked to the outside.

They could be broken.

A man—not a giant, but even a man his size—might be able to crawl through them.

He came back up the basement stairs. Katie was waiting in the kitchen, leaning on the counter.

“It’s a basement, right?” Her tone was sarcastic. “We’re at water level, but the house was built up. And yes, it has flooded, so I move stuff up when a storm is coming. But no one was in it, right?”

“Nope.”

“Would you like coffee or something before you leave?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

“No, you don’t want coffee? Would you like something else?”

“Coffee is fine,” he told her. “Nope, I’m not leaving.”

She looked at him, frowning. Then she sighed. “Listen, you’ve gotten to where you’re bearable, but I’m not—”

“Hey. I’m staying because there are no dogs out in the yard and your house is a veritable sieve.”

“But—”

“Katie, do you have any damned common sense? You could be a target! Do you have a death wish? Did you want to invite an axe murderer in?”

She seemed to freeze where she stood. “No,” she said. “My apologies. The guest room has a blow-up bed, but it’s a good one, and the sheets are clean. Please, make yourself at home. Oh, and it has its own little bathroom. You’ll barely fit in it, but I get nice hot water, and the water pressure is surprisingly decent, too. Towels on the hooks in there are clean, too. Coffee...well, you know how to fix coffee, I’m sure.”

She walked out of the kitchen, and he heard her footsteps as she hurried upstairs.

And then the click as she closed her bedroom door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dan Oliver wasn’t a bad guest, and Katie wasn’t sure why’d she’d been so sharp with him the night before. She’d heard him walk around, and she was certain he was checking all the windows. She’d heard him in the kitchen.