Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

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Lori and Larry were sitting on the couch when someone knocked on the door. Lori held a mug of tea in her hands – Larry had made it for her – and while she’d drunk very little of it, she found the mug’s warmth comforting. She turned her head toward the door, but before she could start to get up, Larry gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then rose from the couch and headed to the door.

Larry was tall and thin, with a stubbly beard and thick black hair that was always in need of a trim. He wore T-shirts, jeans, and sandals, regardless of the weather, and tonight his shirt was black with the iconic red Rolling Stones lips on the front. His battered guitar case was propped up in the corner next to the couch, where he usually kept it. He tended to practice when she was at work, and it had been a long time since she’d heard him play. She was surprised by how sad this realization made her feel.

Larry unlocked and opened the door to reveal a pair of uniformed police officers, one man, one woman. The man spoke first.

“We got a call that someone broke into your apartment.”

Both officers looked Larry up and down, and the woman wrinkled her nose. After a night of performing, Larry always smelled like sweat, alcohol, cigarette smoke, and marijuana. Not exactly the best first impression to make on a couple of cops.

“Yeah,” Larry said.

He opened the door all the way and stepped aside so the officers could enter. They did so, immediately noting Lori’s presence, as well as sweeping their gazes around the apartment to take everything in. Once the officers were all the way inside, Larry closed the door. He didn’t lock it again, though.

The male officer looked to be in his thirties. He was stout, broad-shouldered, and his head was shaved. His facial features were unremarkable, his expression emotionless, almost bored. The female officer was about a decade older than her partner, as well as a few inches taller, and she possessed a runner’s build – lean and strong. Her brown hair was straight and cut short, and she wore minimal makeup and no jewelry.

“I’m Officer Rauch,” the man said. He nodded toward his partner. “And this is Officer McGuire.”

Lori and Larry gave the officers their names. McGuire took a notebook from her shirt pocket and wrote down the information.

“Which of you called to report the incident?” she asked.

“I did,” Lori said. She didn’t rise from the couch. She felt weary, although less so than she had earlier. But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t get up. She still wore only her oversized T-shirt and panties, and she’d pulled the shirt over her bare legs as far as she could to cover them. She felt uncomfortable at the idea of Officer Rauch staring at her legs, and he was bound to notice she was braless if she started moving around. Maybe she was being foolishly modest, but she didn’t care.

“As calm as you both seem to be, I take it that the intruder is no longer on the premises?” McGuire asked.

“I don’t think so,” Lori said.

“I got home right after she called,” Larry said. “I didn’t see anyone.”

McGuire nodded. “Okay. It doesn’t hurt to be thorough, though.” She looked at her partner. “Ralph?”

“On it.”

Officer Rauch gave the living room another once over before heading for the small kitchen. Larry looked at Lori and mouthed, Ralph Rauch? She knew what he was thinking. It sounded more like the name of a cartoon character than a police officer. She smiled briefly at the thought.

As Rauch headed for the kitchen, McGuire said, “Lori, tell me what happened here tonight.”

Lori nodded and began talking. Larry stood off to the side, listening, brow furrowed. She’d already told him a short version of what had occurred, but this was his first time hearing the details. Not that Lori provided all of them. She knew if she told the officers everything that had happened, they’d write her off as a kook, or worse, haul her in for a psych eval. She told McGuire about hearing the thumps, but she omitted any descriptions of the shadow creatures, and instead spoke of ‘someone’ who’d been in the living room when she’d left her bedroom to check if Larry had come home yet. As for the rest of her story, she told a modified version of the truth. The ‘intruder’ had chased her to her bedroom and broke through the locked door. She’d then hid inside the master bathroom, and the intruder had tried to break through that door as well. The next thing she knew, Larry was knocking on the door and asking if she was all right.

As she told the edited version of her story, Officer Rauch headed down the hall and into her bedroom, continuing his search of the apartment. She was uncomfortable with the idea of a strange man inspecting her bedroom and bathroom, but she knew he was only doing his job. Still, it was in its own way as creepy as the shadow things that had come after her.

Officer McGuire made notes on a pad as Lori spoke, stopping her a couple times to clarify some points. When Lori was finished, Rauch returned to the living room.

“The bedroom door was forced open,” he said. “Caused some slight damage. I’m going to look at the patio door, see if there are any signs it was forced open too. Then I’ll check the deck and take the stairs down to the ground, see if I can find anything.”

McGuire nodded, and Rauch walked toward the open patio door. As he passed the couch, Lori noticed two things about him. One was that there was a trio of lines on the side of his neck. At first she thought they were wrinkles of some sort, although the man seemed too young for that. But when