I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I was startled awake in the middle of the night by a rustling noise outside the cabin. I sat straight up. Bess was still sleeping soundly in the bed next to mine, but I saw George shift in her bed across the room. She sat up too.

I tiptoed over in the dark and perched on the edge of her bed.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

She nodded. “It sounds like someone’s out there,” she said in a hushed tone.

I stood up and dashed back to my bed to grab a sweatshirt and my cell phone—just in case. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and stepped into my flip-flops. George did the same, and then we quietly went out into the cabin’s main room.

A shadow darted past the window next to the front door. George and I both held our breath.

“Maybe we should call the police,” she said quietly.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I clutched George’s arm.

What I had seen outside was now behind me, but inside.

CHAPTER SIX

Shadowed

THE MOONLIGHT CAST THE FIGURE’S shadow on the wall in front of me. I grabbed a ceramic frog that was perched on the sideboard and whirled around, my heart pounding. I raised the frog, ready to bash the intruder.

“Stop! Don’t touch me!” the voice screamed.

Bess?

I lowered my arm. “Bess! You scared the daylights out of us!”

Bess flinched and then scowled. “You almost hit me with that—that ugly frog.”

I smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, glancing at the painted ceramic figurine. “I thought you were an intruder.”

“I did too,” George added.

Bess glared at us both. “Well, you two are the ones who are out of bed in the middle of the night,” she said accusingly. “I heard the floorboards creaking and both of your beds were empty, so I didn’t know what was going on. What’s up?”

“George and I heard something outside the cabin,” I explained, leaning over and flicking on the light switch. “We wanted to check it out.”

George nodded. “And then we saw a shadow on the front porch. We were about to call the police when you came up behind us.”

“Well, let’s call, then. It’s possible the intruder is still around.” Bess shuddered. “I still don’t know why anyone around here is interested in us.”

She picked up the phone and dialed 911.

About ten minutes later, Sheriff Garrison appeared at our front door.

“What seems to be the problem, ladies?” he asked. “I didn’t expect to see the three of you again so soon.”

George said, “We heard a noise outside the cabin. Then we saw a shadow flit across the porch. We thought someone might be trying to break in.”

The sheriff looked concerned. “I’m glad you notified us,” he replied. “This is the third call we’ve received tonight from the cabins around Moon Lake. It seems there have been a few sightings.”

Bess, George, and I exchanged a look. First a fire, then a theft, our almost drowning, and now three calls to the police in one night? Was that also a plot from one of Lacey’s books?

The sheriff’s walkie-talkie crackled.

“Unit One, come in.”

The sheriff pulled the handset off his belt and replied, “Sheriff Garrison here.”

“We’re sending the chopper over Moon Lake. Looking for a perp in the southeast quadrant.”

“Copy that,” the sheriff replied. He turned back to us. “You ladies okay? We’re sending the helicopter out over the lake, so if there’s anyone still out there, he or she should flee quickly or be caught in the floodlights. In the meantime, lock all the windows and doors and turn on any lights around the outside perimeter of the cabin. I doubt the perp will come back this way, but if you see or hear anything suspicious, just give me a call.”

He handed me a card. “This is my cell number. Feel free to call me directly and I’ll send someone out ASAP.”

“Thanks a lot, Sheriff,” Bess replied as she held the door open for him. “And sorry to bother you twice in two days. At least we weren’t annoying anyone this time.” She smiled.

“No bother,” he replied. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Once the sheriff had gone and we had double-checked to be sure all the doors and windows were locked, we returned to the bedroom and climbed back into our beds.

“Whew,” Bess said as she slipped under the covers. “I feel like these two days have been like a roller coaster.”

“I know,” I said as I lay back against the pillows. “I’m really sorry this visit to Moon Lake hasn’t been restful.”

I closed my eyes and mulled things over for a few minutes. Could the would-be intruder be connected to the fire and the art gallery theft? I had to check the plots of some of Lacey O’Brien’s books to find out if an intruder in the woods was a character who appeared in any of her stories.

I opened my eyes to see that Bess and George were both asleep. I quietly slipped out of bed, grabbed my laptop from my bag, and tiptoed into the living room. Once my computer was running, I did a search on Lacey O’Brien’s books. Up came Framed, Drowned, Consumed, Shadowed, Snatched, Dragged, Ditched, Stalked, Nabbed, and Burned, with plot summaries of each novel.

I read through the summaries, and my breath caught when I got to Shadowed. Lucy Luckstone is the protagonist again, and this time she’s spending a week on vacation in a rented cabin on a lake. On the first day of her trip, her wallet is stolen, and for the rest of the week, she feels as though she’s being followed. Then one night someone tries to break into her cabin. It turns out she has a doppelgänger who’s trying to steal her identity.

My skin prickled. It was as if I was reliving the book. How could that be?

Had I really left my wallet at the Cheshire Cat Inn, or had someone—Alice Ann?—lifted it from my purse and then returned it to me after finding out my background?

I dug through my bag and grabbed my wallet, popping it open to check its contents. My credit card, ID, and cash were still inside. I laughed nervously. Of course Alice Ann hadn’t stolen my wallet—she was the one who had brought up my missing wallet when Bess, George, and I returned to the inn, not the other way around. But just because everything was accounted for didn’t mean Alice Ann—or anyone, really—hadn’t looked through my wallet.

Now I was really being paranoid. But I couldn’t help feeling that I had become the copycat criminal’s target.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. My head hurt from thinking too much about all the different possibilities. I had to get some sleep or I’d never be alert enough to track down the owners of the bookstore and art gallery, and possibly Lacey O’Brien the next morning. With heavy eyelids, I headed back to bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning we were all awake bright and early. George and Bess were packing up to return to River Heights. Meanwhile, I would stay here in Avondale and try to interview as many possible suspects as I could.

I decided to leave our rental cabin on the lake, which, without Bess and George, would be too isolated for me to stay in alone. I thought I’d stay in town at the Cheshire Cat. I’d be able to keep my eye on Alice Ann and anything else that happened.

“Nice to see you again, Nancy,” said Alice Ann as she checked me in. “So glad you decided to stay here after all. I think Two-B would be perfect for you. Just up the staircase, second door on your right.”

Two-B was decorated with everything related to famous writers, from Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Dickinson. A bust of William Shakespeare sat on the night table, and a framed needlepoint of the Robert Frost quote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,” hung on the wall above the bed.