Paranoid(44)

She gripped the edges of the sink and, closing her eyes, concentrated on her breathing.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

When she felt calmer, her rational mind taking over, she returned to the bedroom and opened the blinds again.

The yard was empty.

The dog now nuzzling his bed in the corner before curling into it.

Everything was back to normal.

But the man outside, the ghost . . .

“Oh, for the love of God, Luke is not a ghost!” she muttered, angry at herself. This was insane. She was just stressed about the kids, about not having a job, about the anniversary of Luke’s death, about the articles in the paper, about trying to get along with her ex, about every damned thing.

Get a frickin’ grip!

She let out a breath as she walked into the office, nervously peered through the front window to see the street was empty. “Good.” Taking a deep breath, she let her gaze travel to her computer, open to Xander Vale’s Facebook page. The big man-child was still staring at her. “Stay away from my daughter,” she said and then heard herself. Dear God, when had she become her own mother?

Wow. She wiped the remaining drops of wine with a clean tissue, wadded it, then tossed it in the trash. Then she closed down her search of Vale, making sure it was erased from her browsing history.

Just in case.

The dog began to make a racket again as she walked back into the bedroom, where Reno was on his back legs, trying to peer through the blinds. “Enough! Reno, down!” she ordered as her phone began to chime and vibrate on her nightstand.

Immediately, she thought something had happened with the kids. Who else would be trying to reach her, as it was nearly midnight?

She glanced down at the screen and noted it wasn’t Cade’s number that flashed on the display. In fact, it wasn’t any number she recognized.

The text was a simple message, three little words. Yet they had the power to send a chill down her spine.

I forgive you.

What?

Who? Who forgave her? For what?

Dread crawled through her as she waited. A minute passed. Then another. She’d thought that someone would type in that they’d sent the message in error, but when that didn’t happen, she texted back: Who is this?

Again she waited.

The dog crouched on the floor, nose on the wall, eyes at the shuttered window.

She licked her lips as the seconds strung into minutes.

“Fine.” She called the number back and listened as the phone rang and rang and rang.

No answer.

Her heart was pounding and she told herself she was being ridiculous. It was a mistake; that was all. But the house seemed suddenly empty and the ticking of the clock downstairs seemed to resonate. Again Reno began to whine.

“Hush!”

She chanced another look, parting the blinds with her fingers and surveying the yard.

Nothing. No ghostly image crouching in the night.

“Don’t freak,” Rachel warned herself, but it was too late. Her nerves were strung tight, a headache beginning and the feeling that something was very, very wrong burrowed deep in her soul.





CHAPTER 14


The kids were asleep, Harper on the twin in the guest bedroom, Dylan on a daybed in the den. Cade grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down at his laptop in the living room, some old cop drama playing silently on the television.

Though he’d left the physical file for the Hollander case at the office, he still could access digital files and he just wanted to check a few loose ends before he called it a night.

He’d found that Richard Moretti was going to be at the hospital on Monday, so he thought he’d try to locate the doctor and ask him about the night of Luke Hollander’s death. The discrepancy in the file was just a note. One of the EMTs who’d been in the ambulance had claimed that Luke was alive when he’d been left at St. Augustine’s, but that note had been crossed out and the ER doctor on duty, Moretti, had written that Luke had been DOA: dead on arrival. He’d been shot in the neck, clipping an artery, and he’d bled out, despite the best efforts of the emergency crew.

It wasn’t much, but a little detail that caught his attention.

Also, he knew from conversations with Rachel that after Ned had gotten his daughter into the police car, he’d followed in his own vehicle, and had made a stop at the hospital to check on his stepson, but it had been too late. Luke had already been gone.

So as Rachel waited at the police station under the wary eye of a female officer, Ned had gone home to break the news to his wife and take her to the hospital before they’d both returned to the police station.

Only then had Ned made his statement, which meshed with that of the second officer on the scene.

Cade took a swallow from his bottle. He knew the rest of the story. Rachel had been arrested, a case had been brought against her, but she’d been acquitted. Her father had been her most vocal supporter.

He thought about Ned Gaston, the father-in-law who’d sat in this very department. Cade and Ned had never been close, but maybe that wasn’t a surprise. Ned and Melinda had split within a year of Luke’s death and soon thereafter Rachel had gotten pregnant. With Harper.

One strike against Cade.

And there had been many more over the years. Not only had Cade and Rachel divorced and she’d accused him of an affair with Kayleigh, but also there was the fact that Cade was now, essentially, doing Ned’s job.