Paranoid(86)

Staring at the message, she thought of all the people she’d wronged in her life, and there were quite a few, but she’d never done anything worthy of some weird wireless absolution. I forgive you. As if she’d sinned, for God’s sake.

The first message had come in twenty years to the very day she’d pulled that fateful trigger and her brother had died.

Coincidence?

If not . . . then who would play such a sick, cruel joke on her?

And why?

And what was significant about this day? It had nothing to do with that long-ago tragedy.

Then it hit her. Both messages had been received upon the publication of the articles about the cannery.

Worse yet, each text had been received after the murder of her classmates, two women who had testified on her behalf. A cold dread curled in her stomach. Was that it? Or was she jumping at shadows, coming to ludicrous conclusions?

Either way, she had to find out.

Jangled nerves be damned, she couldn’t let someone threaten her family or control her emotional state.

She grabbed her purse and flew down the stairs, nearly running into Harper, who, dressed in a robe with her hair wrapped in a towel, was just stepping out of the bathroom. A cloud of warm mist seeped through the doorway and a quick glance inside showed the mirror completely fogged.

“Hey, I was just going over to Grandpa’s for a few minutes,” she said to her daughter as she retrieved her keys from a side pocket in her purse. “Wanna come?” That sounded reasonable. She’d wake Dylan as well. They could all go together.

“Are you kidding?” Harper said, motioning to the terry turban on her head. “I can’t. Not now. Besides, I’ve got tons of homework. Sometimes I think Mr. Gorson piles it on twice as much if you don’t show up to class.”

Dad lived just across the small town, less than fifteen minutes away. And it was the middle of the morning. Rachel wanted to argue with her daughter, but this was no time to panic Harper. And she couldn’t overreact, not because of one text.

Two texts and two murders.

“Mom. We’ll be all right,” Harper said, as if reading her thoughts. “You’ve got that security system, right? And the dog’s with us? And we’re both here with cell phones.” She leveled a gaze at her, this girl who had witnessed a horrendous death less than twelve hours earlier. “We’ll be fine.”

Rachel hesitated.

“Seriously?” her daughter asked when she saw her mother’s indecision. “We can always call Dad, too. You know, the cop? And if all else fails, nine-one-one. The station is what? Ten minutes away.”

“Okay.” Rachel relented. “I won’t be gone long. Text me if you need me.”

“No worries,” Harper said. “Adult. Remember?” She actually floated her mother what seemed like a genuine smile.

“Okay. I’ll just give Dylan the word.”

“As if he cares, but whatever.”

Rachel knocked on Dylan’s door and stepped inside his cluttered room. The window shades were drawn, the room was dark, but he was awake. Sitting in bed, propped against the headboard, he wore a headset and worked the buttons of a wireless gaming controller as he stared at a computer monitor. On the screen a military-style scenario was playing out, armed soldiers hiding behind partial walls, piles of bricks, and huge barrels as the player inched his way through a labyrinthine building.

“Hey,” she said.

“Yeah.” His gaze didn’t shift from the screen.

“I’m heading over to Grandpa’s. Be back in an hour. Okay?” She didn’t ask him to join her, preferred her kids be together.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you even going to ask about school?”

“Figured you took care of it.” He was still working the controller and it bugged her.

“Can you find ‘pause’ or whatever it is?”

“But I’m in a major battle for . . .” Then he stopped; his thumbs and fingers quit moving, and he actually looked at her. “Sorry.”

“That’s better. You’ve got homework. I saw it posted online. Do it. And there’s cereal, or toast or whatever you want in the refrigerator, for breakfast . . . or lunch.”

“Okay.”

“Text me if you need anything. And keep the doors locked.”

“Yeah.”

“And, Dylan?” she added. “Do something about this room. You and I, we had a deal that you’d clean it up. Part of the arrangement when you got in trouble last week. Doesn’t seem like you’ve tackled it. So, when I get back, I want to be able to see the floor and know that it’s been vacuumed and dusted.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean it.”

“Got it.”

He seemed to be listening, but sometimes she just couldn’t tell.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

He finally looked at her. “Like where would I go? All my friends are in school.”

Good point. She left then and told herself she’d be gone only a half hour, forty-five minutes on the outside. What could possibly go wrong?

*

All things considered, Cade didn’t feel too bad. He’d finished the “awesome” farmer’s breakfast at Abe’s, gone home, hit the rack, and slept for four hours. When his alarm had gone off, he’d walked through a cold shower, ignored his razor, dressed, and discovered a can of Red Bull that Dylan had left in the refrigerator. After downing the energy drink, he’d sifted through e-mails, texted Rachel and the kids a couple of times, and skimmed the latest online edition of the local paper. On the way to work, he’d bought a cup of coffee and was only slightly jangled as he stepped into the office a little after eleven.