Page 114 of Paranoid

You’re the adult, she reminded herself, but sometimes it just didn’t feel like it. She considered tossing the tea down the drain, then picked up the cup, walked down the hall, and rapped on Harper’s door.

Her daughter was just yelling, “Could you just please leave me alone!” when Rachel pushed open the door.

“Mom!” Harper, texting, was propped up in her bed, the duvet wrapped around her, her eyes sullen.

“No lectures, okay?” Rachel said. “But you need to quit yelling and acting like a baby. I know you’ve been through a lot. We all have. But you don’t need to berate me or talk badly about your brother and his friends. We need to stick together.”

“I thought you said ‘no lectures.’”

“That’s all of it.” Rachel set the tea on her daughter’s nightstand. “Just one last thing,” she added and Harper’s lips pinched. “I get that you want to be treated like an adult. I remember. So . . . here’s the deal: You start acting like an adult and I promise I’ll start treating you like one.”

Harper’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You think you can really do that?” She let out a disbelieving huff. “Come on, Mom, you’re . . . well, you know.”

“What, Harper? I’m what?”

Harper’s chin jutted. “You’re, like, paranoid. You freak out at every little thing. The dog got out and you panicked. I heard you calling for him. He’s a dog. He went sniffing into the neighbor’s yard. It’s not a big deal.”

Rachel’s spine stiffened. She’d walked to the door, but now turned and stood in the opening to the hallway. “Things have been a little freaky lately. Weird.”

“I know, yeah. I was there!” On the bed, Harper gave a shudder. “I get why you’re freaked out. People are dying, being killed. It’s scary, but, Mom . . . the dog?”

“Okay, maybe I overreacted,” she admitted, thinking of how the blinds rattling the other night had caused her to become frantic, how she sensed someone watching her when there was no one around, how a prank text had caused her to consider her brother reaching out from the grave—on a cell phone no less. How she was always nervous, on edge. But then there were the murders, the vandalism, and now there was the shoe print. She cleared her throat. “I’ll work on keeping it more together.”

“Can you?” Harper asked earnestly, even ignoring her phone as her big eyes pleaded with her mother.

Rachel lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know, but I can give it a try.”

Still obviously skeptical, Harper said, “Okay,” and as Rachel turned to leave, she added, “Thanks for bringing me the tea.”

“No prob.” As Rachel closed the door to her daughter’s room, she told herself she had to find a way to get hold of herself. She had let her own worries, her fears and anxiety, get the better of her for far too long. Be strong. Be strong. Be strong. She headed upstairs, the mantra playing over and over again in her head, but she knew mind over matter wasn’t as easy as it sounded and one couldn’t just will oneself not to be anxious, but she would try, just as she had promised her daughter.

She’d just about convinced herself that she would beat this thing when her phone vibrated in her pocket and the same simple phrase that she’d seen before appeared in a text:

I forgive you.

CHAPTER 26

Rachel nearly stumbled on the top step as she stared at the message. Her heart went into overdrive as she made her way to the office and dropped into her desk chair. Frantically, she punched the function to return the call.

No answer.

Not unexpected.

She tried again.

Nothing.

“You son of a bitch,” she ground out and texted back:

Who is this?

No reply.

Who are you?

Silence, of course.

Why are you doing this?