Page 116 of Paranoid

Cade?

One of her kids?

Her mother?

Dad?

Who?

Once more, she tried calling the number and once more she was disappointed. Whoever had left the text had intended to and then gone dark. One message she could have believed was a mistake, but two? No way.

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.