Page 62 of Paranoid

She froze.

Waited.

Click-click-click!

What the hell? Cautiously she threw off the quilt, crossed the room, and paused with her hand on the doorknob. Did she hear footsteps? Anything other than the—

Click-click!

From the bathroom.

Steeling herself, she turned toward the bathroom, with its partially open door. A soft breeze slid into the room as she entered and sensed no one. She slapped on the light switch. As she did, the shade moved in the window, slamming against the sill twice.

Click-click.

No wonder.

Because she’d cracked the window a couple of inches during her last shower, the shifting air was sucking the shade in and out, making the recurring sound she’d transferred to the firing of a pellet gun in her dream.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over the sink: white pallor, wild eyes, mussed hair, her own fears visible.

“Oh, crap,” she said and shook her head, talking to the woman in the glass. “Harper’s right. You are a freak.”

The reflection still looked scared as hell.

“Get it together,” Rachel grumbled before shutting the window and starting back to the bedroom. But she knew sleep would be elusive, if not impossible, and still she was on edge.

If she’d left this window cracked, what about the others?

She had a routine she followed when locking the house for the night. She’d start in the basement, check the windows, cellar door to the stairwell, then head to the first floor, where she’d do the same, and finally double-check every room on the top level. She always stopped to engage the security system, but then reminded herself it wasn’t working, hadn’t been for months.

Rachel slid into her slippers, threw on her robe, and, with Reno on her heels, went to the basement where she noted everything was secure. The door to the outside was locked and bolted, the windows were pulled tight and latched, one in the laundry room and two more in the storage area, which was overflowing and had been since they’d remodeled the attic into living quarters. No matter how often she sorted and organized the tax records, old schoolwork,

clothes that no longer fit, and a variety of old electronic equipment, the pile of plastic crates and boxes seemed to grow. She made a mental note to have Dylan work on it next weekend. He was always rooting around down here anyway.

On the first floor, she checked both the front and back doors and the windows in the dining room, kids’ rooms, and kitchen as well as the living room and bathroom. As Reno brushed past her in the kitchen to get to his water dish, she noticed the old copy of the Edgewater Edition, the pages folded open to the article about Luke’s death in the cannery. Damn Mercy. Like a fishing hook dragging her deep into the sea, that resurrection of the details of Luke’s murder was taking her into dark places she’d tried for years to put behind her.

The night terrors. The guilt. And now Violet’s murder and the unsettling text message.

She tossed the paper aside, realizing she needed to do something about it. The newspaper retrospective was making it all worse.

She had to talk to Mercedes, hold her to the facts and convince her to let the painful story go. Rachel couldn’t stop the nightmares or the horror over Violet’s death, but this news series, this was a devil she could grab by the horns.

CHAPTER 15

Going to O’Callahan’s hadn’t been her smartest move. Drinking her first mojito hadn’t been wise either.

The second drink had been a mistake.

And the third? A definite disaster. Maybe even a catastrophe, Kayleigh thought as she woke up on Saturday morning, her head pounding, her thirst reminding her she hadn’t tied one on like this for years. The room was shadowed, only the barest light of early dawn sifting past a rolling fog and the sheer curtains.

After consuming the three—or had it been four?—drinks, she’d made the smart decision not to get behind the wheel. Rather than call an Uber car she’d made the not-so-smart decision to allow a much more sober Travis McVey to drive her home.

So now she had two headaches, the one pounding behind her eyes, and the one snoring softly beside her.

“Idiot,” she whispered.

She wanted to close her eyes and her mind to the night before, but couldn’t. What’s done is done, her grandmother used to say. Deal with it.