Page 69 of Paranoid

Now, her body was riddled with exhaustion, jacked with stress.

Anxiety was nothing to sneeze at; nothing to ignore. Rachel knew it. But as she stared at the pills in her

medicine cabinet, she couldn’t get herself to pop one. She’d been off the Xanax for weeks now and taking the medication seemed like a step backward. Even though she realized that wasn’t the case, she didn’t want to lean on any more medication. She palmed the bottle, counted the pills, making certain no more had gone missing. All accounted for, but maybe she should have pushed the kids harder. Was she too loose with them? A bad parent. Well, she’d have a look in their rooms today, before they got home. A parent’s prerogative.

She recapped the bottle and threw on running clothes, snapped on Reno’s leash, and headed out.

Her nerves were still jangled from lack of sleep, and throughout the weekend she’d felt a trepidation about her solo runs in the early morning, but she refused to be intimidated. Couldn’t allow it. With her dog by her side and pepper spray in her pocket, she headed out the back door and pushed through the gate into the street. Reno kept pace as she ran downhill toward town, where a lingering mist still clung to the river. The air was crisp, the sky a promising, bold blue, and she suspected the mist would burn off by noon.

The cool air should have cleared her head, but instead the text floated through her mind.

I forgive you.

Received twenty years from the day of Luke’s death.

Of course she’d first thought of her brother; he was the one person whom she’d so horribly wronged, but he was long dead and she didn’t think St. Peter was handing out cell phones at the pearly gates. Nope. The text was from a living, breathing person, either a mistake or a prank.

And she was leaning toward the idea that it was sent in error. She avoided a puddle and kept running, thinking of anyone who might have sent it. One of the people at the reunion meeting? Someone close to Luke?

Lila, who’d been left to deal with having his baby?

Mercedes, who was hell-bent to write her series about his death and was pissed that Rachel hadn’t agreed to an interview?

Nate, his best friend, who had seemed so untethered after Luke’s death?

Her own mother?

No, no. Not Melinda!

His father then? Out of prison recently.

What about a half dozen others . . . friends who were close to him?

But why wait all these years and then suddenly now try to freak her out?

Who hated her that much?

She passed by the cannery, didn’t stop, just circled back and ran directly home. She smiled as Reno trotted the familiar path to the side gate and back door. Sliding the lock closed, she pushed off her sneakers, let Reno off his leash, then reached for a mug.

After coffee, a shower, and a cup of yogurt, she sat at her computer for a while, going over responses to her resumes. Two. One that, should she get the job, would require relocation to Seattle.

No thanks. Not until Dylan had graduated. If then.

The other with a note that the position she’d inquired about had been filled.

“Two strikes,” she said. Lapsing back to her former worries, she wondered about telling Cade about the text message. As a cop he could make inquiries.

It wasn’t a threat.

Just forget it.

She had work to do. The kids were gone. Wouldn’t be home until after school, so despite all of her lectures about privacy, she braced herself for the invasion of her kids’ rooms. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever her son was hiding, she ignored all the crime scene tape and “Do Not Enter” warnings posted over Dylan’s door and started searching.

She didn’t know what she was looking for.

She hated to think what she might find. A cache of some kind of contraband? Drugs? Weapons?

She felt like a thief slipping into a house that was still occupied.