Page 43 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

This time, a throaty chuckle bounced off the stalks and wound its way toward her.

No. She’d no intention of being assaulted at knifepoint like Eunice. Lover, clandestine meeting with a stranger, or what have you, Perliett’s reasons for being out were innocent. Innocent! She hiked up her skirts and ran, her apothecary chest dropping to the road like an abandoned child she could do nothing to save. Let the cornfield’s laughter mock her as she fled. She had no plans of falling victim to a faceless predator.

The last person Perliett wanted to see the following morning was George Wasziak, who stood on her porch, hat in hand, fist poised to rap on the screen door.

Perliett jerked the door open before his hand could descend. She was, frankly, not in a fine mood. Not after last night. Why, she’d barely made it home without being slaughtered by the demon-like creature that had chased her down the road. Well, not literally chased her. Only his laugh. But truly, that laugh! No, it was a chuckle. The threatening kind. The kind that was laden with menace and evil intent.

I see you.

I could hurt you if I wanted to.

Only the chuckler hadn’t. She’d run all the way home, leaving her precious box of goods behind in order to save her life.

“Missing this?” George hoisted her apothecary chest.

Perliett pursed her lips and grabbed it from his hand.

“No thank-you?” he goaded.

Perliett placed her precious box inside with a fleeting question in her mind about the welfare of Brody’s sister. Had her fever broken?

“I see,” George concluded.

Perliett turned her attention back to him. Perhapshewas the nighttime chuckler. The creeper in the corn. The murderous man who had ravaged a young girl.

“You’re a pathetic piece of manhood,” Perliett spat. Fine then. That her terror from the night before had made her irritable was an understatement.

George’s eyebrows almost disappeared under the dark hair neatly combed over his forehead. “For what do I deserve that insult?” He didn’t seem fazed. “You should herald me as heroic. I returned your paltry box of supplies, minus the heroin you pilfered to irresponsibly treat your patients.”

“See?” Perliett shook her finger in his face. “This is the issue I have with you,Dr.Wasziak. You’ve no sense of decorum. Of decency. Of respect for a woman’s intelligence.”

“Don’t I?” George challenged.

“Obviously not.”

“And why would that be?” He crossed his arms, his suit coat sleeves tightening over his upper arms and distracting Perliett for a moment. “Would it be because you treated a little girl last night with thewet blankettreatment?”

“It was a wet nightgown,” Perliett corrected.

“Or,” George continued, “was it because you walked home in the wee hours of the morningalone?”

“They had to tend their daughter, not me,” Perliett explained, excusing her actions.

“Andit is apparent something frightened you or youwouldn’t have left said apothecary toys in the middle of the road for me to find this morning. Poor wee Patriciaworsenedduring the night, you realize, because of a sopping wet nightie? They saw fit to invest in a practitioner with education and experience.”

Perliett blanched.

“Yes.” George’s countenance was so dark, she was certain she could see a storm brewing. “You are going to hurt someone, Perliett Van Hilton, if you don’t stuff this nonsense into that box of yours, lock it, and throw away the key!”

Perliett had nothing to say.

George eyed her. “I commend your desire to help others. There are different ways you can do so without risking their lives—as well as your own,” he finished a bit lamely.

“My own?” Perliett already knew what George was about to say.

“How daft are you to walk home in the dead of night? We’ve already had that conversation!” He glowered. “Especially after what Detective Poll told you on Sunday.”

Perliett hadn’t moved from the doorway, and she hadn’t invited George inside either. “What was I to do?”