Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [65]
“Please leave,” Lorie told him. “I appreciate everything the sheriff’s department is doing to help me, but from now on I don’t see any reason for you to stay personally involved.”
“I…uh…I’ll let Ms. Gilbert know that I’m leaving,” Mike said, unable to think of anything else to say.
Lorie rushed past him and down the hall toward her bedroom. Mike clenched his jaw tightly. He had handled that all wrong. But then him doing that with Lorie wasn’t something new. He had been handling his feelings for her in the wrong way ever since she returned to Dunmore.
Why hadn’t he listened to his mother and to Molly years ago when they had both encouraged him to forgive Lorie?
“She ruined her life and practically destroyed herself in the process,” Molly had told him. “And she lost you.” His wife had caressed his cheek. “How horrible for her. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose you.”
“You’ll never lose me, sweetheart.”
She had smiled at him, that beautiful smile that he still saw every day whenever he looked at his son.
“You should be kind to her,” Molly had said. “Go to her, tell her that you forgive her, that you’ll be her friend.”
His Molly had been kind and generous. Despite the fact that in the beginning, she had felt threatened by Lorie’s return, she had overcome her fears and found it in her big, loving heart to plead with him to forgive Lorie.
He would have done anything for Molly, especially during the final year of her life, but that one thing—forgive Lorie. Molly had to have known what it had taken him years to figure out, that his inability to forgive Lorie had as much to do with him still loving her as it did with him hating her.
Molly, Molly. I’m sorry, sweetheart, if I ever gave you any reason to doubt how much you meant to me. I loved you. I miss you every day.
“You’re still here?” Shelley Gilbert asked as she walked into the living room. “Lorie said you were leaving.”
“I was just going,” he replied.
Shelley nodded.
“Is she all right?” He glanced down the hallway.
“Not really. She was crying, but doing her best not to.”
“Take care of her.”
“That’s my job.”
“There will be someone outside for the rest of the night,” Mike said.
“Thanks. I think we’ll be okay.”
Mike let himself out, went to his truck, and got in. He sat there behind the wheel for several minutes, then finally started the engine and backed out of the driveway.
Lorie came awake abruptly, her body trembling, her thoughts in utter chaos. The nightmare had seemed so real. A masked figure in a black cape had chased her through downtown Dunmore in broad daylight. She had been completely naked. Exposed. Ridiculed by the outraged citizens, led by the ladies from the WCM. And Mike had stood on the corner, his arms crossed over his chest, a condemning glare in his dark eyes, and done absolutely nothing to help her. She screamed, pleading with him to save her. The masked stalker had grown larger and larger until his form blocked out the sun, leaving her hovering in a shadowed corner, weeping, frightened, and waiting for death.
Allowing herself a few minutes to shift from the horror of her nightmare to the safety of reality, Lorie sat up, tossed back the covers, and slid to the edge of the bed. She sat there, her bare feet on the floor, and considered the meaning of her dream. It made a weird kind of sense. The masked stalker was the unknown killer who posed a danger to her life. Mike’s disregard for her was no mystery. And the utter fear that she had felt was perfectly normal, considering she was marked for death.
After getting out of bed and slipping into her house shoes, she found her robe at the foot of the bed and put it on. The bedside clock read 3:50 A.M. The last time she had noted the time, it had been shortly after midnight.
She had cried herself to sleep.
If she were alone in the house, she’d go to the kitchen and make coffee. But she didn’t want to wake Shelley.
Moonlight streamed in through the windows, casting a soft, creamy glow across the floor.