Dawn's Light by Terri Blackstock Page A

she slowed enough to look where the second man—the man who'd saved her life—had fallen. From the street, she saw no sign that he'd ever been there. Riding along the curb, she peered behind the Cracker Barrel. There was no sign of Blake Tomlin's murder, either.
    For a moment hope fluttered in her heart, and she imagined that neither was dead, after all. That they'd both been wearing bulletproof vests. That after she'd ridden away, they'd both gotten up and gone home.
    But if that had happened, why was there a missing persons sign for Blake Tomlin? Maybe he'd come to, confused and disoriented. Amnesia. Yes maybe he had amnesia, and was wandering around trying to remember his name.
    But a chill came over her as she remembered the gun firing right through his head, the man dropping to the ground, blood mingling into mud. People didn't survive things like that. Even if he'd somehow crawled away, someone would have seen him and called for an ambulance. Deni would surely have done a story on it, and her father would know if it had been reported to the sheriff.
    Beth finished her route, her mind racing with possibilities, but the one that loomed largest was this: the killer had come back for the bodies, and only he knew where they were.

 

    twenty-two
    K AY WAS IN THE KITCHEN WHEN B ETH CAME HOME AND shot through the room with Jeff's baseball cap pulled low over her face.
    “Beth, where were you? I thought you were in your room.”
    “I was delivering my papers,” she said.
    Kay smiled. That was a good sign, wasn't it, that Beth wasn't hunkering in her room today? Beth pulled the cap off and Kay saw the sweat soaking her daughter's short-cropped hair. She'd never worn her brother's cap before. What was that about?
    She may have gone out, but she still wasn't behaving normally.
    “Honey, I want to talk to you,” Kay said.
    Beth was already on her way out of the kitchen. She turned back. “What?”
    “Sit down.”
    A look of fear came over Beth's face, as if she'd been caught at something.
    Kay frowned as Beth came to the table and pulled out a chair. “Honey, is there something you want to tell me?”
    Beth sat down slowly. “Like what?”
    “Like some secret you've been keeping.”
    Beth's gaze darted out the window, where her father and brothers were working in the yard. “No, I don't think so.”
    Disappointed, Kay sat down across from her. “Beth, you haven't been acting normal lately, and I'm worried about you.”
    “You don't have to worry. I'm taking care of everything.”
    “Taking care of everything? What are you talking about?”
    “Just … there's nothing to worry about, okay?”
    She wasn't making sense. “Honey, I want you to do something for me. I know you've been busy working on the new play you wrote, and you'll be starting casting for it this weekend. I don't want to take any of your free time for this, because the Lord knows, you need that. But I've been talking to a counselor about you and some of the stuff you've been through lately.”
    “What stuff?” Beth's eyes locked back onto hers.
    “Just some of the trauma. Some of the things you've witnessed.”
    “You told her that?” Beth sprang up. “I didn't see anything . You shouldn't have told her I did.”
    The outburst surprised Kay. It was as if they were having two separate conversations. “Beth, calm down!”
    Beth burst into tears. “Mom, I don't want you going around talking about me!”
    “I'm not going around talking about you, Beth. I talked to a counselor about sitting down with you and letting you talk. It was confidential.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Kay sighed. “It means she won't talk about it to anyone else. She's a professional. She has to keep these things to herself.”
    Beth's tensions eased somewhat. She looked down at the palm of her hand, studying something she'd written there.
    Kay took her hand and read it.
    “Whose address is that?”
    Beth pulled her hand away. “Just somebody who wants to subscribe