The Caregiver by Shelley Shepard Gray Page A

come back and explain things better.
    But instead, all he heard was Lucy flip a page of her magazine. As if he, and his sister, hardly mattered to her at all.

Chapter 10
    “W hat is this?” Paul asked, holding up her diary.
    He’d found it! Unable to speak, she stared at him from the doorway of their bedroom. Afraid to come any closer.
    To her dismay, he bent down and picked up more notebooks. All her journals from the last five years. “Why did you write such things?” he asked, opening one and holding it up to her.
    Even from her distance, she saw it was a very old diary. The curlicued handwriting showed that she’d written the entry when she was probably no more than seventeen.
    Oh, what had consumed her then? Lucy couldn’t even remember.
    A glimmer of hope filled her. Perhaps that was the only journal he’d read?
    “It’s just a habit,” she finally said. “I— It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
    “Everything you do concerns me,” Paul said, crossing the room. Walking to her. “You will burn these.”
    She nodded. Almost grateful that was the worst that had happened. So grateful that he hadn’t read her thoughts about him. About how she wished he’d leave her. Leave her alone.
    L ucy’s eyes popped open.
    Ah, she’d been dreaming again. She shook her head, attempting to clear it. Oh, but that would have been a terrible thing, if Paul had ever found her diaries.
    But he never had.
    She forced herself to dwell on what Paul’s reaction to her missing journal would have been. Because, surely, there could be nothing worse than that.
    Whoever had found her journal had most likely thrown it away.
    Her words would never be found. Never read.
    And no one else would ever know just how glad she was that her husband was dead.
    B y his estimation, they had little more than an hour left of their journey.
    Calvin was bored. Katie had fallen asleep, John was busy playing solitaire on his laptop computer, and Lucy, of course, was somewhere down the aisle.
    Ignoring him.
    Restless, he opened his backpack, searching for the newspaper. Then he noticed the book he’d picked up when it had slid down the aisle. He pulled it out and ran his hand across the leather binding.
    Lucy’s journal.
    The right thing to do would be to get up and go take it to her. But there was no doubt in his mind that she’d say he stole it, or some other such nonsense.
    The book, with its tan leather cover, was a heavy thing.
    Suddenly, he was curious about Lucy’s handwriting. Was it as prim and proper as the rest of her?
    Somehow he was sure it would be. No doubt every letter would be painstakingly formed. She probably recorded each day’s weather and documented every minuscule event.
    Giving in to temptation, he opened the journal in the middle. Just to see what her handwriting looked like. The pages inside were slightly rough, as if they’d been written on front and back with a pencil.
    To his surprise, the writing was far from a neat and tidy cursive. Instead of perfectly formed letters, he found lazily sprawled sentences, some words running into the next, like she wrote in a hurry.
    Or perhaps, without caring.
    A flicker of unease went through him. He should close the cover immediately and walk it down the aisle to Lucy. The contents were definitely none of his business. What she wrote was personal.
    He would be invading her privacy in the very worst way.
    But still he looked.
    I’m glad he’s dead. I don’t miss him. Sometimes—and I’m sorry, Lord—sometimes I wish he’d died sooner.
    Stunned, Calvin slammed the book shut. Slipped the journal back in his backpack. Zipped it shut.
    And closed his eyes, wishing he’d never picked up the journal.
    But even with his eyes closed, Lucy’s words seemed to be permanently etched in his brain. How could someone so sweet have so much evil and anger inside of her?
    How could a woman he admired even think such a sin?
    It was troubling, indeed.

Chapter 11
    O ne by one, weary