Born To Die

The bed was unmade; a half-drunk glass of water and some crumpled wrapper of over-the-counter flu medication were on the night table, next to a paperback novel and her cell phone charger. Clothes were tumbling out of a laundry basket on the open bedroom floor, and the remote control for a small television had been left on the mussed coverlet.

Suddenly music erupted.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, turning quickly. For a second he thought someone was inside; then he realized it was probably her cell phone’s ringtone. He followed the sound to the living room and a small recliner. The music stopped abruptly, but he dug through the cushions and finally found the phone under the chair.

He checked the list of incoming call numbers on the display and saw that the most recent was unknown; prior to that, his name was listed twice, then Evergreen Elementary, interspersed with names, some of which he recognized, others that he didn’t. He checked the texts and saw that all the messages asked her to text or call back.

“Where the hell are you?” he wondered aloud, the small apartment almost echoing his voice. There was no sign of a breakin; nothing seemed out of place. Her laptop, television, and even some change left on the kitchen counter hadn’t been disturbed. Wet cat food was turning dry in one of the small bowls on the floor near the garbage can.

He walked back to the living room hall, where he saw that her car and house keys had been left in a small dish by the front door.

Odd.

She left and locked herself out?

Unlikely as the dead bolt had been latched.

Nothing more to do than call her friend back and tell her what he’d found: nothing. From there, he supposed, the next step was to alert her family or maybe the police.

Locking the front door behind him, he replaced the key where he’d found it, then returned to his car and hoped to high heaven that Jocelyn was all right.

He had a very bad feeling she wasn’t.

It was after seven when Kacey turned her Ford Edge off the main road to her house. She’d been fighting a bit of a headache for the last couple of hours, and her stomach was rumbling.

She checked her rearview mirror, and the car that had been following her sped past, a minivan with a Christmas tree strapped to its roof, as it turned out. Nothing sinister. Unless you thought cutting a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving was a sin, and Kacey was on the fence about that.

The minivan was followed by a dark pickup, the primary mode of transportation in these parts, and a light- colored sedan, none of which appeared malevolent as they all continued on the county road leading into the hills. Most of the time she was fine, but she wondered if she would ever feel completely safe. Whenever she was alone, old memories and doubts crept in.

All your imagination. Again. Get over it! The attack was nearly seven years ago. Are you planning to live your life by always looking over your shoulder? You’re here. In Grizzly Falls, not Seattle. You’re safe.

Kacey clenched her teeth and counted to ten. Her headlights cast warm beams over the two inches of snow that covered the ground and reflected in the millions of swirling flakes that fell from the dark sky.

The old farmhouse where she lived came into view, and she almost smiled at how, under the blue bath of the security lamp, the little cottage appeared quaint and welcoming. Built of clapboard nearly a hundred years earlier, the house had a steeply pitched roof, two dormers, and a wide porch that skirted the entire first floor. Two lights were burning, one in the living room, the other in the den, both on timers so that she wouldn’t have to walk into a dark house.

She hit the garage door opener, then, as the door yawned wide, drove inside. She made certain to close the garage door before climbing out of her SUV. She was cautious, much more careful than she’d been growing up here as a child, or as a student who had let nothing get in her way in her quest for success. With stellar grades and an athletic scholarship to a small junior college, she’d been fearless.

Which had proven to be her downfall.

Now, grabbing her laptop case, she let herself out of the garage. After locking the door quickly, she hurried along a short walkway to the back porch, where a welcoming light burned by the door. Her boots broke a path in the snow, then were muffled a bit as she climbed the few steps. Unlocking the door as she stamped off the snow, she then slipped inside and twisted the dead bolt.

She thought about getting another dog but couldn’t face the thought of leaving it for the length of time she would have to be at work every weekday. Sometimes she left the house before six in the morning and didn’t return until nearly eight in the evening. Since she lived alone, it just didn’t seem fair or right to leave a dog alone that long, and though she could adjust her schedule, and she could hire people to walk the dog, or she could bring it to the office or to the doggy day care in town, so far she’d resisted the idea. But maybe it was time to rethink that?

She glanced around this kitchen that had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. As a child, she’d visited here often, this little house on the farm her grandparents had owned. And with the house had come a succession of strays and herding dogs, sometimes three at a time, which she remembered from her long summers and winter vacations when she’d visited. The dogs had been a part of the landscape and the house.

Later, while she was married, working opposite shifts as her husband, they’d owned an aging Boston terrier he’d inherited from his mother when she’d moved into a condo that prohibited pets. The black and white dog had lasted another two years, but when Black-Jack had finally died, their marriage had been eroding and they’d never made the effort or commitment to find another dog.

Or to save the marriage.

Peeling off her coat and scarf, she hung both in a closet near the back door, then kicked off her boots and lost two inches in the process.

After filling a cup with water and placing it in the microwave, she scrounged in her refrigerator, where she found two pieces of a pizza she’d picked up three nights earlier and an unopened salad in a bag.

“Perfect,” she muttered under her breath and reminded herself that she had to stop at the store tomorrow. Her toilet paper, dish detergent, and coffee levels were getting dangerously low.

The microwave dinged and she quickly made a cup of tea, which she carried upstairs to her bedroom tucked under the eaves. Between sips of the hot brew, she stripped out of the slacks and sweater she’d worn all day. As she reached for her flannel pajama bottoms, she eyed her workout gear, black sweats, and an old Huskies long- sleeved T-shirt.

Could she do it?

Really?

With this headache?

The last thing she wanted to do was lift weights in front of the television, even though there was bound to be a Real Housewives of somewhere on and she could indulge in her own personal guilty pleasure. She’d rationalized that the mindless TV helped her unwind, and if she could exercise while watching it, all the better.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath, but she was already pulling her sweatpants from the hook where she’d hung them.

Back downstairs she finished her tea, ate half a banana, then turned on the television in the den, a cozy room separated from the front foyer with French doors, a spot where, if she closed her eyes and imagined, she could still smell her grandfather’s blend of pipe tobacco and her grandmother’s potpourri — a mixture of cinnamon, vanilla, and fruit, which she’d hoped would mask that very same tobacco.

Of course those scents, like the memories, were all in her mind. After a quick perusal of the news and finding it too depressing, she switched channels and began an exercise routine she could do by rote. While the housewives spent their normal days deep in high drama, four-inch heels, and glittering jewelry, Kacey worked out with the hand weights she kept in the long cabinet under her flat screen, while balancing on a large ball she kept tucked in the closet.

She thought longingly of the treadmill she’d left in Seattle as part of the divorce decree. At the time of the