Dark Pursuit

“And if the body’s gone?” Kaitlan asked.

Margaret had tried to keep her voice even. “Then your grandfather will be right, won’t he.”

Inside the house—a slammed door. D. had walled himself in his office, seething. He hadn’t even waited to see what his granddaughter would do.

Kaitlan’s car disappeared around the driveway’s curve. Margaret listened for the distant gears of the gate opening. Maybe that sound wouldn’t come. Maybe Kaitlan would change her mind and turn around.

But no. Faintly—the metallic whir. Moments later, the clank of the gate’s closing.

On wooden legs Margaret returned to the kitchen. The smell of her casserole filled the room. She idled near the center island trying to think. What to do to fill the time? Before Kaitlan arrived she’d meant to go to the store but now couldn’t even remember what she needed. Soon it would be time for dinner, but she couldn’t imagine eating a bite.

She pulled out a kitchen chair and fell into it. Braced her elbows on the table, her head in her hands.

Imagine if she hadn’t let Kaitlan come in through the gate.

Margaret breathed into her palms, feeling the heat of her cheeks.How had this happened? Why did this family face one trauma after another when she’d prayed so hard for them, and for so many years?

“God, I know You see what’s going on. Why don’t You do something?”

Truth was, there were plenty of times when God hadn’t seemed to answer her prayers. Her own life hadn’t been easy either. She’d never been able to have children, as much as she and her husband, Robert, had tried. Then she lost him at forty-nine to pancreatic cancer. The Brooke family had become her own. After D.’s accident he needed full-time supervision. She gave up her house in Half Moon Bay and moved into the suite at the end of his mansion’s north wing, casting off her administrative assistant role for one of caretaker and nurse. She missed having her own time, her own space. Missed editing D.’s manuscripts, keeping up with his fans. Oh, sure, some still wrote him, but for the most part, they’d fallen away. At least she was able to attend church each Sunday—and those worship times had seen her through.

“Dear Lord,” Margaret whispered, “please protect Kaitlan. Please show D. what to do next. Oh, God, protect us all.”

She checked the stove clock. Five-fifty. In ten minutes Kaitlan would be home. Fear gripped Margaret. She stared at the clock hands, willing them to move. How was she going to stand the waiting?

She pushed back from the table and stood. The casserole would be done in seven minutes. She still needed to make a vegetable, a salad. Set the table.

Oh, for D.’s sake she hoped he was right! What it would do to him to hear he’d figured everything wrong. He’d likely never write again.

But to wish that Kaitlan found a clean apartment, had to go to dinner with a killer …

If something happened to Kaitlan, whether right or wrong, D.would never forgive himself.

Margaret forced herself to the refrigerator and pulled out lettuce and tomato, some green beans. She fetched other ingredients by rote and placed them on the counter.

Five minutes.

Chopping lettuce and tomato, Margaret fought back fear. Salad done, she cut ends off the green beans and poured oil into a skillet for stir frying. As the beans sizzled, Margaret’s eyes glued to the clock.

Kaitlan should be home by now.

OBSESSION

seventeen

The description captivated me.

Black silk cloth with green stripes.

I stared at the words, a flush spreading across my skin. Like the warmth of a campfire on a cold night, the way it reaches out, envelops you, and you don’t want to leave, don’t want to move.

Black silk. Green stripes.

I could feel this cloth in my hands.

The smoothness of it. Its delicate strength, one rough fingernail enough to snag a thread, ruin its perfection.

My heart thudded.

I closed my eyes and imagined the exposed neck, its fluttering pulse. My hands rose, fingers spreading, curling. Longing, aching for the black silk.

What was happening to me?

The last couple of months I’d been restless. I did my work, went about my business. Nobody would know. But my insides felt … unsteady. Mushy. Like concrete trying to harden but missing some major ingredient.

My sleep had been affected too. I had vague, dark dreams of childhood, never able to remember the details when I awoke, but filled with foreboding and dread. Of what, I didn’t know.

I sensed a blackness in the world that I hadn’t before. And somehow I understood it wasn’t new, was in fact ancient. But only now had I become aware. I wasn’t sure of my place in it. But I did know I was fully bound to it and helpless to escape on my own.

And now—this. The black silk cloth.

A sudden yearning for it rose in me, lifting me out of my chair. I glanced at the time. Shortly after four. How late did fabric stores stay open?

Where was a fabric store?

I snatched up a phone book and checked its yellow pages. Found a shop about five miles away. I hurried to my car and headed for it, feeling antsy and compelled and oddly out of place in my own neighborhood. Here was this store now so essential to my very life, on a street I’d driven countless times—and I’d never even noticed it before.

How strange I felt going inside. Like everyone was looking at me, wondering what in the world I was doing there.

I wandered the aisles, trying to take it slow, appear normal, while my mind revved like an overpowered engine. My nerves tingled as I looked at all that cloth, thinking no, no, wrong, wrong. I saw cotton and polyester, all kinds of colors. Some designs with stripes, even green ones. But nothing other than the black silk would do.

It wasn’t there. That whole store, with hundreds of different designs, offering everything some seamstresscould ever want. Except the one cloth that I wanted. Needed.

The urge overpowered me, possessed me. I went home and paced the rooms, unnerved and having no idea what to do.

I found myself at the computer. All that evening I searched online for the fabric. I scoured dozens of sites, thousands of designs. The longer I looked the more desperate I became. The fabric obsessed me, taunted me, and I still didn’t know why.

And suddenly—there it was.

Black silk. Green stripes.

“Ah!” My hand flew up from the keyboard and pressed hard against the screen. My heart beat in my throat. I wanted to climb inside the monitor, curl up with that bolt of fabric. Feel it, hear the swish of it, smell it.

I was going mad.

I ordered five yards. Express delivery.

The next two days are a blur. My life felt on hold, the world stopped on its axis, waiting for the cloth to arrive.

When it came I tore into the package, shaking, petrified at what was happening to me yet helpless to stop it. At first sight of the fabric I froze, overwhelmed at being in its presence. I reached out to touch it, afraid, so afraid it would be less than my imaginings.

The cloth was silky. Cool. Utterly mesmerizing.

I balled up a corner of it and pressed it to my nose. It had a tangy, vaguely sharp smell I hadn’t expected. Exotic. Heady.