Looking out the window for Niall one more time, Alice saw a movement that rustled the tall hollyhocks. In the growing darkness, shadows appeared here and there. She was sure someone had darted from one shadow to the next.
She’d already locked the front door. Dorcas had locked the back one before carrying the basin upstairs. Moving to the hallway, Alice tried to dismiss the crawling sensation on the back of her neck. As if someone watched her.
In the quiet of the house, Potter groaned. Was that a footstep? Had Dorcas come downstairs without Alice realizing it?
Hurrying to the kitchen, she threw open the drawer near the sink. The lamp stood on the table, unlit. In the darkness, Alice carefully felt the handles until her fingers touched what she wanted.
Gripping the long butcher knife, the desperate woman ignored the lamp and moved through the blackness. Soft but definite footsteps sounded on the stairs ahead. If, somehow, Niall had arrived, he would have stayed outside or called to Alice right away.
She hugged the wall and did her best to tread silently while limping. As she passed the open doorway of the front room, Alice felt a breeze.
The window! She hadn’t locked it! Did the parsonage even have locks on the windows?
No sound came from upstairs. Alice knew Dorcas was asleep in her room, resting so she could sit up with her husband later in the night. That left the reverend alone and very vulnerable.
Slipping the knife into the waistband of her dark skirt, Alice worked her way up first one step and then the next. With inkiness pressing in around her, Alice’s left foot slipped. Her right hand clung to the banister as her left pushed against the step.
She was fine. Except for the searing pain in her leg and the warm fluid that trickled down her left leg and spilled onto her right. What had happened when she’d stumbled? Had it harmed the baby?
Lifting her skirt, Alice touched her thigh to finger the liquid. Relief flooded through her at its thickness. Blood and not the fluid that protected the baby!
That meant the baby was fine. Evidently the knife slashed at her leg. A trifling wound compared to what might be happening to her patient.
She laid the knife on the step above her as Alice sank down onto the spot where her left hand rested. For a moment, she felt as if a hand pushed her down from above. No one was there. She was sure of that. But, the strange urge to sink to the step won out.
As she settled into the position, her short legs outstretched in front of her, Alice leaned back against the wall running the length of the narrow staircase. Racing steps pounded from above her.
Unable to do more than silently pray, Alice shrank more tightly to the wall. Her outstretched leg filled with renewed pain as what felt like the toe of a boot caught on her. Someone flew over her, heading downward before landing with a thud on the wooden planks of the hallway floor.
What had happened? Was it tied to the odd feeling of being pushed to sit down? She’d heard of God’s retributive justice. Perhaps this was an example of that.
These thoughts rushed crazily through her mind as she pulled to her feet. Go upstairs and check on the minister or head down and look at the person there?
The choice was difficult. What if she’d killed someone by tripping them. It hadn’t been deliberate, but she needed to know.
Too, Alice wanted to know who lay below on the floor. Somehow, she would have to stop the person from escaping if he or she had harmed Reverend Potter!
Clinging with her left hand to the banister for support, Alice gripped the butcher knife with her right. One step. Then another. The descent was slow and cautious.
She stared intently into the blackness for any sign of movement. Pounding filled her body and then a roar echoed through the house. Still, the figure never moved.
A light came toward her. The face behind it was in shadow. No matter, she’d know him anywhere and gratefully collapsed into her husband’s arms.
“Why didn’t you answer the door? I yelled for you. When you didn’t answer, I—”
Niall didn’t get a chance to finish. His wife pulled his head down and kissed him with all the relief and love coursing through her.
When he lifted his head, she smiled up at him in the dim light of the flickering lantern. “I love you.”
She’d been the first to say it. The words broke a dam in his heart as he pressed kisses to her cheeks, her brow, her lips. “Oh, how I love you! You’re my everything. If you’d been—”
She stopped his words with a finger to his lips this time. “Darling man! I needed you so, contagious or not. There’s trouble here.”
They stood on one of the bottom steps. With her husband’s arm support her, Alice made it off of the stairs to stand above the prone figure. As Niall moved the lantern close to him, its light reflected off of the bright red of the man’s hair.
“I knew it! Paul O’Hanlon!”
Her husband shook his head. “Can’t be. I left him standing guard outside. Man’s been roughed up by someone and wouldn’t come into the house.”
Handing her the lantern, Niall laid two fingers against the man’s neck. “No pulse. We’ll need to check with a mirror before I declare him dead.”
Alice watched him turn the body over. Sightless eyes faced upward, horror twisting the mouth of the dead man.
Niall drew in a quick breath. “It’s Paul’s father!”
With a gasp, Alice looked backward toward the stairs. “Reverend Potter! This man came from upstairs. I thought his footsteps
