she thought sadly. There was a time that she felt sleeping was a waste of precious hours. Those were the days when she would bounce up long before the alarm’s shrill bell officially went off, calling an end to any restful sleep she might have been engaged in.
But everything had changed two years ago.
These days, her dreams were sadly all empty, devoid of anything. The first year after Brett had been taken from her, she’d look forward to sleep because that was when he visited her. Every night, she dreamed of Brett, of the times they’d spent together, and it was as if she’d never lost him. All she had to do was close her eyes and within a few minutes, he was there. His smile, his voice, the touch of his hand. Everything.
She’d been more alive in sleep than while awake.
And then, just like that, he wasn’t. Wasn’t there no matter how hard she tried to summon him back. And getting up to face the day, face a life that no longer had Brett in it, became progressively harder for her.
Ellie sat up in bed, dragging her hand through blue-black hair Brett always referred to as silky. She was trying to dig up the will to actually put her feet on the floor and begin her day, a day that promised to be filled from one end to the other with nothing but ongoing work. Work that was meant to keep her busy and not thinking—not feeling.
Especially not feeling.
Work was her salvation—but first she had to get there.
Still trying to summon the energy to start, Ellie glanced at the nightstand on her left. The nightstand that held her phone, the lamp that was the first piece of furnishings Brett and she had chosen together—and the framed photograph of Brett wearing his uniform.
A ghost of a smile barely curved her lips as she reached out to touch the face that was looking back at her in the photograph.
And without warning, Ellie found herself blinking back tears.
“Still miss you,” she murmured to the man who had been her whole world. She sighed and shook her head. “Almost wish I didn’t,” she told him because she had never been anything but truthful with Brett. “Because it hurts too much, loving you,” she admitted.
Closing her eyes, Ellie pushed herself up off the bed, taking the first step into her day.
The other steps would come. Not easily, but at least easier. It was always that first step that was a killer, she thought, doing her best to get in gear.
She went through the rest of her morning routine by rote, hardly aware of what she was doing or how she got from point A to point B and so on. But she did, and eventually, Ellie was dressed and ready, standing at her front door, the consummate reporter prepared to undertake a full day of stories that needed to be engagingly framed for the public.
She knew how to put on a happy face for the camera.
No one except those who were very close to her—her mother; Jerry Ross, her cameraman; and maybe Marty Stern, the program manager who gave her her assignments—knew that she was always running on half-empty, because her reason for everything was no longer there.
Several times Ellie had toyed with the idea of just bowing out. Of not getting up, not going through the motions any longer. But she knew what that would do to her mother and she just couldn’t do that to her, so she kept up the pretense. Her mother, widowed shortly before Brett had been killed, would be devastated if anything happened to her, so Ellie made sure nothing “happened” to her, made sure she kept putting one foot in front of the other.
And just kept going.
“But sometimes it’s so hard,” she admitted out loud to the spirit of the man she felt was always with her even if she could no longer touch him.
Ellie took a deep breath as she opened the front door. It was fall and the weather was beautiful, as usual. “Another day in paradise,” she murmured to herself.
Locking the door behind her, she forced herself to focus on what she had to do today—even though a very large part of her wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers up over her head.
* * *
“I know that look,” Cecilia Parnell said the moment she sat down at the card table in Maizie’s family room and took in her friend’s face. “This isn’t about playing cards, is it?”
Maizie was already seated and she was dealing out the cards. She raised an eyebrow in Cilia’s direction and smiled.
“Not entirely,” Maizie replied vaguely.
Theresa Manetti looked from Cilia to Maizie. She picked up the cards that Maizie had dealt her, but she didn’t even bother fanning them out in her hand or looking at them. Cilia, Theresa knew, was right.
“Not at all,” Theresa countered. “You’ve got a new case, don’t you?” She did her best to contain her excitement. It had been a while now and she missed the thrill of bringing two soul mates together.
“You mean a new listing?” Maizie asked her innocently. “Yes, I just put up three new signs. As a matter of fact, there’s one in your neighborhood, Theresa,” she added.
“Oh, stop,” Cilia begged, rolling her eyes. “You know that’s not what Theresa and I are saying.” She leaned closer over the small rectangular table that had seen so many of their card games over the years as well as borne witness to so many secrets that had been shared during that time. “Spill it. Male or female?”
“Female,” Maizie replied. She smiled mysteriously. “Actually, you two know her.”
Cilia and Theresa exchanged puzzled glances. “Personally?” Cilia asked.
Maizie raised a shoulder as if to indicate that she wasn’t sure if they’d ever actually spoken with her friend’s daughter.
“From TV.”
Cilia, the more impatient one of the group, frowned. “We’ve been friends for over fifty years, Maizie. This isn’t the time to start talking in riddles.”
She supposed they were right. She didn’t usually draw things out this way. Momentarily placing her own cards down, she looked at her friends as she told them, “It’s Elliana King.”
Theresa seemed surprised. “You mean the reporter on Channel—?”
Theresa didn’t get a chance to mention the station. Maizie dispensed with that necessity by immediately cutting to the chase.
“Yes,” she said with enthusiasm.
“She didn’t actually come to you, did she?” Cilia asked in surprise.
“A girl that pretty shouldn’t have any trouble—” Theresa began.
“No, no,” Maizie answered, doing away with any further need for speculation. “Her mother did. Connie Williams,” she told them for good measure. Both women were casually acquainted with Connie. “You remember,” Maizie continued, “Ellie was the one who tragically found out on the air that her husband had been killed saving a couple being held up at gunpoint.”
Theresa closed her eyes and shivered as she recalled the details.
