the past year’s books when she’d arrived, had realized how little revenue had come in, but she hadn’t bothered opening the mail piled up on Sarah’s desk, or checking her mother-in-law’s bank statements. Sarah was a private person. She didn’t believe in sharing burdens or responsibilities, and would never allow others to look into her finances. She had a strict code of ethics. Honesty, hard work, repaying debts; those were principles Sarah lived by. Jasmine couldn’t believe that had changed.
She hurried into the office, sat down at the desk, grabbing the pile of mail and sorting through it. Bills were piled to her left, correspondences to the right, junk mail in the trash can. It took three hours, but she finally finished, her heart sinking as she reread the letter threatening foreclosure.
The caller had been right. Sarah was about to lose her property. Jazz reached for the phone, hesitated, knowing her mother-in-law wouldn’t be happy with what she was about to do. If John were alive, he’d have prayed, approached his mother with a plan of action, then followed through in whatever way he felt led while Jazz watched in awe, wishing her own prayers could be answered as quickly and decisively. She’d thought that once she matured as a Christian they would be, that she’d hear God’s voice more clearly, understand more easily the direction she was supposed to take.
Somehow, though, spiritual growth had never happened. While John’s faith had flourished, hers had stayed in infancy. Even as she’d prayed with Megan and Maddie, rejoiced as they’d taken their own fledgling steps of faith, she’d wondered and doubted and worried and questioned and asked herself if what lived in her soul was less real than what lived in John’s and her daughters’.
At the time of their deaths, she still hadn’t found an answer. Now, she didn’t care to try. Being part of their faith experience wasn’t necessary anymore. What was necessary was action. She’d let Sarah down too many times in the past few years. That was obvious. Whether her mother-in-law would thank her or not, Jazz intended to make up for that in the only way she could. She lifted the phone and dialed the number of the bank.
THREE
Nighttime was the worst for Jasmine. The empty space beside her in bed. The silence. The hollowness of the house. The best thing, Jazz found, was to keep busy until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, then fall into a restless, dream-filled sleep. Often John and the girls would be waiting for her there, their laughter following her from dreams into daylight. That was when she understood how deep and true love was, how impossible it was to measure or to confine. It reached beyond time, beyond death, filling the heart even when arms were empty.
Tonight, with Sarah settled into her room and the tap of icy rain hitting windows and roof, Jazz still felt the aloneness of the night, the emptiness that yawned beside her in bed. At a little after midnight, she was still awake, sketching illustrations for an alphabet book. A tiger. Friendly-looking to go with the cute little rhyme that would be on the page. The only problem was Jazz’s tiger looked more ferocious than friendly, his snarling face and jagged stripes enough to scare even the bravest toddler away.
“Focus, Jazz. This thing is due in ten days.” She muttered the words as she ripped the drawing from the pad, tossed it into the trash can and tapped her pencil against the bed. This should be easy, so why was she struggling with it?
Maybe because being bombarded with photos of John and the girls that sat on every table and shelf in Sarah’s house had stolen her ability to concentrate. Maybe because she was still worried about the financial help she’d given Sarah and what Sarah’s response to that would be. Maybe because she was still thinking about the guest in Meadow Lark cabin—his rifle case, his warm smile, his hard eyes.
Maybe all of the above.
And maybe she should just forget all those things and finish the tiger, the umbrella bird, the vixen, the walrus, the yak and the zebra so she could mail the assignment out.
She smoothed a hand over a clean page, glancing at the storyboard she’d been sent. An easy assignment. Get it done. Get it out the door. Decide if this was really what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing—drawing pictures for someone else’s stories while her Danielle Donkey stories were reprinted over and over again. That was all she needed to do. Simple.
A line. Two. Curves. Shapes, coming together to form the sketch. She’d just finished the tiger’s smiling mouth when a scream rent the air, high pitched and terror filled, heartrending in its fevered intensity.
“Sarah!” Jazz ran across the room, the sketch pad falling from icy fingers, her heart tripping in her chest as she raced for her mother-in-law’s room, shoved the door open.
The light was off and she flicked it on, inhaling the musty scent of age and medicine, and the coppery scent of fear. Her mother-in-law pressed up against the headboard of her bed, her eyes wide and feverishly bright against pale skin, her gaze fixed on the window.
“Sarah? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“It’s out there, watching me.” The hoarse whisper was almost as terrifying as Sarah’s scream.
“What? What’s out there?” Jazz moved toward the window, fear quivering in her throat and belly, images flashing through her head. Bogeymen, ghosts, other things that didn’t exist except in the imagination.
“The thing that’s trying to kill me.”
“There’s nothing there.” Was there? Jazz pressed her face against the glass, peering into the darkness and trying to see shapes in the shadows.
“Call the police. Call them now before he gets in.”
“You saw a man outside the window?” That made more sense, though the idea of a man lurking outside seemed almost as unbelievable as a phantom creature. Even a serial killer would hesitate to be out on a night like this.
“I saw something. A shadow with milk-white eyes.”
“Sarah…”
“Someone was out there. Call the police before he gets away.” She sounded more rational now, more believable, and Jasmine grabbed the phone from the bedside table, dialing the sheriff’s department rather than 911. No sense tying up the emergency line for something that probably wasn’t an emergency. Maybe her mother-in-law had had a nightmare, or maybe she’d really seen something. One way or another, Jazz was pretty sure they were safe inside the house.
Sirens drew Eli Jennings to the living-room window of his rental, their screaming frenzy carrying over the sound of the winter storm. Outside, ice still fell, collecting on the grass and trees and sparkling in the light that spilled out from the window. Down the hill and to the left, blue and white lights flashed. Unless he missed his guess, they were near the small rancher he’d visited earlier. Not that it was any of his business. Then again, he’d never cared too much about whether things were his business. That was why he was in Lakeview, Virginia, instead of at home in Atlanta. And that was why he was about to take a midnight walk in icy rain.
He grabbed his jacket from the coat closet and stepped out the front door. Probably this was a bad idea. Probably he shouldn’t be doing it. But two women lived down in that rancher, one too frail to protect herself, one so brittle Eli thought a strong wind might shatter her.
Not his business, sure, but Eli was hardwired to protect. The weak, the fragile, the frail. Those who couldn’t fight for themselves. It was why he’d joined the military and why he’d still be in it if he could. Unfortunately, the choice had been taken out of his hands. A roadside bomb and suddenly he
