each of these organizations, she would quickly give away her entire paycheck. She laid the one bill—her credit card statement—on the end table. She would write a check tomorrow and mail it off. Sooner or later, she would have to move into the twenty-first century and pay all her bills electronically.
One envelope remained in her lap. She picked it up and looked at it. Her breath caught in her throat.
No, it can’t be. Please, don’t let it be another one.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Just because it looks like the other one doesn’t mean it’s from the same person.
She flipped over the envelope a couple of times, studying both sides carefully. Her name and address had been printed on a white mailing label. No return name or address.
Just like the other letter.
And just like the first one, it had been mailed from Tennessee, but this one was postmarked Memphis instead of Knoxville.
Lorie ripped open one end of the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of white paper. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the letter. For a half second, her vision blurred as she looked down at the message. Her heartbeat accelerated.
Midnight is coming. Say your prayers. Ask for forgiveness. Get your affairs in order. You’re on the list. Be prepared. You don’t know when it will be your turn. Will you be the next to die?
Lorie sat there staring at the letter until the words on the page began to run together into an unfocused blur. Her fingers tightened, crunching the edge of the letter. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her erratic heartbeat.
This letter was identical to the first one she had received a month ago. The original letter had worried her, but she’d been in the midst of preparing for Cathy’s bridal showers and upcoming wedding. She had decided it was nothing more than a crank letter from some nut who had nothing better to do with his time. After all, why would anyone want to kill her? It wasn’t as if she was rich or famous. And as far as she knew she didn’t have any enemies who would go so far as to threaten to kill her.
But here it was—a second letter. A second death threat. Could she simply ignore this one and toss it in the trash as she had the first one?
One really could have been a silly prank.
But two could mean that someone out there wanted, at the very least, to frighten her.
Or did they actually want to kill her?
Mike Birkett poured cereal into three bowls, added milk and blueberries, and set the bowls on the table. His nine-year-old daughter, Hannah, picked up her spoon and dug in while his eleven-year-old son, M.J., curled up his nose as he eyed the berries with disdain.
“Do I have to eat those?” M.J. asked, a slight whine in his voice.
“Yeah,” Mike told him. “At least some of them. Okay? Blueberries are good for you.”
“Who says?”
“I’ll bet it was Ms. Sherman,” Hannah said. “I’ve heard her talking about what she eats—stuff like protein shakes and tofu and soy milk and all kinds of yucky things like that.”
“Figures,” M.J. mumbled under his breath.
Mike knew that neither of his children especially liked Abby Sherman, the woman he’d been dating the past few months. And he really didn’t understand why. Abby had gone out of her way to try to make the kids like her, and she’d been very understanding when they had been rude to her on more than one occasion. What really puzzled him about their attitude was the fact that Abby actually reminded him of his late wife, Molly. It was one of the reasons he’d thought the kids would automatically accept her. Abby had the same cute look that Molly had, with her blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair. She was slender, athletic, and wholesome.
Abby was the sort of person he needed in his life, the type of woman who would make a good wife and mother.
Mike hurriedly wolfed down his cereal and forced himself to eat the blueberries he’d sprinkled on top. When he finished the last bite, he took a sip of his third cup of coffee and found it lukewarm.
“You two hurry up,” he told his children. “Sunday school starts in less than an hour. If we’re late again this Sunday, Grams will give us all a good scolding.”
Since Molly’s death nearly four years ago, his mother had stepped in and helped him. He didn’t know what he would have done without her. His kids lived with him and he usually managed to get them off to school every morning. But his mother picked them up in the afternoons and looked after them until he came home from work. And whenever his duties as the county sheriff called him away at odd hours, all he had to do was phone his mom. She’d been a lifesaver.
After being up late last night, dancing at his best friend’s wedding, he would have liked nothing better than to have slept in this morning and let his mom pick the kids up for Sunday school. But as a single parent, he always tried to set a good example for his son and daughter, going so far as to eat blueberries.
Mike dumped the remainder of his cool coffee into the sink, rinsed out the cup, and left it in the sink along with his bowl and spoon. Glancing out the window, he groaned quietly. He wished the rain had held off for another day. Not only did they have Sunday school and church services this morning, but they were taking Abby out to lunch and then to an afternoon matinee in Decatur.
“I ate all the cereal and some of the blueberries,” M.J. said as he dumped a few drops of leftover milk and three-fourths of the blueberries into the garbage.
Mike nodded and smiled. Whenever he looked at his son, he saw Molly. He had her red-blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Hannah, on the other hand, resembled him. Same wide mouth, square jaw, dark hair, and blue eyes. But Hannah had Molly’s sweet, easygoing disposition and his son nah had Molly’s sweet, easy going disposition and his son definitely showed the potential to be the hell-raiser Mike had been as a teenager.
When Hannah placed her empty bowl in the sink, she looked at Mike and asked, “May I wear the dress I wore to Jack and Cathy’s wedding to church this morning?”
“It’s a little fancy for church, isn’t it?” Mike knew little to nothing about young girls’ clothes, but the floor-length green dress his mother had chosen for her to wear to the wedding wasn’t something he thought appropriate for Sunday school.
“I like it a lot, Daddy. It’s so pretty. It’s the same color as Miss Lorie’s maid of honor dress.”
Mike groaned again. Lorie Hammonds was the last woman on earth he wanted his daughter to emulate.
“Wear that little blue dress with the white collar,” Mike told Hannah.
“I wore that last Sunday.”
“Then pick out something else. But you cannot wear the green dress you wore to the wedding.”
“Oh, all right.”
“Go on now. Brush your teeth and get dressed.” Mike tapped the face of his wristwatch. “I want you two ready to go in twenty minutes. You can recite your Bible verses to me on the way there.”
Mike left the kitchen as it was. He could load the dishwasher and wipe off the
