Hannah Alexander - Grave Risk

His focused attention made her nervous.

Jill sat wiping the massage cream from her face with the turban that had been wrapped around her head. She couldn’t stop staring at Edith’s still form, listening to the soft echo of sobs coming from another room.

Sheena had run out when Cheyenne made the pronouncement, and Noelle had gone to comfort her and cancel clients for the remainder of the day. Apparently Sheena had loved Edith, too.

A quick glance told Jill that Rex Fairfield was still here. She returned her attention to Edith as Karah Lee pulled a sheet over that death mask.

Jill winced. She couldn’t do this. She needed to run away screaming, needed to shake her fist at God and ask what He thought He was doing. She needed to rail at Cheyenne for giving up so easily. These weren’t just impulses, they were compulsions that she had to control.

The real Jill Cooper was a rational human being, a responsible RN, an adult.

Oh, the awful terror that had been in Edith’s eyes…the horrible knowledge of something—but what? What had she been trying to say? Hallucinating, no doubt, but why?

“Jill?” A deep masculine voice broke into her thoughts.

With a start, she looked up, then looked away quickly, refusing to meet Rex’s gaze. Not now. It was just too much. She didn’t want to deal with this—couldn’t deal with it. All she wanted to do was fall to her knees at Edith’s side and weep against her shoulder as she had done so often as a young teenager.

“I’m so sorry,” Rex said. The gentle sympathy in his low baritone voice reawakened memories she couldn’t bear right now.

She nodded. What was this man doing here? What kind of crazy, tilted nightmare was this?

“The timing is awful,” Rex continued. “I would never have done this to you—”

“You haven’t done a thing to me, Rex.” She forced herself, then, to meet his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re doing in Hideaway, but I doubt either of us is hung up on something that happened twenty-two years ago.”

“Some things were left in limbo then,” he said. “We parted without enough explanations, which was unfortunate. I take the blame. Eventually, we’ll need to clear the air. I owe you an—”

“I have other things to do right now, Rex.” Without waiting for a reply, she brushed past him and knelt to help Cheyenne pick up debris.

“I need to go tell Bertie,” Cheyenne said.

“No.” Jill couldn’t allow anyone else to do that. “That should be my job. I’ll need to contact Edith’s family. She has a niece who lives in Springfield, and others—”

“You need some time to recover.” Cheyenne squeezed cellophane wrappers into a tight ball with more force than normal. “Bertie’s—”

“Please, Chey. I need to do this.” Jill touched Cheyenne’s shoulder, then noticed what she should have seen earlier—the silent tears coursing down her director’s face.

“How about you?” Jill asked. “Are you okay?”

Cheyenne nodded.

Jill realized this must be bringing back horrible memories for her. When Cheyenne was an ER doc in Columbia, her younger sister had been brought in via ambulance after an automobile accident. Cheyenne couldn’t resuscitate her, and in the end she’d had to call her own baby sister’s death.

Jill couldn’t imagine how she would have felt had that happened to her with Noelle.

“I’ll go with her, Cheyenne,” Noelle said from the open doorway.

Jill continued to feel Rex’s attention on her, and she finally looked up at him. What she saw in his expression soothed her jumbled emotions.

“I can do this,” Jill repeated, striding from the room. She continued out the front door of the spa, wishing she never had to return to this place.

When would it all end? How many deaths would this tiny village have to endure?

She was halfway across the street when she heard footsteps behind her.

“You don’t need to keep vigil over me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“I loved her, too, you know,” came a gentle female voice.

Jill softened. Noelle. At this moment she could barely focus on placing one foot in front of the other, but out of habit, she forced herself to gather her strength for her sister.

Noelle rested a hand on Jill’s arm, her touch tentative, as if she half expected it to be shaken off.

Lord, wake me up! This can’t be happening again, Jill prayed.

“Edith was always there for us,” Noelle said as they stepped onto the grass across the street from the town square. “Especially for you.”

Jill nodded. In spite of the oppressive heat, it seemed as if a thick fog had covered the sun. She glanced up to find not a cloud in the blue sky. The sun shone brightly. It just didn’t seem to be reaching her.

“She was my best friend,” Jill said at last.

“I know.”

Edith had taken the place of their mother when she was killed. Edith had played the role of the strong parent when the girls’ father had withdrawn into a world of grief and buried himself in work.

“I went to her for guidance when I couldn’t control you,” Jill continued.

“I’m sorry I made it so hard for you,” Noelle said.

“I’m not saying it was your fault, I’m just saying Edith was my strength.”

“I was old enough to know better.”

“You were acting out because you were frightened. You needed your mother, and I wasn’t her. You needed a father, and he wasn’t able to cope.”

“Stop making excuses for me. Besides, we’re talking about you for once.”

Jill’s steps slowed as she stared out across the surface of Table Rock Lake. As much as she wanted to reassure Noelle that she would be fine, Jill knew Noelle wouldn’t believe her. And it might be a lie. In times of extreme stress, like now, an OCD crisis was always a possibility.

Her steps slowed further as they drew near the bed and breakfast that Edith Potts and Bertie Meyer had purchased and turned into a profitable business. “Oh, Noelle, what’s Bertie going to do now? She still hasn’t recovered from Red’s death. Now Edith.”

Her sister’s trembling hand grasped hers. That tremor reminded Jill that Noelle, too, had just witnessed another horrible death. It brought back their past with such clarity—and they hadn’t had time to recover from all the darkness.

Edith had been a constant in their lives for so many years.

“It isn’t your fault,” Noelle said quietly. “You can’t take responsibility for this.” She paused, then, still more quietly, added, “Especially not for this.”

“That isn’t what I’m doing, I’m just—” Jill frowned, then stopped and looked at her sister, studying the beautiful lines of Noelle’s face. Especially not for this. “What do you mean?”

Noelle didn’t meet her gaze, and Jill felt a tingling of alertness.

Since childhood, Noelle had been gifted with a special intuition that had frightened Jill. Now that they understood it better and realized that this intuition was pure and of God, a simple spiritual gift, it didn’t frighten her as badly as it once had. Still, Jill had learned to take it seriously when Noelle experienced this special knowledge. It wasn’t a conjuring. Noelle would never have sought this gift for herself, and she continued to avoid addressing it whenever possible. For her to make that remark now meant something, Jill knew.

“Are you telling me there could be something else going on—”

“Do you have any idea what Rex Fairfield is doing here?” Noelle asked abruptly.

“I don’t want to talk about him right now. We need to—”

“I can’t go there yet.” Noelle tugged her hand away, and Jill realized she had been holding on too tightly—something she had often done to Noelle. “I’m the reason you broke up with him, aren’t I?” Noelle asked.