LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      The full moon glowed almost as bright as an icy sun. It poured through the window in Haley McKinsey’s bedroom, reaching through her eyelids and gently prompting her to wake.

      As her eyes fluttered open, she stared with amazement at the brilliance of the silvery orb. A small smile curved her lips as she drank in the rare beauty. She’d never seen this from her apartment in Baltimore. Just another thing to make her think more seriously about moving to Wyoming. Inheriting her grandmother’s house in Conard City had initially seemed like a generous gift. She could sell it and use the money for a great many things. Nurses weren’t exactly overpaid.

      But since arriving two days ago, she’d begun to remember the occasional summer visits here, and as the memories came back to her, the house began to feel like it might be her new home.

      Seeing the moon now, enjoying the magic of being awakened by its silvery light, she found another reason to want to remain. There hadn’t been very many vacations here, but there had been enough to give her a stack of good memories.

      Such a beautiful place!

      Lying there in a drowsy, pleasant place, the worries of the world and the past seemed far away.

      Until the face appeared at the lower ledge of her window. She couldn’t see it clearly because of the moon’s brightness behind it, but her heart slammed into high gear and she sat up immediately, trying to think of what she could use for a weapon.

      Even as she had the thought, the face dropped from view. Had someone really been there? Had she imagined it in the hinterland between waking and sleeping?

      With her heart in her throat, her mouth as dry as sand, she wondered if she should even move. Should she go out and look? Should she call the police?

      A Peeping Tom. Maybe only a nuisance and not a threat.

      It didn’t matter. She jumped up like a child scared of the monster under the bed or in the closet. The window was open a crack to let in the cool night air, and she slammed it and locked it. Then she pulled the heavy insulated curtains closed, shutting out the moonlight.

      Resentment filled her. Hard on its heels came anger and fear. Resentment because she so much enjoyed sleeping in her grandmother’s room. As a child, when she’d visited, she had often shared the bed with her grandmother. It was a sacred place.

      Anger because her privacy had been invaded. Lying in the moonlight, she must have been easily visible to the voyeur.

      Fear because as a five-year-old child she had been kidnapped through her bedroom window by a faceless man who had just two days later deposited her on a deserted road outside Gillette, where she had eventually been discovered by a roughneck on the way to work.

      She hurried through the house, checking every window and door to ensure it was locked. Even on the second floor, she drew the curtains against the moon’s beauty. Feeling chilled, she pulled on her red velour robe. Then she sat curled up on the living room sofa, trying to deal with the emotional storm that had been unleashed within her.

      With her knees tucked under her chin, she practiced the breathing exercises her childhood therapist had taught her, at least as well as she could when curled up. Her mind bounced around between calling the sheriff, who wouldn’t be able to do anything because the guy was gone, an urgent but unsuccessful desire to believe it had been a trick of her sleepy mind, and waiting for morning to release her from her dark cave.

      Because, suddenly, this beloved house felt like a cave and she felt trapped in it.

      Don’t be silly, she argued with herself. Just because something bad happened to you over twenty years ago doesn’t mean it will happen again.

      But memories she had buried long ago bubbled up like a hot tar pit, black and ugly. She’d been lucky, she reminded herself. Lucky that her kidnapper had released her unharmed after only two days. Lucky that she had grown up with a protective father and mother, and a grandmother who had given her magical experiences.

      Reminded herself of how the therapist had insisted that she had done nothing wrong, that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

      That she wasn’t a bad girl.

      She thought she’d moved past that. Believed she had moved past that. Then in one split second some jerk had brought it all back.

      She couldn’t allow this. But she still sat in the dark with all the curtains drawn, straining to hear any untoward sound. The prized clock, a genuine Regulator, kept ticking as normal from the dining room wall, a familiar sound from happy times. The scent of her grandmother’s beloved lavender sachets filled the house. No unfamiliar odors, no unusual sounds, crept through the darkened house. It was so quiet, in fact, that her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears.

      She supposed someone else would have the nerve to go outside to see if the guy was still there. She

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