Lorelei was about to give up. After ringing the doorbell several times and finally knocking at Alice Sherman’s door, she still hadn’t been able to raise anyone. She’d seen the car in the garage so she suspected the woman was home. There had been a news van parked outside when Lorelei had driven up, but it left after she hadn’t gotten an answer at the door.
She was about to leave the card from her stepmother when the door opened a crack.
“What do you want?” Alice wore a bathrobe and slippers. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days. The woman stared at her, clearly not having a clue who she was.
“Mrs. Sherman, I’m—”
“It’s not ‘Mrs.’ You’re a local. I’ve seen you before. You one of those reporters?”
“No,” she quickly assured her before the woman could close the door. “I’m Lorelei Wilkins. I own the sandwich shop in town. I just stopped by to—”
“Wilkins?” She grabbed hold of the door as if she needed it for support. “You’re related to Karen?”
“She’s my stepmother. She’s in the hospital—”
“Like I care.” Tears welled in Alice’s eyes. “I hate her. I hope she dies.”
“I’m sorry.” Lorelei was still holding the card in her hand.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a note from my...from Karen.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “She sent you with a card for me? How thoughtful after what she did to my life,” she said, her voice filled with rancor. Suddenly the woman opened the door wider. “You should come in.”
That had been her hope originally, using the card as an excuse. But now she wasn’t so sure. “I don’t want to disturb you—”
“Too late for that. Come in.”
Lorelei hesitated for a moment before stepping in. As she did, Alice Sherman snatched the card from her hand.
“Sit.” She tore into the envelope. “Did she tell you what she did to me?” Alice didn’t wait for an answer. “She destroyed my life and now everyone is going to know and she and her boyfriend are going to pay. It’s just too bad my ex-husband isn’t going to prison too.”
“The senator’s not her boyfriend anymore,” Lorelei said as Alice motioned her into a chair. This was clearly not the best time to be asking questions about Billy’s death, she thought. But then again she couldn’t imagine a time that would be. The senator’s arrest and Karen’s part in it had obviously opened the old wounds—wounds Lorelei suspected hadn’t ever started to heal.
“But he was her boyfriend,” Alice said, showing that she had been listening. “Karen lied to protect him and herself after they killed my boy.”
Lorelei took a seat. She watched her read the card not once, but twice before she ripped it up and threw it into the fireplace.
Alice reached into a container on the hearth, drew out a match, struck it and tossed it into the shredded paper. Flames licked through the card in a matter of seconds before dying out.
“What did you really come over here for?” Alice asked, turning to face her. “It wasn’t to bring me a card from your mother.”
She didn’t correct her. She thought of Karen as her mother. “You’re right. I had wanted to ask you about the night Billy died.”
Alice looked surprised. “Why? The cops have Billy’s killers.”
“I was hoping you could help me with something. Karen was in the pines not too far from here when she heard a car go racing past.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “The senator.”
Lorelei shook her head. “He didn’t drive by until minutes later when Karen was walking back up the road toward her car. I was wondering if you saw the vehicle go by? If you might have recognized it.”
“I had other things on my mind besides looking out the window.”
She couldn’t help her surprise or hide it. Alice was looking at her expectantly, waiting as if almost daring Lorelei to call her a liar. “It’s just that you saw my stepmother.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Alice rubbed the back of her neck as she turned to look at the ashes in the fireplace, her back to Lorelei.
“My mother had been headed for your house but when she saw you and when you saw her, she changed her mind.”
Alice picked up the poker and began jabbing at the charred remains of the card lying in the bottom of the fireplace. “I just told you I didn’t look out the window.”
Lorelei felt a chill move slowly up her spine. One of them was lying and this time, she believed it wasn’t Karen. A thought struck her as she watched the woman’s agitation increasing with each jab of the poker. “She said you quickly disappeared from the window. Not long after that, she heard the car go racing by.” The chill moved through her, sending a wave of goose bumps over her flesh.
In that instant, she knew. Worse, Alice knew that she’d put it together. Lorelei shot to her feet, but not quickly enough. Alice spun around, the poker in her hand, getting between Lorelei and the door.
Brandishing the poker, the woman began to make a wailing sound. Lorelei took a step back and then another as she shoved her hand into her pocket for her phone and looked for a way out.
The wailing stopped as abruptly as it had started. Alice got a distant look in her eyes that was more frightening than the wailing. “I saw her out there through the rain. She’d taken my husband, destroyed my family. I knew Sean had broken it off with her. I knew that was why she was out there in the rain. I hated her. I just wanted her dead. Then I saw her turn and head back up the road toward her house.”
Lorelei felt her phone in her pocket, but she didn’t dare draw it out as Alice advanced on her, brandishing the poker.
“I went into the garage and got into my car. I opened the garage door, hoping it wouldn’t wake Billy. I planned to be gone for only a few minutes. I knew exactly what I had to do. She’d asked for it and now she was going to get what she had coming to her.”
Lorelei bumped into the kitchen table. She glanced toward the back door, but knew she’d never reach it in time. Alice stopped a few feet away. Her eyes looked glazed over as if lost in the past, but Lorelei didn’t dare move as she took in her surroundings—looking for something she could use for a weapon.
When Alice spoke, her voice had taken on a sleepwalking kind of sound effect. “It was raining so hard, the night was so dark. I saw the figure running down the road. I hit the gas going faster and faster. The rain was coming down so hard, the wipers were beating frantically and...” Alice stopped talking, her eyes wide with horror. She began to cry. “I didn’t know. How could I know? It was so dark, the rain... I didn’t know.” The poker wavered in her hands. “What was he doing out there in the storm? I thought he was in bed. I thought...” She looked at Lorelei, her gaze focusing and then hardening as her survival instincts took over. “I thought I killed Karen. She took my husband and then my son.
“And now I’m going to take her daughter.”
Lorelei’s cell began to ring, startling them both.
JAMES TRIED LORELEI’S cell on his way over to Alice’s. At lunch, he remembered their discussion. Something had been nagging at Lori too, he realized. The same thing that had been bothering him.
Karen had said that the senator ran over something. Not hit something. That had been the clue the whole time. When the call to Lori went to voice mail, he called Karen. She said she’d just gotten home from the hospital after being released.
“Have you see Lorelei?” he asked, trying not to sound as worried as he was.
“She was going over to Alice Sherman’s house. I had a card I wanted her to deliver.”
James swore. “Call 911 and tell them to get over there. I’m on my way. Lorelei could be in trouble.”
He sped toward Alice Sherman’s house. He remembered Karen saying that she’d heard a car go racing past while she was in the pines getting rid of the coyote. That was after seeing Alice—and after Alice saw her walking down the road in the rainstorm. He desperately wanted to be wrong.
Just the thought of what Alice might have done, what she’d been living with... If he was right, she’d killed her own son and then covered it up. What would she do if forced to face what she’d done? That was what terrified him. If Lorelei asked too many questions...
He was almost to Alice’s house. He could see Lori’s car parked in the driveway. He just prayed he was wrong, but all his instincts told him that she was in trouble. He just prayed he could reach her in time.