Rissa held on to the heavy door to keep from falling. No one moved inside the room.
Was she dreaming? When she was on the first medication prescribed by Dr. Pearson, she’d experienced nightmares. But since she’d changed to a milder prescription, that problem had been eliminated. Rissa knew she wasn’t dreaming now. But could her mind be playing tricks on her? She stuck her head around the door again just as a brilliant flash of lightning seared the heavens and made the library as light as day. A figure stood in the room facing away from Rissa, but when she gasped, the person, wearing a black mask, turned to face her, pointing a gun at her. Lightning flashed again, illuminating Rissa’s face, and although she had no idea who was standing in the library, the shooter had surely had a good look at her.
The figure headed toward her and fear lent speed to Rissa’s feet as she leaped across the hallway, dodged into the living room and slammed the door. Leaning against the door, gasping for breath, she heard footsteps fleeing toward the back entrance of the house.
Rissa knew she had witnessed a crime of some sort and she might be in grave danger. When she heard the back door close, she cracked the living-room door an inch and peered into the hallway. She listened to see if the gunshot had awakened the rest of the family. Apparently not. Except for the faint rumble of thunder fading into the distance, she heard nothing.
Should she go into the library and see what had happened? Had some member of her family been killed? She needed help, and she knew the only place to find it.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
God, what should I do?
THREE
In spite of her terror, Rissa realized that someone might be lying injured or dead in the library. Some member of her family may be bleeding, needing help, because who else would have been in the library at this time of night? The gate and the house were always locked at dusk and no one could enter by the driveway without the security code or by being admitted by someone in the house.
Perhaps she should summon help, but to prove she had overcome her fear, Rissa was determined to straighten out the situation alone. Squaring her shoulders, she headed toward the library door. On the library threshold her determination faltered. Fear gnawed away at her confidence.
She listened intently, but she heard nothing inside the room. No movement. No breathing. Nothing, except the ticking of the mantel clock.
He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
No matter how many Scripture verses she repeated, Rissa knew she would never generate enough courage to go in the library alone. Who should she wake to go with her?
Miranda was the most likely one to ask for help, because her oldest sister could always handle any crisis inside the house. Her mind fluttering with anxiety, and clutching the banister for support, Rissa ran upstairs as fast as she could, her bare feet slapping on the cold stair treads. Pausing before Miranda’s door, she lifted her right hand and knocked.
“Who is it?” Miranda’s voice came from the other side, proving that she wasn’t lying on the library floor.
Turning the knob on the door, Rissa said, “It’s me—Rissa.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something has happened in the library.”
“What?”
“I think somebody has been shot.”
Miranda tossed the covers to one side and grabbed a robe from the foot of the bed. “I thought I heard a shot,” she said anxiously, “but the storm was so violent about that time, I decided I’d been mistaken.” She rushed toward the door. “Who’s been shot?”
“I don’t know. Somebody was pointing a gun at me, and I was afraid to go in alone.” As they hurried downstairs, in a half whisper Rissa explained why she had gone to the library and what she had heard.
Miranda paused. “The shooter may be still in the library. We’d better call Father.”
“I don’t think anyone is there now. I heard someone leaving by the back door, and it was quiet in the library after that.”
With Miranda beside her, Rissa felt her courage returning, and she stepped to the door of the library and felt along the right wall for the light switch. Her hand hovered over the switch briefly. Her fears surfaced again. Did she want to know what had happened in the library? If there had been a murder, the shooter had gotten a clear view of her face. Because she was a witness, would she be the next victim? Reaching into the depth of her spiritual reservoir, Rissa took a deep breath for courage and flipped the switch.
Rissa and Miranda entered the library together. They stared wordlessly at the body of a woman—a stranger—lying on her back beside the fireplace with blood oozing from a hole in her chest and spreading over the black jacket she wore. Clinging to one another, the two sisters moved into the room. Miranda knelt on the floor and checked the woman’s wrist and throat for a pulse.
“She’s dead.”
Rissa had never been this close to anyone who had recently died, and to her, the woman seemed to be asleep, although an agonized expression was on her face.
“How could a stranger have gotten into this house tonight?”
Miranda spoke in a tortured whisper. “I’m not sure she’s a stranger.” Her golden-brown eyes held a faraway look in them as she stared upward at Rissa.
Stunned by Miranda’s words, Rissa took a sharp breath and stared wordlessly. Miranda laid her hand on the woman’s cheek and sifted a few strands of the soft hair through her fingers.
“She looks like Mama,” Miranda said.
Rissa took a closer look at this woman who might be her mother. A few weeks ago their sister Bianca had been given a picture by her now-boyfriend, Leo Santiago, of Trudy Blanchard and Leo’s mom, a friend of hers. Rissa had been amazed at how much her youngest sister, Juliet, resembled the woman in the picture. And this woman on the floor did look remarkably like Juliet.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“I’ll do that while you go upstairs and get Father, Aunt Winnie and Portia. They should be told before the cops get here.”
Rissa took the steps two at a time. She woke Winnie and Portia first. She walked rapidly down a short hallway to the left at the top of the staircase and knocked on her father’s door. No response. She knocked several times and then dared to open the door. What if he was also dead? She turned on a light. But Ronald wasn’t in his bed.
Had her father been the masked man behind the gun? She dismissed the thought as silly—why be masked in his own house?—as she hurried downstairs and entered the library right behind Winnie and Portia.
Winnie stared at the corpse and she murmured, “It could be Trudy. Even allowing for the changes the years would have made, I think it’s her.”
Rissa put her arm around Portia and held her tight. Portia’s dark eyes were lackluster with disbelief.
“Ronald will know,” Winnie said. She looked toward the hall and the staircase. “Did you wake him?”
Rissa lifted her hand to her lips and she began to shake as dreadful pictures built in her mind. “He wasn’t in his room—his bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“Oh, no!” Winnie said. “Don’t even think it. Ronald wouldn’t do this!”
“Ronald wouldn’t do what?”
The four women pivoted almost as one toward Ronald, who stood in the doorway. Standing close together they completely hid the body.