Time of Death

“I have a small pistol that I keep in my nightstand,” Lorie said. “And I carry Mace in my purse and I’ve taken a couple of self-defense classes.”

“Put my number into your home phone speed dial and your cell phone so you can contact me instantly if you need me. At this point, I think providing twenty-four/seven private security would be premature.”

“Yeah, I think it would be.”

“If you get another letter, a phone call, sense someone following you or anything that raises a red flag in your mind, get in touch with me immediately,” Maleah told her. “In the meantime, I’ll ask for an okay from Powell’s to work on your case and then I’ll call Mike.”

Lorie stood. “Thanks, Maleah. I appreciate your doing this for me. I guess I’m lucky that you decided to stay in Dunmore for a while.”

Maleah got up and walked Lorie to the front door. She patted Lorie on the back. “Be careful, okay? But don’t worry any more than you can help. At this point we have no idea what we’re dealing with, whether the person who sent you the letters is some goofball who thinks this is funny or some nut job who gets his cookies off scaring women with threats or if we have the real thing on our hands.”

Lorie opened the front door and then paused for a moment. “The real thing being someone who is going to kill me.”

“Someone who plans to kill you,” Maleah corrected. “We won’t let that happen—you and me, the Powell Agency, and the sheriff’s department.”

After Sunday evening church services, Mike sent his kids to take their baths and get ready for bed. Tomorrow was a school day, the first day back following their spring break, which had come early this year. He’d probably have a couple of hours of alone time after he tucked his kids in, time to kick back and watch a little TV or read a few chapters in the latest David Baldacci novel. For now, he needed to load the dishwasher and set it to start in the middle of the night. Later, he’d put out plates, bowls, cups, and silverware on the kitchen table for breakfast and afterward he’d gather the clothes he needed to drop off at the cleaners in the morning.

Just as he headed for the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Who the hell? It was nearly nine o’clock. When he opened the front door, he was surprised to find Jack’s kid sister, Maleah, standing on his porch.

“Hi, Mike. Got a few minutes?” she asked.

“Sure, come on in.”

He escorted her to the living room. “Is there a problem? Something with Seth or—”

“Nothing personal. I’m fine. My nephew is fine,” Maleah told him. “I’m here on business.”

Frowning in confusion, Mike stared at her. “Explain.”

“May I sit down?”

“Sure. Please sit. Believe me, my mama taught me good manners. I just forget them sometimes.”

Maleah sat on the sofa. Mike eased down onto the wingback chair directly across from her.

“You know Lorie Hammonds, I believe,” Maleah said.

Mike nodded. His gut tightened.

“She has hired me, as a representative of the Powell Agency, to investigate two threats made on her life.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m quite serious.”

“Don’t tell me the Women for Christian Morality folks are after her again. Believe me, those ladies are harmless.”

“I’m not familiar with that group, but I doubt they’re involved in this situation. Lorie has received two letters, one a month ago and a second this weekend. Both letters were identical, both were death threats.”

“Did you see the letters?”

Maleah nodded. “Yes, one of them, the most recent. Unfortunately, she threw the first one away thinking it was a crank letter.”

“Hmm … I wouldn’t take anything Ms. Hammonds says too seriously. She tends to be melodramatic sometimes. Actually, I wouldn’t put it past her to have written the letter herself in order to get attention.”

“To get whose attention—yours, Mike?”

His gut knotted painfully. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Do you think she’s that desperate to have you pay attention to her that she’d fake death threats?”

Would she? Did he really believe she would go to that extreme just to draw him into her life? “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“Hey, I realize you two were an item when you were teenagers and she broke your heart when she went off to Hollywood hoping to become a movie star. But that was a long time ago. Don’t you think it’s way past time to let bygones be bygones? I don’t know Lorie all that well, but then neither do you. You knew the teenage Lorie. She’s not the same person.”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m really not concerned about your personal issues with her. But I do need to know that, as the county sheriff, you will treat these death threats as seriously as you would if any other woman in your jurisdiction had received them.”

“You have my word on it. Ask Ms. Hammonds to come to the office tomorrow and give a statement. I’ll assign one of our deputies to question her.”

“Thanks, Mike. I knew I could count on you.” Maleah stood.

“Daddy,” Hannah called out from down the hall. “I’m ready for my good-night kiss.”

“Go on,” Maleah told him. “I’ll see myself out.”

Lorie sat alone in her semi-dark bedroom, the only light coming from the adjustable floor lamp behind her lounge chair. Oddly enough, the silence was comforting, the familiar a safe haven. The security system was armed. Her handgun was nearby in the nightstand. She was safe, at least for now. And it was possible that she wasn’t in any real danger, that whoever had written the two threatening letters would not follow through and actually try to kill her.

She had halfway expected to hear from Mike. Perhaps Maleah hadn’t contacted him; perhaps she was waiting until morning. But Lorie knew that eventually, Mike would confront her. He wasn’t likely to take the situation seriously. He’d think she concocted the whole thing in order to get his attention.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

It had taken her nearly four years—ever since Molly Birkett had died and Lorie had hoped Mike would turn to her for comfort—to accept that Mike truly hated her and would never forgive her.

Lorie gently ran her fingertips over the open book in her lap—the Dunmore High yearbook from Mike’s senior year. She had been a sophomore, only sixteen, and madly in love with Mike. Their first date had been for his senior prom.

She slammed the yearbook closed and dropped it to the floor beside the cream and gold damask chaise longue.

An odd idea came to mind. The corners of her mouth lifted into a sarcastic smile. The only person she could think of who might want to kill her was Mike. Of course, not literally kill her. But he would like nothing better than to make her disappear, to erase her and pretend she’d never existed.

As she considered possible suspects from her life, past and present, she couldn’t think of anyone who had ever truly hated her except Mike.

Her parents disapproved of her and were disappointed in her. Her father still wouldn’t speak to her and although her mother would talk to her briefly over the phone, she refused to see her.

When she had lived in California and had been trying to break into show business, she had made a few friends and possibly a few enemies. But no one who would want to kill her, certainly not after all these years.

What about Dean?