Page 44 of Free to Fall

I refuse to think about my incident at the graveyard.

“Do you truly think that, or are you just trying to get me to open up about how my temporary job’s going?” I ask.

“Both.” She’s serious as she holds the door for me to follow her into the Darien Sport Shop. “I want you to spill your guts, and I want you to know you’re healing.”

There’s the problem I’ve been wrestling with all night. Around Bailey Payne, I feel everything I did those first few months as an intern—excitement, hope, and a touch of anxiety. Emotions I recognize and can handle with one hand tied behind my back. Around her father, I felt unsteady—like I needed something or someone to hold on to.

Preferably him with both legs wrapped around his lean hips.

For a man I know from Bailey’s file happens to be twelve years my senior, I’d never would have guessed it. His raven colored hair and beard hardly show any lightness. I was shocked when I discovered he has a tattooed sleeve the first week I worked for him. It drew my eyes almost as quickly as his eyes did the first time we met. It caused my whole body to shiver like the first time our hands connected in his office.

Regretfully, I shove the attraction I feel for Bailey’s father aside. Wrong time, wrong guy. I have a job to do, wounds to heal, not to mention I’d like to be alive for both of those things to occur.

The sour taste of bile rises in the back of my throat as memories of my stalker surface, because that’s what my father called it yesterday when he dragged me to the Norwalk office to grill me with my Uncle Colby present. It was Colby rattling off statistics that scared me shitless. “Over one-third of stalkers have motivations such as retaliation or rage. Another chunk base their stalking tendencies on the need for control. Only about twenty-four percent claim mental illness or emotional instability.” He hesitated.

“Give it to me,” I demanded.

“Most stalkers are not operating under delusions, although they may suffer under some other form of some kind of mental illness.”

“That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“What did you expect him to say?” My father sat on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest.

I wrapped my fingers around the cup of coffee they provided. “I expected you to tell me the last quarter are mass murders.”

They exchanged looks, remaining silent.

“You have that look on your face,” Kalie taunts, jerking me back into the sports store.

“What look? And by the way? How did Gracie get out of shopping with us today?” I attempt to deflect Kalie by flipping through a rack of clothes I don’t see.

The question works. “One of her patient’s dog ate their ear. She had to go make a new one.”

We hear a gasp and find an elderly couple staring at us in horror. I quickly step in to explain, “Our cousin is an anaplastologist.”

The couple appears more terrified than comforted by my response. As Kalie gives them a layman’s explanation of how our cousin replaces body parts, I hear my name called out. “Laura Faith!”

I’d know that voice anywhere. In fact, I know for a fact there have been studies done to show it’s coded in my very cells. I whirl around and race around racks until I leap blindly into my twin brother’s arms. Jon’s grip tightens around me as he whirls me around in a small circle. Something inside my heart smooths out when I feel his heart thud against mine. “What are you doing here?”

In my ear, he whispers, “I’m your guard today.”

“No. Tell Dad I want someone else.”

“No,” he whispers before saying loudly for Kalie to hear, “I went by your place and Gracie was just pulling in. She mentioned something about an ear a dog ate as a snack?”

Playing along, I catch him up on what our cousin is up to and like us, he snickers. Loping an arm around my shoulders, he tugs me back in Kalie’s direction, who gives him a fierce hug before informing us, “Anyway, she said to let you both know she’s headed this way. She’s already called in the reservation so we can have lunch together.”

Kalie clasps her hands together and cackles evilly. “Good. Now we have time for you to help me wrestle the truth from your sister.”

“About what?” Jon’s eyes, identical to mine and our mother’s, narrow.

“About what she thinks about her new boss,” Kalie announces dramatically.

Jon pulls back, frowning in confusion. “You’re leaving the hospital?”

“I’m not leaving the hospital!” I exclaim louder than I probably should. Then, in a more reasonable tone, I say, “At least, not for good.”

Jon abruptly informs Kalie, “Back in a few,” before dragging me to the front of the store and into the fresh, early summer air.

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