Page 16 of At the Edge of Surrender

That someone was there.

I would have been afraid that it was that creep who’d gotten handsy with me at the bar, except it was the exact same sensation I’d been getting for the last three months.

Fighting panic, I peered over my shoulder.

Stillness echoed back.

Emptiness.

Emptiness that was manifesting as paranoia.

Except, was it?

My mind traveled to the pictures I’d found in a big box at the back of my sister’s closet. To the files on her tablet, some of them that I couldn’t figure out access to.

Unrest rolled through me again.

The intuition rejecting that it was an accident.

The light switched, and I jogged across the street to the hotel that was directly on the other side.

The hotel was tucked back a fraction from the road, and there was a valet area up front that sat at an angle.

I rushed up the walkway to the double doors.

At my approach, an attendant opened one side to allow me access into the elegant lobby. “Good evening.”

“Thank you,” I murmured under my breath.

Summer had just arrived, but there was still a fire roaring in the enormous rock fireplace that took up the entire right wall. There was a sitting area in front of it. The furniture antiques and oversized leathers. The accents done in deep purples and glittering golds.

I kept my head down as I hurried to the elevators on the far wall. I stepped inside and punched the button for the seventh floor.

Queasiness rushed me as the elevator began to ascend.

I didn’t know if it was due to the alcohol I’d consumed or if it was the surging of sadness that gave me vertigo.

Because now, I felt laden with it.

Soggy with the sorrow.

Yet, somehow, I couldn’t regret finding my way to that bar.

I lifted my fingertips and set them against where my heart stillstampeded from his touch. To that spark that promised I was still alive. A seal that I could do this. That Ihadto do this.

A bell dinged, and the elevator opened to my floor. I moved down the hall to our room, fumbled to get the keycard out of my purse, and pressed it to the sensor.

With a buzz, the lock gave, and I stepped into the lapping darkness of the living area of our suite. I quietly latched the door behind me and tiptoed across the room to the bedroom door that was in the middle of the left wall.

It sat halfway open, and I stalled at the threshold and stood watching the shadows play across the room. Over the two queen beds situated against the wall in front of me.

Mine was empty and still made.

My chest felt as if it might cave when my attention drifted over to the far bed closest to the window.

My mother was asleep, her snore soft where she was under the covers. But it was the tiny thing she had her arm curled over in a subconscious show of protection that made me want to weep.

The locks of her warm, blonde hair messy and wild around her cherub, angel face.

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