Page 55 of The Last Dance You Saved
“If you’re calling the sheriff, I’d suggest you wait,” Adam said, pushing at his glasses again.
“Why the hell would I wait?” I demanded.
He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Do we even know if it really happened?” When my scowl grew, he sighed. “I hate thinking it. But there have been other incidents when she’s been on sleeping pills and painkillers.”
“Like what?”
“She cut herself with a knife while working in the kitchen and then swore someone else had done it.”
“Maybe someone did.”
Adam’s mouth dropped open, shocked. If he was acting, he was better at it than he’d ever been at anything but hiding while growing up. “Fallon was there. She saw what happened. So, unless you think Fallon was the one to cut—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” I snarled.
“I’m just saying, I don’t doubt Lauren had a nightmare or that she woke to a pillow on her face or near her face. But I can’t trust she didn’t hallucinate the rest.”
“Well, I damn sure didn’t hallucinate the rattlesnake in my bed tonight,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him.
His brows went up, more dazed astonishment. But the hair on the back of my neck wouldn’t lay down, warning me almost as much as the shake of the rattler’s tail had. “A snake? In your bed?”
“Someone is terrorizing my family,” I said. “Whoever it is needs to know that when I catch them, I will pull their lives apart atom by atom until there is nothing left.”
I waited until his gaze met mine so I knew he’d received the message as intended.
“Don’t act like I had anything to do with any of it,” he snapped.
I stepped closer to him, forcing him to look up, and the simple fact that he had to do so irritated him. “If you did, if you’re somehow tangled up in even a hint of this, I won’t care if you’re her brother or if your family has worked for ours for a century. I’ll hang you myself.”
“Are you threatening me? Do I need to get a restraining order?”
“It’s not a threat, Adam. It’s a goddamn promise.”
I spun on my heel and headed for Fallon’s room. The only thing Adam was right about was the fact that calling the cops was useless. If Lauren had been hallucinating, they’d never believe her, and with a hint of remorse, I realized I might not have either if I hadn’t just had my own scare.
I knocked on Fallon’s door and said, “It’s me. Open up.”
Sadie was the one to unlock the door. I pushed past her to see Fallon and Maisey, arm in arm, on my daughter’s queen-sized bed. The little girl’s room of pink and white that I’d once seen in photos had been redone. Now it was filled with rich cherrywoods and bold emeralds. Too grown up. A reminder of all I’d missed of the little girl who’d loved pink.
“It’s okay,” I told them. “No one is here.”
“Was it just another bad dream?” Fallon asked, looking like she might cry.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Adam said she’s been hallucinating?”
Fallon pulled away from Maisey, darting a glance from her to me. That singular look told me she didn’t want to discuss this in front of even her best friend.
I turned to Sadie. “Can you take Maisey and get us all something to drink. Hot chocolate? Tea? Something soothing?”
“Sure,” Sadie said. Maisey looked at Fallon for a moment, as if she was going to say something, but then just scrambled from the bed. At the door, Sadie shot me a look demanding answers. I wasn’t sure I had them to give, but it seemed even more important that she leave, that she get the hell out of Rivers and not come back.
Once we were alone, I turned back to Fallon and watched her fiddle with the blanket. Nervous. Unsure. “What’s been going on, Fallon?”
“It started when the cow shoved her into the fence last year. She broke a few ribs and pulled some muscles in her back. She had to take some strong pain meds to get through it, and then, after Spence…” She shrugged. “She couldn’t sleep, Dad. She was like a zombie. So the doctor prescribed some sleeping pills. The nightmares and hallucinations seemed like a necessary trade-off if she got some rest and relief.”
“How many times has something like this happened? Has she hurt you?”
She shook her head but then stopped. “Did Uncle Adam tell you about the time with the knife in the kitchen?”
