Page 109 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
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Molly knocked on Gladys’s door, and when the elderly woman opened it with her warm, wrinkly smile, a huge part of Molly relaxed. Days might have passed since the fire, but this was the first day she was spending on her own. Sid had appointments with her kids. Gemma had texted saying she was trying to plan with her job back in New Mexico so she could stay longer and investigate her sister’s murder. Trent was at work. The police weren’t able to provide protective detail for her, especially since no further threats had been made on her life.
All was quiet.
Too quiet.
She felt this lull before the storm. Others seemed to think the storm had blown over and now it was cleaning up the aftermath. Trent wanted to go to his uncle Roger’s tonight and meet with his cousin Brandon, Gemma’s dad. Her mother had returned to New Mexico, a complete wreck. Dan had offered to take the killer’s journal to the police, but not until after Sid had photographed every single page.
Molly? She was still swooning from last night. Eventually, their silent reestablishment had led to more, and then ... gosh! She was still light-headed, and for the first time in forever, it was the good kind of light-headed.
This morning they’d had a straightforward chat. Instantly concerned about her visions, Trent had insisted they put a call in to their doctor. Within a half hour, he had returnedtheir phone call, and with the promise of a scheduled visit, he had already identified the negative interactions of her medications.
“You’re on a prescription to assist you with sleeping, and mixed with the strength of your antidepressant, hallucinationsaredefinitely a possibility—especially if you’ve lost track of when you’ve taken your medication and perhaps even doubled up at times. We’ll need to adjust the prescriptions, but we’ll need to do it cautiously. You can’t quit cold turkey, and we also need to make sure we stay on top of your depression and sleep.” The doctor had given Trent some instructions to help Molly monitor her medications and pled for transparency going forward if she heard or saw things, blacked out again, or felt dizziness. “All of those are signs of significant side effects to the meds, and we need to stay on top of that. You don’t bully through it, you hear?”
If honesty always came with such restful resolutions, she was all for it. She and Trent had hung up from the call and shared a long embrace before Trent had pulled away with intent to go to the farm. He’d tugged his hat onto his mussed hair and given her a direct and stern look.
“Keep your phone on you. In case you need anything.”
“Yes, sir,” Molly had smirked. It sounded so patriarchal of him, but it was more than she’d received from Trent in months. She’d take it.
Now her day had led her to Gladys’s house, and Molly wasn’t sure why.
“Come in, dear!” Gladys was wearing a cotton dress in a muumuu style covered in small pink flowers against a white background. Her curls hung loose around her head in a gray halo of sorts. Her cheeks were powder pink, her smile welcoming.
Molly handed her a bouquet of wildflowers she’d picked from Sid’s garden. “A thank-you for letting us stay with you.”
“Oh, how beautiful!” Gladys took the flowers and wavedMolly forward. “Come in, come in! I was just going to have my morning coffee. Will you join me?”
Molly nodded as she entered the cozy kitchen.
Soon, coffee in hand, Gladys tapped the table at which Molly sat. “Wait here. I have something I found you might be interested in.”
She shuffled from the room, and Molly waited. She fingered a lace doily that adorned the middle of the table. Sipped her coffee. Listened to the wall clock tick.
“I was going through some things in my mother’s trunk yesterday,” Gladys called from the other room, her voice shaky with age. “It’s time I do that. I won’t be around forever. Recent events reminded me of that.”
Molly frowned to herself. Recent events? If Gladys was feeling threatened by January’s killer or the arsonist, Molly wanted to know.
“Are you all right?” she called back.
“Oh yes!” Gladys was returning, and her voice drew closer. “I’ve just been reliving memories. Thinking about your poor cousin and that fire.” She rounded the corner, a photograph in hand. There was a fierce look in Gladys’s eyes that warmed Molly. A nurturing defensiveness for Molly. “I’d like to roast whoever did that to you and your home.”
Molly smiled. She had the sudden mental picture of Gladys wielding a flamethrower and letting loose the full rage of an eighty-plus-year-old grandmother.
“Here.” Gladys slid the photograph across the table toward Molly. It was pasted to a vintage piece of cardboard with golden scrolls at the corners. A young woman was centered in the picture, dressed in the garb of the 1930s, she herself looking to be around the thirty-year mark. A man stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
“Who is it?” Molly lifted her eyes.
Gladys eased into a chair. “That is my uncle Mikey. He was engaged to this woman.” She tapped on the woman’s facebut didn’t seem to have any warmth to her voice. “A vixen, my mother said. She had a nature that would cool the heat off the devil himself.”
Molly widened her eyes. The distaste in Gladys’s voice was more than likely inherited from her own mother. “What happened?”
Gladys offered a wry smile. “Oh, they eventually broke off the engagement. My mother told me Uncle Mikey came to his senses before he made the most pitiful error of his life.” Her eyes dimmed then. “Of course, the sad story is, Uncle Mikey went on to fight in the war. We lost him somewhere in France.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly murmured. She wasn’t sure how any of this applied to her, but she was willing to wait. The coffee was good. Gladys was warm and gave the ambience of safety in numbers.
Gladys sipped her coffee, eyeing the photograph.
