Page 39 of Her Only Salvation

Chapter Sixteen

Terri stood in front of the open window watching the sun slowly dip below the tree line. The shadows grew longer, stretching their limbs as if awakening from a long sleep. The picture before her was one of serenity, but inside Terri was anything but serene.

This morning she had awakened feeling like a truck had run over her. She knew the reason for it, as it happened about the same time every month since she was twelve, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Depression weighed on her like a ton of bricks and she had to drag herself out of bed.

Finding Luke bent over a mug of hot coffee, his nose buried in the Sunday morning paper, was becoming a routine. Terri plopped down beside him. “I’m calling off,” she told him bluntly, then stole his cup for herself. He let her take it, and poured himself another cup.

“Rough night?” he asked, seating himself beside her again.

“You could say that,” she skirted, sipping gingerly at the hot liquid.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, a teasing tone in his voice. “You’ve given me no notice, so that leaves the bar shorthanded…”

Terri knocked his elbow with her own. “Come on,” she begged. “I’ll clean your house, do your laundry, scrub your floors with my toothbrush. Just give me today. I’ve never asked you for anything, not in all the time I’ve worked for you.”

Luke blew out a heavy breath, studying her with one eyebrow arched.

“Please,” she begged, batting her eyelashes playfully.

“Not even a week, and already she’s taking advantage of the boss,” Luke huffed. “I should fire you on principle alone,” he said, but his words lacked conviction.

“You’re heart’s too big to fire me,” Terri said confidently. “If you did, you and I both know you’d lie awake in bed every night wondering where I was, how I was doing, if I was cold or hungry… You don’t have it in you, Luke Reed.”

Grabbing her around the waist, Luke hauled her up against him and kissed her. “You’re too clever for your own good,” he stated, then released her. “You can have the day,” he said, “but I expect this house to be sparkling when I get back.”

“Slave driver!” Terri called after him. Once he was out of sight, her smile slipped and Terri felt the full onslaught of depression wash back over her like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her. She managed to keep a happy face whenever Luke came into the room, but it was difficult to maintain. She knew he sensed the change in her, but, thankfully, he didn’t press. By the time he left for work that evening, Terri was relieved. She truly enjoyed his company, but she preferred to dwell in her pit of sorrow alone.

Now, Terri was faced with complete and total silence. For the most part, she was fine with it. She had been living in isolation for more than a year now, so she should be used to it, but now that she’d tasted the warmth of basic human companionship again, she didn’t want it to go away. She liked sharing her space with someone else.

Pushing away from the window, Terri sought out paper and a pen so she could make a list of everything that she intended to get done around the house. She had meant what she said; she would clean the house for Luke. It was the least she could do to thank him for taking her into his home, but she also wanted to do it because she needed to keep busy.

In a kitchen junk drawer, she found what she needed: a small tablet of lined paper and a red pen. In her best cursive, she wrote out To-Do List. She made a numbered column down the left side and started filling each line in, starting with the basics.

Load dishwasher

Sweep and mop floors

Wipe tables

Make beds

Clean bathrooms

Take out the trash

Feeling that she’d covered just about everything, she got to work.

***

Detective Young was sound asleep when his phone began vibrating, yanking him rudely from a very nice dream. He had been running all day, trying to piece together what little information he had on the case. Unfortunately, he didn’t get far.

After his visit at Terri Cunningham’s house turned up a soon-to-be ex-husband who put out enough bad vibes to give him radiation poisoning, he intended on stopping in at her place of employment and cornering her there instead. He’d just pulled into the club’s packed parking lot when his cell went off. New information on another case he was working on had just come in and he had to bail on his current mission, placing it on the back burner for the day. He’d been running for almost sixteen hours straight, so he didn’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night.

Eyes still closed, he fumbled around the night stand until he found it. Blindly pushing buttons, he eventually managed to answer the call, saying in a voice thick with sleep, “Yeah?”

“Howard.” At the sound of his chief’s voice, Howard pushed himself to sitting and tossed his feet over the side of the bed. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his boss hit him with the news. “I just got a call from the hospital. Brent Lefebvre is awake.”

Howard was already moving, jabbing his legs into a pair of pants he scooped off the floor. They were a little wrinkled, but they would do. “Is he talking?” He worked the buttons on his shirt while heading into the bathroom for his toothbrush.

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