CHAPTER 3
The dark figure was back, stalking its prey with a calculated viciousness. Terrified, the white-tailed buck ran blindly across a field of short-cropped hay.
I watched the hunter pull the cross-bow’s trigger, let the arrow fly. It hit with a smart thwack, ripping through the deer’s heart. The buck ran ten yards before dropping in the snow.
Confident, the hunter strode to the kill, hauled the animal onto its back, and crouched down. The wicked knife flashed in the waning light as the hunter gutted the carcass.
Sensations pummeled me. Startled fear, helplessness, and an overwhelming sense of victory. But the mix of emotions didn’t gibe; the deer was goodness crushed, while the stalker radiated a sense of triumph, as though evil had been destroyed, instead of the destroyer snuffing out an innocent life.
I killed time putting away the clothes and toilet articles Richard had packed for me. Running out of things to do, I headed for the kitchen.
Brenda was alone at the counter. I took a breath to steady myself before entering.
She looked up from the sausage she tended on the stove. “Feeling better?”
I pulled out a chair at the table. “Maybe a little shaky. I could sure go for a sugar fix.”
In seconds a glass of milk and a plate of chocolate chip cookies materialized before me. I ate three, feeling better with every bite. When I finished, I took the dishes to the dishwasher. Leaning against the counter, I dipped my right hand into my sling, scratching the skin around the top of the cast.
“It itches, huh?”
“I was gonna bend a coat hanger to scratch way down, but figured I’d end up a bloody mess.”
She leaned across the counter to a ceramic crock filled with kitchen utensils and grabbed a chopstick. “Try this.”
The stick reached my elbow from the top of the cast, and nearly as far from inside my wrist.
“Keep it,” she said when I offered it back. “Just don’t tell Richard where you got it. He’d tell you horror stories on infection and stuff. Doctors don’t understand a patient’s needs at all.”
“So says the nurse.”
“You got it, baby.”
“Where is Rich, anyway?”
“In his study, where else?” Was there resignation in her voice?
I tucked the chopstick into my sling and glanced around the kitchen. “It’s weird being here again.”
“I can imagine.” She adjusted the flame under the skillet.
“It looks pretty much the same.”
She glanced around the old-fashioned kitchen. “Sort of like living in a museum. Still, maybe we can make it homey. If we decide to stay.”
If? That wasn’t the impression Richard had given me.
“I was surprised to hear you guys had come back here.”
She covered the sausage and moved to the counter to chop celery for the salad. “No more surprised than me. Richard sold the condo and here we are. Most of our stuff is in storage.”
I wasn’t about to press her on what was obviously a sore subject.
“Rich’s grandmother had a housekeeper and other help around the house. Do you do everything yourself?”
YOU ARE READING
Murder On The Mind
Mystery / ThrillerAfter a brutal mugging leaves him with a fractured skull, insurance investigator Jeff Resnick reluctantly agrees to recover at the home of his estranged half brother, Richard. At first, Jeff believes his graphic nightmares of murder are just the wor...
