by Joanne Galbraith
“Momma!”
A tiny voice drew Emma from a dark corner of sleep. She groaned and rubbed her eyes. “It’s your turn, David.” When he didn’t move, she rolled over and patted her hand along his pillow. She found nothing but cold cotton. Blinking in the darkness, she sat up and looked at the clock on his nightstand—1:02 a.m.
Pain tore through her heart.
David would never again crease his pillow or steal the covers as he turned in his sleep. Tears crested her lashes as Emma crawled to his side of the bed and crushed her face against his pillow. His scent lingered, a mixture of Clive Christian cologne and his unique masculine aroma.
“Momma!”
“Marley?” Emma leapt from the bed, her heart climbing her throat. She found her five year old standing at her bedroom window wearing her red fleece pajamas. Her caramel eyes—a mirror of Emma’s own—shone in the muted glow from her nightlight.
“I’m here, angel.” Emma knelt and gathered her daughter into an embrace. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Marley clung to her neck, trembling. “Daddy’s in the snow. He’s all shivery cold.”
Emma tensed, stroking Marley’s long, honey-brown hair. “Oh sweetie, it was just a dream,” she whispered, her throat tight. “Remember what we talked about last week? Daddy’s gone up to heaven.” She’d practiced those words for an hour that day before she was able to say them without breaking down.
Marley squirmed free and shook her head. “Daddy’s making snow angels, but he forgetted his coat and boots.”
Emma glanced toward the window, partially covered with frost. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment. David’s dead. She’s too young to understand what that means. Composed once more, Emma stood up and offered her hand. “Come on, angel. You can sleep with me tonight.”
“Can you get Daddy’s boots? His toes’ll get bit by the snow.”
Unable to hold back her tears any longer, Emma picked up Marley and returned to the dark haven of her room. She tucked her daughter into bed, then wrapped herself in David’s scent. Marley drifted off to sleep despite the bed shaking under Emma’s sobs.
Marley didn’t mention her dream at breakfast, but her words from the night before scrolled through Emma’s mind like a morbid marquee. Daddy’s making snow angels. It had been his favorite thing to do with his daughter before he tipped back a few too many at a bar with his father a week before and never made it home.
Emma took Marley to the school bus, then plodded back toward the house. She was thankful for the three month leave of absence her boss had given her. The thought of facing the world with its pitying smiles and empty words made her sick.
Emma stopped half way up the front walk. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled and rose to attention. She turned to look at the side of her enormous brick bungalow and considered trudging through the January snow to inspect the ground outside her daughter’s window. Don’t be ridiculous, Em. She just had a dream.
Grief and hope had a way of skewing reality, the mind reaching for any path leading away from the utter helplessness. That’s what Sarah would tell me. Emma had been avoiding professional help, vowing to deal with David’s death on her own, but decided it might be time Marley spoke with her auntie.
Fearing where the dinner conversation might lead, she allowed Marley to eat her spaghetti in front of the television. While her daughter watched cartoons, Emma emptied Marley’s backpack. She came across a loose sheet of paper in the main compartment. A grey house stood proudly in the background, three stick people holding hands and smiling out front. Emma pressed the paper to her chest until she could breathe again.
The clock read 1:02 a.m. when Emma woke to her daughter’s cries. Once more, she found Marley standing at her window, though the little girl didn’t seem as frightened as she had the night before.
“Daddy drew love on my window. Look.” Marley pointed to a heart scraped into the frost on the outside of the glass.
Emma’s eyes never left the chiseled heart as she considered who might have been outside her daughter’s room in the middle of the night. Her heart thundered. “Did you see someone looking in your window, baby?”
“Daddy was making snow angels again, but this time he ‘membered his boots and hat. His fingers were all blue and he made a funny face.” She beamed.
Knots formed in Emma’s stomach. She grabbed Marley’s hand, tugged her out of the room and shut the door. She smacked her palm against every light switch she could find to light up the house, then checked the security system at the front door. It was still armed and the sensor lights for all of the windows and doors blinked green. Her muscles relaxed and she let out a breath. She turned and found snowy footprints leading from the front door to the closet. A small scream escaped her.
After calling the police, Emma approached the closet with shaking hands.
Sergeant Michaels, the same officer who’d delivered the news about her husband the night he died, arrived fifteen minutes later. He held his hat in his hands. His partner, Officer Jane Creely—an old classmate of Emma’s—stood beside him. She surveyed the room, her grey eyes cold and expressionless.
Emma sat on the sofa, cradling Marley, asleep and wrapped in a blanket.
“We found footprints in the snow beneath your daughter’s window, Mrs. Bennett.” Sergeant Michaels cleared his throat and shifted. “And a few feet away from the window there’s a—”
“Snow angel,” Emma whispered.
Officer Creely knelt in front of the sofa, her braided blonde hair drawing a golden line down the back of her uniform. “How did you know about the angel?”
“Marley told me about it. She said it was… David.” She covered her eyes with a trembling hand.
“Is there anything missing from the house?” Officer Michaels asked, eying the puddles on the floor he’d carefully avoided until forensics had photographed the melted snow.
“David’s Columbia boots and his favorite herringbone Ivy Cap.” She held her breath. He ‘membered his boots and hat.
The front door opened, allowing a blast of cold air to chill the room. Sarah bounded over to Emma, flopped on the sofa and held her sister. “Oh my God, Em. What happened?”
With the help of Sergeant Michaels, Emma explained.
“Who would try to scare you like this, Em?”
“I—I don’t know. The only person I can think of is Randy.”
“Randy? As in that creepy guy you dated in high school?”
“His name was Randy Kingsley,” Officer Creely said. “He was a senior when we were juniors.”
“That’s right, you used to hang out with him.” Sarah dug her phone out of her pocket.
The officer frowned and nodded.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Jane,” Sarah said. “You didn’t know he was a psycho.”
“He stalked me for years after we left school.” Emma wrapped her arms around herself. “I haven’t heard from him in about a year, but he’s the best I can come up with.”
“How did he get past the alarm?” Sarah flipped through numbers on her phone.
“There are ways to get around anything.” Officer Creely fished around in her pocket and came out with a notepad and pen. Emma squirmed under her intense stare. “We need anything you can tell us about your relationship with Randy.”
After settling Marley on the loveseat, Emma described how Randy had chased away every boyfriend she’d ever had until she met David. She provided the officers with a few of the deranged ‘love letters’ he’d sent her in the last few years. She’d kept them in case his stalking escalated to something worse.
Sarah escorted the officers to the door and closed it behind them, her cell phone glued to her ear as she spoke in a low, heated voice to the security company. “Yeah, I know it’s three in the morning, but I don’t care if you have to drag one of your techs out of bed, I want someone over here now.” Sarah snapped the phone shut.
With her fingers jammed into her unwieldy red curls, Sarah joined her sister on the sofa. Marley’s soft breathing rose and fell within the silence.
“I need you to think hard, Em.” Sarah intertwined her fingers with Emma’s and set them on her knee. “You must know who’s trying to scare you.”
Emma leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder, her shining auburn hair sliding over her face. “Randy’s the only one I can think of.”
Sarah paused before speaking again. “How were things with David before he died?”
“What are you asking?”
“Did you have an affair? Did he?”
Her mouth gaping open, Emma sat up and wrenched her hand back. “We were happy.”
Sarah nodded, her expression blank. “What about his father, or his lowlife brother?”
“Working in construction doesn’t make him a lowlife, Sarah. You’ve always hated David and his family because they didn’t have the money we did. I’m still so angry at myself for allowing you to talk me into the prenup.” Emma folded her arms across her aching stomach.
“I know his kind, Em. I mean, look at him—he got sloshed and wrapped his car around a tree. With your inheritance, every rat in the city was crawling up from the sewer to date you and get their filthy hands on your cash. I was just looking out for you.”
Emma jumped up, struggling not to hyperventilate. “All I needed tonight was someone to tell me everything’s okay, like he—” She bit her lip and scooped Marley off the loveseat. “You’re just angry because Daddy cut you out of his will for being such a slut.”
Sarah shot up as if she’d been launched. Her eyes narrowed. “We can’t all be perfect like you. I make my own way, I always have.”
“Then do me a favor and make your way to the door.” Emma strode to her bedroom, tears parading down her cheeks. She tucked Marley into bed beside her. Pain gave way to numbness. With her parent’s deaths last year, and now David, Emma was utterly alone.
The following night, Emma blinked in the darkness, uncertain of what woke her. Once her mental cobwebs cleared, she searched the bed for Marley and found emptiness. The clock read its usual time—1:02 a.m.
Hitting the lights on her way, she rushed to Marley’s room. The little girl sat cross legged on the floor in front of the window, her elbows on her knees. Another heart had been scraped into the frost on the glass.
Through the chiseled sculpture, she saw a perfect snow angel in the deep snow. The moonlight filled it with shadow while the rest of the crust glimmered, a field of diamonds.
Pulse racing, she turned and rubbed her arms, trying to relieve an unreachable chill in her bones.
“Daddy says be careful.” Marley snatched her favorite dolly from the floor beside her and cuddled it, sleep tugging at her eyelids. “He says somebody’s coming to visit.”
“Who’s coming, Marley?”
“Somebody bad.”
Emma picked her daughter up off the floor, sped across the hall into her bedroom and closed the door behind them. Leaning back against it, she listened for foreign sounds. Nothing but stark silence. Emma set Marley on the bed and knelt in front of her.
Cold tingles climbed Emma’s spine. She grabbed the phone from the nightstand. Should I call the police? And tell them what? That my dead husband stopped by from beyond the grave, that he told my daughter someone bad is coming? No, I have enough problems without someone carting me off to the psych ward.
“Did you open your window, Marley?”
She shook her head. “Daddy talked loud.”
Each time Marley mentioned her daddy, the word stabbed Emma, causing her insides to ache. “I’m sure you were just dreaming again.” She stood up and sat on the bed, pulled Marley against her side. “What did the man say to you?”
“Not just a man, Momma. Daddy.”
“What did Da—Daddy say?”
“He said he’s sorry.” Marley tipped her face up, scrunched her nose. “What’s he sorry for, Momma?”
Emma shrugged and clenched her jaw to steady her quivering chin. “Did he say anything else?”
“He says you need to talk to grandpa, and don’t be mad at him.”
John? She hadn’t spoken to her father-in-law since the funeral. He was with David the night he died, had allowed him to get into his car. Was it John outside the window? That has to be it. She tucked her daughter into her bed. “You’re safe now, angel. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, okay?”
With the duvet tucked under her dimpled chin, Marley closed her eyes. “Daddy says you don’t believe yet.” She turned over, still clutching her dolly. “He said if you believe, you’ll be okay.”
Believe what? In ghosts? Ridiculous.
Emma, her body aching from lack of sleep, walked Marley to the bus through the frigid wind. Her daughter’s words replayed in her head. Be careful. They didn’t sound like words her five year old would have thought up, but why would John scare her like that? Her gaze began sweeping the street, and although she saw nothing, the tingling of her skin made her think someone watched her.
After seeing Marley off, Emma walked along the sidewalk toward her house. Snow crunched behind her. Footsteps. She quickened her pace. It’s nothing. The tightness in her stomach wasn’t so sure. The heavy steps grew closer. Is it John? Or Randy? She glanced over her shoulder, her breath billowing out in white puffs. A red haired man walked behind her, his cold blue eyes fixed on her, a smirk on his face.
A scream caught in her throat. She sprinted up her driveway, threw the front door open and stepped inside. Trembling, she turned, closed the door most of the way and peeked through the crack. The man continued along the sidewalk, pulling his blue jacket closer to his body without another glance her way.
Emma slammed the door shut and pounded her palm against the back of it. She shook her head, a hysterical laugh bursting from her lips. The laugh did nothing to calm her nerves. The empty house seemed large and threatening as she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the door. Why did you have to leave me? I can’t do this alone. I’m afraid.
You need to see grandpa. Desperate to hear a soothing voice, Emma dialed John’s office number, but his voicemail picked up. His striking voice, so like David’s it sent a shiver through her, stated he’d be out until after lunch.
After choking down a few crackers and cheese at noon, Emma drove to her father-in-law’s office. When she arrived at his building, she grabbed her purse, raced along the sidewalk and entered through the glass doors. John’s receptionist wasn’t at her desk, so Emma walked down the grey carpet to his office at the end of the hall.
After a deep breath, Emma rounded the door. John sat at his desk, running fingers through his salt and pepper hair. The color drained from her face. She swallowed, unprepared for the striking resemblance between David and his father. The same smile, the same starry-night eyes.
“Emma, come in, come in,” John said. “I’m so glad to see you.” With a stunning smile, he gestured to a chair in front of his desk. She didn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face.
“Emma?” He darted around the desk and put a warm hand on her arm. “You’re shaking. Is something wrong?”
His deep voice broke her trance and she backed up a step. “This is—I shouldn’t have come.” She turned to leave, but John tightened his grip on her arm.
“You can tell me, whatever it is.” He cleared his throat. “I miss him, too.”
“It’s not that. I mean, you know how much I miss him, but that’s not why I’m here.”
John helped her onto a chair, pulled another in front of her and sat down. His brow furrowed. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
Nervous laughter threatened, but she coughed to clear it. “I need to ask you something, but you can’t ask me why.”
“Uh… all right.”
“Were you—did you come to the house last night?”
He stared at her and cocked his head. “I watched the game with Jonas and then went to bed around eleven.”
Her heart sank. She rubbed her hands along the fabric of her dark jeans. “Do you know—was there anyone who had a problem with David?”
John stood and leaned against his desk. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s going on, Emma? You’re pale.”
She shook her head and stood. “It’s just—I’m being stupid, that’s all. With Marley and me alone in the house… it has me a little on edge.”
“Do you want to come and stay with us for a while? It’s no trouble. You have me really worried here, Em.”
Emma raised her eyes to her father-in-law and saw the seriousness in his stare, the tightness around his mouth. “We’re okay. Really.” She ached to tell him about what Marley said about David and the heart on the window, but the words wouldn’t come out. Who else knew they liked to play in the snow? Hard questions gathered in Emma’s thoughts, stirring the anger she kept buried beneath the surface. “That night, at the bar…” She closed her eyes for a moment and willed her voice not to shake. “He never drove when he had that many, so why did he that night? You were with him…”
John pinched the bridge of his nose. “He told me he called a cab, but someone stopped him at the door and he talked for a while. I couldn’t see who it was, but David came back and said he’d found an old school friend to drive him.” John sniffled, dropped his head forward.
Emma wrapped her arms around him. Don’t be angry with grandpa. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “David was a grown man, responsible for his life. I guess it’s time I accept that, too.”
“We’re all here if you need anything.” John stepped away and wiped a tear from his cheek. He went to his desk and came back with a glinting silver object in his hand. “When I went to identify him, they gave me—” He closed his eyes, cleared his throat a few times. “I’ve been meaning to give it back to you.” He took Emma’s hand and placed David’s watch in it. The glass was smashed, but she could still see the hands through it. The hour hand pointed to the one and the minute hand was barely past the twelve.
Emma staggered into the wall. The dark blue of John’s office faded to grey as the cold realization spread through her. David died at 1:02. Oh, Jesus!
When Emma’s focus returned to the room, she found John holding her hand. He exhaled. “If I’d known that damn watch would have upset you so much, I’d never have given it to you.”
Head spinning, chest tight, Emma dropped the watch onto the carpet as if it had burned her. “I have to go.” She bolted out the door and down the hall.
“Emma, wait!” John called after her, but she didn’t turn.
Emma pulled into her driveway with only a vague memory of how she’d arrived there. Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, sending a jolt through her. She pulled out of her pocket and answered.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Bennett, this is Sergeant Michaels.”
She drew in a breath. “You’ve found something.”
“Actually I’m embarrassed to say I’ve misplaced something.” He cleared his throat. “Those letters you gave me, the ones from Mr. Kingsley… did I happen to leave them at your home?”
Exhaling, she rested her head against the steering wheel. “I haven’t seen them. In fact, I remember Jane putting them inside the notebook she was carrying just before you left.”
“Thanks. I’ll check again. I’m terribly sorry about this.”
“It’s all right.”
“I’ll call the instant I have any news.”
“Thanks.”
She tossed her phone into her bag, climbed out of the car and walked up the walkway to the front door. Thinking only of the watch, she twisted the knob and pushed. Halfway through the door, Emma remembered she hadn’t used her key. She froze. The security system should have emitted its shrill warning blips, but a heavy silence greeted her instead.
A clank came from the kitchen. A squeak escaped Emma before she slapped a hand over her mouth. Emma shuffled back into the cold and dug through her purse for her phone. This is not happening to me, oh God, oh God, oh God.
Cell phone in hand, Emma stopped and listened. A woman began to hum inside, a haunting melody she recognized from her childhood. Heart pounding in her chest, Emma crept back inside, drawn by the melody. Her eyes surveyed the room as she stalked toward the kitchen. The tune grew louder as Emma peered around the doorframe.
“Sarah?” Emma said.
Sarah squealed. The wine glass dropped from her hand and smashed against the granite countertop. Wine spilled onto the floor in a red splash. “Christ, Em. You scared me.”
“How did you get in here?” Emma strode into the room.
Sarah stooped to clean up the floor with a dish towel. “I took one of your spare keys when the locksmith was here, and I watched you set the new code.”
The thoughts flitting through Emma’s head went still as a thought formed. Her mouth dropped open and she gasped. “Were you here last night? Why are you trying to scare us?”
Sarah stood, her brow furrowed. “You’re my sister. I would never hurt you, you know that. Kevin and I went out last night and then we went to his place.” Sarah squinted at Emma. “What’s going on?”
With a groan, Emma slumped against the counter and closed her eyes. “Nothing, I’m just tired. This has just been—I’ve had better days. But do me a favor and call before you come over from now on, okay?”
Sarah smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was stupid of me.”
Once her hands stopped shaking, Emma poured herself some wine. “Why are you here in the middle of the afternoon? Don’t you have clients?”
“I cancelled them.” Sarah looked away. “I wanted to say—I acted like a jerk the other night. You’re right, I wasn’t there for you, I’m sorry. And I thought I could talk to Marley.” She cast sad eyes on her sister. “Forgive me?”
“Of course I do.” Emma hugged Sarah.
“I brought my suitcase and The Princess Bride. How about a movie night, just like the old days?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Marley, wound up from talking about David and playing with Sarah all evening, didn’t fall asleep until after eleven. Emma left the little girl on the sofa where she’d finally given in.
“She really thinks it was David,” Sarah said as she started the movie with the remote. “She worries me.” A shudder ran through her. “No wonder you’re so freaked out.”
Emma grabbed her sister’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you for being here with me tonight.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
After opening her mouth a few times, Emma’s next words finally came out. “Do you believe in heaven?”
Sarah dropped her head forward, settled against the back of the sofa and sighed. “No, I don’t, and neither did Mom and Dad.” She set a firm gaze on Emma. “David’s gone. No amount of dreaming will bring him back.”
“I know he’s gone.” Emma drew her knees up and hugged them. “But what if—”
“Please don’t go there, Em. Angels and life after death, they’re just fairytales. David didn’t visit you from heaven. You need to let him go.”
Emma nodded, her throat tight. Letting him go and moving on seemed impossible, as though she’d have to carve a piece of herself away to do it. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m always right remember, sis?”
Choking on a laugh, Emma leaned against her sister.
After the movie ended, Emma and Sarah went to tidy up the kitchen before bed. A knock at the door startled them both.
“Who would be knocking on the door at twenty to one in the morning?” Sarah asked, looking at her watch.
Emma swallowed as she listened to the silence.
Wide-eyed, Sarah grabbed a newly washed knife from the counter and hurried into the living room. She peered out the window beside the front door, then let out a breath.
“You scared the hell out of us, Jane,” Sarah said as she pulled the door open. Emma came to stand beside her.
“That’s Officer Creely to you.” Jane stepped inside, her thin lips pressed together.
“A thousand pardons.” Sarah raised an eyebrow, gesturing for her to have a seat in the living room. “I’ll just… go make some tea.” Sarah disappeared into the kitchen, shaking her head.
“I was driving by and saw your lights on. I decided to stop by instead of waiting till morning,” Officer Creely said.
Shaking off the adrenaline, Emma sat down on the sofa and held a pillow to her chest. “Have you found something?”
“Nothing concrete.” Officer Creely sat down in a chair across from her and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Do you have any more letters from Randy?”
“Uh… yes, I have several boxes full. Do you really think it was him who broke in here?” Emma frowned. She didn’t want it to be Randy. She wanted it to be David, no matter what Sarah claimed.
The kettle began to hum as Sarah returned and perched on the arm of the sofa. “I still can’t believe you dated him.” Sarah said to Jane.
Memories surfaced. Emma remembered how Jane used to fawn over Randy before he’d turned psychotic and became obsessed with Emma. She remembered how Jane had glared when she and Emma had passed one another in the hallway at school.
Officer Creely dropped her gaze to the carpet. “If you can just get me those letters, I’ll leave.”
The phone’s shrill ring came from the kitchen. Emma’s stomach clenched and a rash of goose bumps spread along her arms—nobody ever called at night unless something terrible had happened. She shot up and turned to Sarah. “Can you please check the back door to make sure it’s locked?”
Sarah nodded and started toward the back door while Emma went to the kitchen and picked up the phone.
“He—hello?”
“Mrs. Bennett, this is Sergeant Michaels. I apologize for the hour, but I promised an update as soon as I had one.”
Her pulse sped. “What is it?”
“We found Randy in an apartment registered under an alias. It appears he’s been dead for a while from a self inflicted gun wound. The landlord confirmed he’s been receiving cash in an unmarked envelope every month to pay for the rent, but hasn’t seen Randy since last year.”
“Dead? But—if it wasn’t him, then who broke in here?” Someone bad is coming. Be careful.
Heavy silence. Emma’s fingers tightened around the receiver.
“Someone turned his place into a shrine. We found evidence at the scene to suggest this person may try to harm you. I’m sending a unit over to watch the house until we figure this out.”
Nobody broke in here. David was warning me about… “Oh God!” The phone slipped out of Emma’s hand and crashed onto the floor.
“Mrs. Bennett? Are you there?” Sergeant Michael’s voice screamed through the phone.
When Emma turned, she found Jane leaning against the wall next to her. She’d removed her hat and released her golden hair from the braid she always kept it in. It billowed around her head in rolling waves. Her hand, holding a black gun, rested along the front of her thigh.
Sarah returned, her eyes wide and shining.
Jane raised the gun to her. “Stand with your sister where I can see you better.”
Hands held out to the sides, Sarah edged around Jane and stood beside Emma. “What’s going on, Em?”
Cold fear climbed Emma’s spine. She met Sarah’s eyes, thinking of Marley sleeping on the sofa. The determination Emma found in her sister’s eyes made her chest hurt.
“Yank the cord out of the wall.” Jane said.
Without pause, Emma complied, whimpers catching in her throat. Sergeant Michael’s shouts fell silent. “Why are you doing this?”
Jane tilted her head back and laughed. “Why, she asks. You take away the only love I’ve ever known and you want to know why?”
“I begged Randy to leave me alone,” Emma said.
Jane sighed and stroked the barrel of her gun. “I tried to seduce David that night at the bar, you know. He wouldn’t have any part of it, because he was so in love with you, just like Randy. You don’t deserve to be loved like that. When I played the friend and offered him a police escort, I thought I’d arrest him for DUI, but the asshole was further into the bottle than I thought. I braked for a pothole in the road and my lights must have scared him. He steered himself into a tree.” A lunatic grin ate up the bottom of her face. “So much sweeter this way, don’t you think?”
“You’re insane,” Sarah said, then shot a glance Emma.
“Don’t!” Emma screamed as her sister lunged at Jane, wrapped her hands around the gun and shoved the woman into the wall. Jane growled, struggling to regain control of her weapon.
“Get Marley!” Sarah shouted between grunts. “Get her out of here!”
Emma dashed across the living room and lifted Marley into her arms. The little girl woke up, saw Sarah fighting and began to cry. Whispering reassurances to her daughter, Emma ran for the front door. A gunshot thundered, the sound smashing into the room as the doorframe splintered beside her.
Panting, Emma stopped and turned. Sarah lay on the floor with her eyes closed, blood dripping from her mouth. The sight of her sister brought hot tears to Emma’s eyes. Her throat tightened, but she talked herself down for Marley’s sake.
“Come over here,” Jane said. “Bring your precious girl so I can see her.”
“You want me. Just let Marley go to her room and we can talk about this.”
Jane raised the gun and pointed it at Marley. “I said come here.”
“The police are coming.” Emma held Marley to her chest as she shuffled toward the other woman. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the gun, her heart galloping.
A siren blared in the distance, drawing Jane’s gaze to the window. Taking advantage of the distraction, Emma dashed past Jane and ducked into Marley’s room. She slammed the door and heaved the dresser against it.
“Get into the closet,” Emma said. Marley clung to her leg, but Emma pried her off and pushed her inside. “Not a word now, angel.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Marley cried, then put her little hands over her face. “She came too early.”
Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks as she shut the closest doors and searched the room for a weapon, but found none.
A crash nudged the dresser away from the door. Jane threw her shoulder against it and shoved the door open the rest of the way. “Where is she?” She fired a shot into the bed. “Are you under there, little mouse?”
“Leave her alone!” Emma screamed.
“Don’t you get it yet? You have to lose everything, just like I did.”
The sirens shouted outside of the house, the blue and white lights dancing across Marley’s window. Jane swung the gun toward the closet. Time slowed.
I believe. Please help me. The clock in the hall struck one a.m. No time left. She’ll kill our baby. Screaming wordlessly, Emma threw herself at Jane, wrestling with her as the gun fired again and again.
A ruckus broke out in the living room and footfalls thundered down the hallway.
“Drop your weapon, Creely!” Sergeant Michaels stood in the doorway, his gun trained on Jane’s chest.
Jane smiled. She fired once toward the closet at the same time Sergeant Michaels shot at her. More officers poured into the room, shouting to one another. Emma could see their mouths moving, but the sound of her blood rushing through her ears drowned them out. When she turned to look at her daughter’s hiding place, she found one of the doors splintered.
“Marley!” Emma scrambled across the floor. A female officer jerked the closet door open. Emma’s heart stopped. A circle of crimson blossomed on the front of Marley’s white pajamas. Wailing, Emma crawled to her daughter.
“Daddy and I are going to play in the snow.” Marley smiled as her eyes drifted shut, her black lacy lashes resting against her pale cheek.
Despite the wound in her soul, Emma picked Marley up and headed for the door. She had to get away. I have to be outside.
“I can’t let you move her, ma’am,” the female officer said, trying to take Marley from her. “The paramedics need to look at her.”
“Take care of my sister and get out of my way.” Emma glared down at Jane, who lay on the floor, smiling up at her.
“Now you’ll know my pain,” Jane said, coughing.
“No, I won’t. You’ll die alone and spend eternity alone. You’ve given me the greatest gift, shown me that the ones who love us never really leave us.”
Emma walked through the horde of uniformed officers out into the snow in her socked feet. She trudged to the snow angel outside her daughter’s window and knelt, Marley’s breaths growing shallower as Emma’s knees sank into the cold, wet snow. “I love you, angel. Momma’s here.”
Footsteps crunched the snow behind Emma. She closed her eyes as his beautiful scent engulfed her. “Marley said if I believed, we’d be okay.”
“And you are.” David voice surrounded her with the comfort of home. “You found the courage to fight in your darkest hour. I’m so proud of you.” He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done, but I left this world for a reason. I took Marley’s place, so she can live.”
David took Emma’s shaking hand and placed it over Marley’s chest. She flinched and stared when she found no wound there.
Marley opened her eyes and smiled. “Do you believe now, Momma?”
Emma pulled Marley into a hug and buried her face in the little girl’s hair. “Yes, angel, I believe.” The surge of joy filling her heart was bittersweet, the rightness of David’s sacrifice overlaying the loss. “I miss you, David.”
“You’ll never truly be alone, my love. I’ll be waiting for you. Both of you.”
Emma looked up through her tears, but he was gone. “I know.”
© 2011 Joanne Galbraith
This story first appeared in Winter Canons Anthology published by Midwest Literary Magazine.
Tags: Joanne Galbraith, mystery, paranormal romance, short story
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