Page 171 of Older

Tara: Met this guy in a chatroom. His screen name is Bloodymorrow187. Theories?

Me: Hmm. Tomorrow will be quite grisly, and he has 187 hatchets in his murder-garage to prove it.

Tara: No.

Me: Maybe he’s British. Tomorrow will be a buggering 187 degrees – bloody hell!

Tara: You’re so weird.

Me: Not as weird as the British serial killer who’s courting you via the interwebs.

Tara: BRB – he’s talking to me.

Tara disappeared for twenty minutes before I was alerted of a new message. I pulled up the chat box and skimmed.

Tara: Update! The screen name is based on an urban legend of a woman who was slaughtered on a street called Morrow. Her bloody ghost was spotted walking down the street if you honked your horn on a bridge three times. 187 was the call sign for murder.

Me: Told you!!

Tara: Dang it.

Me: You’re still talking to him, aren’t you?

Tara: ;)

Chuckling under my breath, I rolled back in the chair when Tara disappeared again, then closed out the chat box and switched back to our company account. Tara and Josh had ended things amicably ten months ago, so she was on the prowl, roping me into her many dating adventures from nearly one-thousand miles away. Tara had visited once with Whitney, our only in-person encounter since the moment I’d driven out of their driveway, my furry, golden friend watching me leave from the edge of the driveway, her image shrinking in the rear view mirror but never in my memories.

For my twentieth birthday, the Stephens’ women had had a custom canvas of Ladybug and I hand-painted and shipped. Opening that gift was the hardest I’d cried since the day I received a Beanie Baby bunny in the mail with a note that still resides underneath my pillow.

I missed them.

I missed them all desperately.

But internet chats and e-mail updates with Tara, and long, heart-healing phone calls with Whitney, had lessened the burden of my pain.

I was a work in progress.

An admirable second draft, well on her way to a finished product.

Scotty left the office, gearing up for his next session, and I shuffled around the room watering plants and digging a yogurt out of the fridge.

Back to work.

E-mails piled up with clients rescheduling appointments, as well as potential new clients seeking information, looking to take advantage of our first free training session.

I returned phone calls, scribbled notes, and sipped my coffee, popping spoonfuls of blueberry yogurt into my mouth between tasks. As I moved the mouse to close out the screen, a new e-mail chimed to life with a subject line that stated, “Upcoming Visit.”

I froze.

My eyes lingered on the familiar e-mail address, my insides tangling into knots.

Reed.

Two years had trudged by, and I still couldn’t keep the tremble out of my hand or the shiver out of my bones. Reed checked in from time to time, helping Scotty operate the Charleston location from afar, behind the scenes. He helped with budget and marketing, mostly, but we were in the architectural stage of adding on a new addition, so he’d been in more frequent contact recently.

I opened up his e-mail, tapping both feet under the desk as I held my breath.

Hey—