Page 18 of Hope and Country

In the dark, I saw nothing.

Damn these lights.

It took my brain a long minute to process the scene and remember the phone in my jacket. With heavy fingers, I turned the flashlight mode on.

My breath caught in my lungs. My heart jackhammered in my chest. I didn’t scream because no sound came out of my paralyzed vocal cords. What the—? Was it a—?

A body.

It was a fucking body.

I brought the light beam closer to what looked like a corpse. Was this person dead? My stomach leaped in my throat. Acid filled my mouth. Don’t throw up, man. Think. Inhale. Exhale. Why would there be a dead body on my front porch? This made no sense. I held my breath, scared the scent of death would penetrate my nose and haunt me forever. I hovered the light over the still body. By the width of the hips and the slim legs, it was either a tall child or a woman.

Frozen, on all fours, I pondered my options.

As my fingers hit the nine, the one, and the one a second time, a voice, soft and low, broke the silence. I startled and fell back on my ass.

“Riley— Are you Riley?” A woman. The voice belonged to a woman. My shoulders slouched forward. Okay, no dead person on my conscience.

I delved into my memories. I knew the voice. I had heard it before. But where? In my state of drunkenness, with alcohol drowning my brain cells, I had a hard time putting a face to the familiar voice.

I cleared my throat. “That’s me. Do we know each other? Should I call the police? Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

The woman moved to the side and pushed herself up to sit beside me. A growl of pain escaped her mouth as she wrapped her shaky arms around herself.

Thousands of questions popped into my head.

I moved closer to catch a sight of her face, trying to avoid blinding her with the light beam.

Gray-blue eyes met mine.

My heart died a thousand death in my chest before jolting back to life and beating in a frenzied rhythm.

8

DEVON

I smiled at my computer screen. Today had been a good day. No, scratch that. The entire week had been incredible. I was thriving. Feeling happier than I’d been in a long time. I pressed send on the email intended for one of my clients. He’d hired me as a freelancing copywriter all year round, providing me with a regular income. Business was booming. In the last two weeks, I’d quoted for six jobs and gotten five out of them.

Things were finally turning around.

My mother used to say the sun always came out after the storm, and right now I could feel the change in the air. Lately, I’d started to believe her words. Because now they made sense to me.

Robbie had been MIA for weeks, not showing up on my doorstep or following me when I ran errands. Even Mrs. Glifford, my elderly floor neighbor, had commented on how cheerful I looked the other day when we exited our apartment building at the same time.

Not wanting to attract unwanted attention, I usually lay low whenever I got out of my home. If my life was a musical, now would be the scene with the butterflies and colorful outfits once the heroine had defeated the villain. And was set free.

I knew Robbie would show up again sometime soon. He always did. I bet there was a new woman in his life. That was usually the reason he stopped coming over. It never lasted, though. But for the time being, I enjoyed the freedom his absence provided me.

My fingers lingered on the keyboard of my laptop, and my mind drifted away.

When things got rough, I often wondered if my mother wished for the accident that night. If she hoped her life would end, taking years of pain and suffering along with it.

There were so many things I wished I could ask her.

My heart cracked in my chest at the mere thought of her.

How many times did I ask myself why she didn’t leave Harry after he beat her so bad she had to miss work for weeks on the pretext of suffering from migraines, waiting for her cuts and bruises to heal that first time?