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FOUR

What happened after they found Rowan’s body remained a blur. After two long nights of staring at the wood beams in her old room, Mackenzie had to get out.

Too many people visiting the house.

Friends of the family.

Board members.

Rowan’s ex-wife.

People Mackenzie didn’t know.

Officials in and out. Medical personnel. She’d grown weary of the weeping and angst. Trying to reminisce about their family life while skipping over the part where Mackenzie messed up. Nothing was the same after that.

Funeral arrangements hadn’t been made. She still needed to tell Nora why she’d come, which frankly sounded nuts when she said the words out loud, but how did she drop that bomb in the middle of a brand-new nightmare? How and when? It seemed wholly inappropriate.

“It’s surreal ... you coming back.” Nora had given her a strange look on her way to her bedroom.

And there it was. The moment Mackenzie should have told Nora about the warning. Mackenzie had wanted to tell her then. After all, that had been the first real opening for her to do so. At the same time, it was no opening at all.

Oh, God, it’s all messed up.

She dressed and headed down the hall to Nora’s room. Mackenzie had decided to stay in the house, at least for now, because her room décor from years ago had remained in place. Even Rowan hadn’t changed it. Weird. And since Rowan was gone, Nora wanted to stay at the house a few nights instead of her own home in town. Her way of holding on. They each had their ways of processing the loss and reasons for wanting to stay in the house.

At the door, Mackenzie lifted her hand to knock. She heard Nora in conversation with someone about Hanstech. Mackenzie wouldn’t disturb her now, but she had to get out of this house. To get away from the pain of loss.

In the kitchen, she found a sticky notepad and scribbled a message, then stuck it near the warming coffeepot. None of those individual cups for them. A refrigerator magnet featuring a picture of Rowan, Dad, and Nora with their bikes caught her attention. Mackenzie couldn’t shake the sense that she could have somehow prevented Rowan’s death. She’d come back to prevent something disastrous. Julian had warned her, but she’d been too late.

A heart attack, the county coroner had said. Without an autopsy.

She definitely needed fresh air. When she returned, she would tell Nora what she had come to say. She found her old mountain bike in the garage, dusted it off, and took to the trail behind the house surrounded by four hundred acres and bordered by national forest on three sides. The acreage included a snowmobile track and an extensive network of hiking and biking trails easily accessed behind the house.

The cool morning air and exertion would do her good—and she’d feel the pain come tomorrow, because she wasn’t exactly in the physical condition to mountain bike on treacherous trails. But the effort would distract her from the image of Rowan’s body that was seared into her eyelids.

Her older brother had intimidated her as a child, and weirdly even into adulthood. And now that he was gone, she was surprised that part of her wasn’t relieved. That the burden he’d placed on her, always holding her mistake over her head, hadn’t been lifted. Maybe deep down she had imagined she would save the company from a massive computer hack, and Rowan would welcome her back into the fold.

Because she was oh-so-self-sacrificing.

Instead, her brother was gone.

He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.

No, Rowan, not yet.

She’d wasted precious years living in her own guilt and heeding his warning. Letting him intimidate her into staying away. For Dad’s sake, until he died, and then for Rowan’s and Nora’s sakes. For what? Well, that had been another big mistake.

Life went on, even after mistakes left you scraping yourself off the ground.

The unmistakable roar of a waterfall up ahead broke through her morbid thoughts and calmed her. She remembered that the trail would take her near the waterfall and cross over a small rickety wooden bridge.

“This is what it’s all about,”Dad had said. Dad worked hard, but he played hard too.

She pumped the pedals to keep the burn in her lungs and legs as she aimed for the falls. The trail led her down and away, and she crossed the footbridge gingerly on her bike. On the other side of the roar and spray, she pushed on and would keep pushing until she completely left behind her torrential thoughts.

Julian at the carnival.

A DSS agent at the memorial.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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