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Once at the altar, I kneel and pray.
I’m grounded here in this sacred place, so close to God. Centered again.
I light a candle and watch the tiny flame flicker and dance in the darkness.
This candle and my prayer are not for Jay McKnight’s soul.
Nor is it for any other person living or dead.
No, this tiny light is for clarity and divine blessing.
And it’s also for strength. My strength. To carry out my purpose.
Watching the tiny, flickering flame, I whisper, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
CHAPTER 13
Dave was waiting for her, his tail sweeping the floor in wild anticipation after she’d signed all the adoption papers, paid the fees, and taken information about his microchip and vaccination status.
“Look who’s here,” Heather said to the dog, who, as she snapped the leash on him, turned crazy circles.
It was all Kristi could do to corral him into her car and drive him home. He commanded the passenger seat of her Subaru, and she cracked the window for him with a warning that in the future he’d have to be restrained.
Once at the house, she snapped on a new collar and ID tag she’d bought at the pet store, then walked him through the rooms, putting out a dish of water near the back door, then letting him run crazy circles around the backyard. A squirrel scolded from a live oak before scampering across the fence, startling two sparrows who flew in a whirlwind of feathers from the bird bath to the branches of a pine tree where they settled noisily.
After he’d run some of his excess energy off, she brought him into the house and went into the bedroom to retrieve Lenore. The kitten was already aware of the dog, her muscles tight, her eyes round and intense on Dave. He showed interest and sniffed as the cat, still held by Kristi, hissed and showed her small, needle-sharp teeth.
“It’s gonna take some time,” Kristi said to the dog, who wagged his tail and pressed his nose closer. After another round of hissing, he got the message and backed off, settling on the floor and whining. “Good boy,” she said, but decided to keep the animals separated for a while. “Just give her some time. She’ll fall in love with you, too.” Which might be a lie for all Kristi knew, but patience and time was the key, and though patience was far from her strong suit, right now she had all the time in the world.
Well, not quite.
In six or seven months there would be a new little human in the house. She had yet to be seen by her ob-gyn, but she’d made an appointment. Then, once she heard that the pregnancy was viable and going as it should, she would tell her dad that he would soon be a grandfather. She imagined that he would welcome the news, but his anxiety about her safety and raising a child on her own would only ratchet into the stratosphere.
“So deal with it,” she told herself, and Dave thumped his tail, his eyes on hers. “You,” she said to the kitten, “get to hang out in the bedroom while I take this guy”—she hooked her thumb at Dave—“on a walk.”
Which quickly became a run.
Dave, as excited as he was, couldn’t mosey, and so they jogged through the streets near her house and she decided she now had a running partner. Who needed Bella and Sarah and Jess? She now had, floppy ears flying, pink tongue lolling, indefatigable Dave to gallop happily along beside her as she jogged.
For the first time since Jay’s murder, she felt her spirit soar a bit, and when she considered the future, it didn’t seem so bleak. No, she didn’t have her husband and that pain, she suspected, would always exist at some level, but she did have her new dog, and the kitten, and in a little over half a year, a brand-new baby.
“Things could be worse,” she confided in the dog, her shoes slapping against the sidewalk, her thighs beginning to burn as she ran. “It could be raining.” It was getting harder to talk and run, so she cut through the park and turned back toward the house and slowed the pace. By the time she let herself in the back door, she was breathing regularly. Dave buried his nose in his water dish and slopped it everywhere. “Some people might say you have a drinking problem,” she teased, ruffling the mutt behind his ears before sopping up the mess with a kitchen towel and tossing it into the laundry room basket.
She carried a glass of water into the bathroom, where she showered and then, with a towel wrapped around her, swiped at the bathroom mirror where moisture had collected due to the fact that the fan wasn’t working, a project Jay had said he would take care of on an ever-growing list of household tasks that he’d never gotten around to. She cracked the window and immediately an alarm went off.
And the dog started barking like crazy.
“Right.” The new security system. “Crap.” She turned off the alarm, slammed the window down, and latched it, and as she did, she noticed movement in her peripheral vision, a shadow flitting against the fence.
Every muscle in her body tensed.
In a nanosecond the shadow was gone.
What the devil?
She dropped the towel. Grabbing her robe from a hook on the bathroom door, she threw it on and raced through her bedroom and down the short hall to the living area where Dave was going nuts at the slider. Jumping and barking, the hairs on his nape and back raised, his tail stiff. She looked outside but the yard appeared to be empty and the image—what was it? The billowing tail of a black coat? The hem of a trailing skirt? Or the flap of a poncho caught in the breeze?
Oh. Jesus.
