Color of Forgiveness (43 page)

“I wouldn’t have, I mean—”

“Jesus Christ, Myra, I’m so fucking pissed
right now.” He closes his eyes and tries to calm down but can’t.
“What the fuck was I thinking?” he growls under his breath. “I
don’t know why the hell I was drinking when you’ve got a goddamn
stalker out there.
Fuck.
I put you and our baby in danger.
You need to put yourself first for once and stop being so goddamn
selfless because if anything had happened to you, I’d… I’d…” He’d
die, he’d totally fucking die, he knows he would. It’d kill
him.

Dylan frowns when Myra doesn’t respond and a
strange look comes over her face. Her eyes widen as her hand flies
to her mouth.

Dylan starts to reach behind him to try and
get the passenger door open, but before he can, Myra has the
driver’s side open and is out. With his head throbbing and the
earth spinning, he somehow manages to follow her and slide across
the seat, stumbling out of the truck. Grabbing her hair, he holds
it back for her as she heaves into the grass. His stomach rolls as
well probably from a combination of the booze he consumed last
night and seeing her like this. It hurts him to see her so
sick.

“Thanks,” she mumbles as she
straightens.

“You all right?” he asks, letting go of her
hair. His brows crease as his eyes search her face. He doesn’t like
how pale she looks.

She nods, wiping her mouth on the back of
her sleeve. “I’m just going to go in and clean up,” she
mumbles.

His eyes stay on her until she’s safely
inside Jackie’s house. He stumbles back to his truck and climbs
inside, groaning when he steps on a couple of beers cans on the
floorboard.

* * *

“You forgive me for yelling at you and
Dylan?” Jackie asks her eyes watery.

“Yes,” Myra responds, smiling, “as long as
you forgive me for aiming a gun at your head.”

“I don’t know. It’s going to take me a while
to recover from that one,” Jackie says with a grin. “But I’m still
mad at Dylan. It’s his fault that we got into a fight in the first
place.”

Myra continues to smile as she nods at
Jackie.

“Well, I’m off to work,” Jackie announces.
“Oh wait, I was going to ask you how much longer you were planning
to stay with me because my mom and dad want me to come stay the
weekend with them in Boise. I told them about the break-ins, and
they weren’t too happy about it. They can’t wait for me to move
back. And please know that I’m not trying to kick you out or
anything because you can stay as long as you like. I mean, I’d love
it if you—”

“Jackie.” Myra folds her arms across her
chest.

Jackie smiles cheekily. “Sorry.”

“I’ll probably just stay one more night
since nothing else has happened.”

“That sounds perfect. I’m going to try to
leave Friday afternoon, and I’ll be back Sunday night. If I can’t
get anyone to cover the shifts at the bookstore for me, I’ll
probably just close up shop. I’m signing the papers to sell it next
week anyway so I don’t think it’ll matter if it’s closed for a few
days.”

Myra nods.

“All right, well, I’ll see you tonight,”
Jackie says. “I really wish you were staying with me longer. I love
coming home to your delicious dinners.”

“I’m spoiling you,” Myra says with a
smile.

Myra closes the door behind Jackie and locks
it. She still has to get her stuff together before she goes back to
her house. Moving to the window, she stares outside for a few
minutes, frowning as she looks around Jackie’s property. She rubs
her stomach when it starts to rumble again.

This time around, her morning sickness
wasn’t just caused by the baby. Her nerves are seriously shot. Last
night while in the truck with Dylan, she’d seen movement –
something or some
one
– in the small line of trees on the
edge of Jackie’s property. It had been as if a person was standing
between two pine trees, facing her, before quickly stepping out of
sight and completely disappearing. Later in the night, she’d been
jolted awake by another sound, almost like something had hit the
side of the truck, like maybe a large rock. She had rolled the
window down and looked around to try to find the origin of the
sound, but saw nothing.

The shape she’d seen and the sound she’d
heard had made her pull her gun from the floorboard and keep it in
her hand. But when she fell asleep, it must have slipped from her
grip and ended up near Dylan’s neck. She’s almost sick again when
she thinks about what just happened – or what
might
have
happened – when Jackie knocked on the window. She’s already been
through enough; she doesn’t need to place accidentally shooting
Jackie on her worry list. With a long sigh, she heads upstairs to
pack her things and nibble on her trusty Saltines.

* * *

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to
eat?” Myra asks Dylan as she sets some aspirin and a bottle of
water on the table for him.

His lip curls up as he shakes his head and
pops open the aspirin bottle, downing a couple.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else you
need?” Myra asks.

“Nah, thanks…” he mutters as he runs a hand
through his damp hair. The shower he just took felt really damn
good.

“Okay. Well, I’ll be upstairs if you need
me.”

He nods as he picks up the bottled water. He
takes a drink while he watches her walk down the hallway. He finds
it awfully interesting that nothing has happened here at her house
since they got back from Boise. Once she’s out of sight, he pulls
out his phone and dials Porter.

“Hey, Dylan… How’s Myra?”

“Good.”

“What can I do for you?”

“How’s the investigation going?”

“I actually just got some information on a
new lead that I’m working on. I’ve talked to just about everyone I
can think of around town. I was hoping someone would start talking…
bragging or running their mouth, but nobody’s said a word.”

“Well, I wanted to talk to you about
something. It might explain why you’re having a hard time finding
any leads here. My ex-wife, well, she confronted Myra last week.
Showed up on her doorstep and told her that she wanted me back and
that she was going to fight for me.”

Porter’s quiet for a moment before he clears
his throat. “Um, have you talked to Myra about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Porter hesitates then sighs loudly.
“Myra told me about it right after it happened. We discussed it,
and I decided to take a look at her, as a suspect. It took me a
little while to track her down but I did. I have a friend on the
force in Boise that I asked to look into her for me. She’s not been
home, but he finally caught up with her this morning. I actually
just got off the phone with him. He said that she was angry and
kept yelling that she had nothing to do with it. He tried to get
her to account for her whereabouts for that weekend, but she
refused to cooperate.”

Dylan frowns and rubs the back of his
neck.

“With your album and clothes missing, that
leans towards someone who knows you personally. And with Sabrina
confronting Myra and the sheer hatred that was taken out on Myra’s
car… Well, I think when you put all of the facts together… Sabrina
becomes our number one suspect.”

Dylan takes in a deep breath and blows it
out slowly. “I honestly didn’t think she was capable of doing
something like that.” He roughly clears his throat. “I talked to
her the other day and some things she said just sounded ‘off’ to
me. She told me she’d do anything to get me back. We lost a child
together and—”

Porter interrupts. “Oh, Dylan, I’m so
sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Dylan reassures him in a
gruff voice. “But after that, she had some problems with drugs and
alcohol, but she says she’s clean now.”

“Hmm... did she experience any mental health
issues at any point?”

“Um, yeah… She was depressed.”

“Well, I want you and Myra to be extra
careful. If she makes any verbal threats against either of you, we
can slap a restraining order on her.”

“Okay. Thanks, Porter. I appreciate your
help.”

Dylan tucks his phone back in his pocket, a
sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hopes like hell that
somehow Sabrina is not the one responsible because if she is, he’s
going to have a really hard time controlling his actions the next
time he sees her.

* * *

Myra stands in front of the closed door of
her master bedroom, the bedroom that she saw the black shadow in
from Jackie’s window. She reaches her hand out and grips the ice
cold doorknob. She swallows hard, her heart beating wildly in her
chest. She turns her head, staring down the hallway behind her as a
feeling of pure fear tightens in her stomach.

Inhaling deeply, she turns the knob and
pushes the door open slowly. As it swings open, it makes an eerie,
creaking sound. She swallows hard again and reaches for the light
switch. When her fingers find the light switch, a garbled gasp
erupts from her and her eyes widen in terror. The curtains she saw
open last night are now closed as if they’d never been touched.
Myra knows that absolutely no one has been in this house. No one
could have opened and closed those curtains, absolutely no one.

Her eyes quickly scan around the room, but
nothing seems out of place. Swallowing hard, she takes a slow step
forward and a chilly draft that seems to develop out of thin air
hits her, causing the hair on her arms and neck to stand straight
up. Turning on her heel, she slams the door behind her and runs
back down the hallway to her bedroom. Closing her bedroom door, she
leans up against it, her eyes closed, her breathing heavy and
labored. It takes several minutes to get her heart rate back down
to normal. Something is in this house. Something unseen and
unexplainable… and it completely terrifies her.

* * *

“I’m never getting fucking drunk again,
ever,” Dylan mumbles under his breath. He sets his hammer gently on
the table and closes his eyes, rubbing his temples. All he has to
do today is add the floor and ceiling molding in Myra’s kitchen.
But that means using that damn hammer, and making noise… lots of
loud, goddamn noise. Every time he slams the hammer against a nail,
he cringes. He almost called it quits three or four times already,
but he’s trying to tough it out. At this pace, it’ll take him all
damn day to get this shit done.

He sits down at the table and drinks some
more water, his mind going back to last night again. He vaguely
remembers saying something about how his heart was hers, but he
can’t remember a damn thing after that. Was she insulted? Or pissed
that he said something like that when he was drunk? He squeezes his
eyes shut as he tries to remember more, but he comes up blank.

If only he could remember…

* * *

Myra’s phone rings. She picks it up off of
the bed and smiles. “Hello?”

“Myra? It’s Sherri. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she replies.

“How’s the morning sickness?”

“Terrible.”

Sherri laughs lightly. “I wasn’t sick a day
with Dylan or Trish. With Nick, I threw up a few times, but with
Chad…? Oh my goodness. The morning sickness with him didn’t
officially leave until I was almost six months. That boy has been a
pain since he was in the womb,” Sherri says with a giggle. “Ah, but
I love my big brute of a son. He’s such a joy... and such a pain.
Some days, it’s hard to decide which.”

Myra laughs with her.

“Hopefully your morning sickness won’t last
too long. I’m sure you’ll be feeling fit as a fiddle before you
know it.”

“I hope so,” Myra says.

“Natalie was such a mess last night. She was
just devastated that she hurt you like that.”

“I told her not to worry about it. I know
she didn’t mean it; she was only concerned about Dylan.”

“I told her that, too, but she still feels
guilty. Did you hear that Dylan is talking to his therapist
again?”

“Yeah, he told me about it.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yeah, it really is.”

“Have you talked to Dylan about your
doctor’s appointment yet?”

“No.”

“When is it?”

“A week from today…”

“Well, tell him about it, and let me know
what he says. We’ll take it from there, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Chad’s going to come to Nyssa on
Saturday.”

“Yeah, Natalie mentioned something about
it.”

“Since Dylan isn’t answering our phone calls
again, could you let him know that I made him another photo album
and that I’ll send it along with Chad?”

Myra’s eyebrows crease. “What do you
mean?”

“The album that got stolen from his house? I
was the one that made it for him. I kept a copy of all the pictures
so I just made him a new one.”

Myra’s stomach clenches. Someone broke into
his house too? What does this mean? Is the stalker after him as
well? Why didn’t he tell her? When will he quit shutting her out?
Will he
ever
really open up to her?

Myra’s lips form into a grim line as she
hums in response. Sherri promises to call her in the next couple of
days, and they say their goodbyes.

The more she thinks about Dylan keeping
secrets, the madder she gets. Her stomach growls and she glances at
the clock and sees that it’s one-thirty.

With a huff, she hops off the bed and stomps
downstairs to the kitchen. Her eyes narrow when she sees Dylan up
on a ladder putting up molding. She throws open the refrigerator
and pulls out the fixings for turkey sandwiches.

As she starts making the sandwiches, she
gets more and more angry. They’re not any closer to fixing the
problems between them. If anything, it’s worse. He only told her he
loved her when he was in a drunken stupor, he never bothered to
tell her that his house was broken into, and he’s being a big jerk
to his family by not answering his phone. He has the most
incredible family she’s ever met. She’d do anything to belong to a
family like that. He has no idea what he even has and he just
treats them like crap. He doesn’t
deserve
to have that
family.