"Cold Vengeance" by Nancy Mehl

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And then he was gone.

As terror seized her mind, she became aware of someone else standing below the streetlight, a dark shadow in the shape of a child. The only feature Erin could make out were her eyes. They glowed with a strange inner fire, and they were locked on Erin. She tried to look away but couldn’t. She was still frozen in place, unable to control her body or move her gaze from the child who stared at her with smoldering hate.

ERIN GASPED AND SAT UP IN BED, sobbing, her face wet with tears and her sheets soaked with sweat. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and put her face in her hands. When would these nightmares end? Would she ever heal from that night?

She looked at the clock next to her bed. Three thirty-three in the morning. Again. How could she wake up every night at the same time? It was eerie. Made her shiver.

She got out of bed and walked over to her closet. After sliding open the door, she glanced up at the locked box on the top shelf. Her gun. She hadn’t touched it since . . .

Every morning when she woke up, her feet led her to the closet as if they had a mind of their own. She was drawn to the gun and yet repelled by it. It wasn’t the one she’d used that night. She’d turned that one in—along with her badge—when she quit the force. Erin stared at the box as the clock on her nightstand ticked too loudly in the quiet room, a reminder that her life was ticking away.

She shook her head and closed the closet door, then made her way to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of chamomile tea would help. Her doctor had prescribed sleeping pills, but they remained untouched on her nightstand. She was afraid to open the bottle. Afraid she . . .

“Stop it,” she said to herself as she flipped on the kitchen light.

She finished brewing her tea and thought about going back to bed, but her sheets were still damp, and she didn’t feel like changing them. She wasn’t sure she had any clean ones, anyway. She hadn’t done laundry for a while. She’d finally hired someone to clean her apartment, though it embarrassed her. She was basically unemployed, had nothing else to do, but she couldn’t take care of the relatively small space where she lived.

Correction—where she existed.

She used to pride herself on being able to do everything. Cook, clean, take down bad guys. But now she spent her time watching too much TV and trying to dodge calls from her editor, who wanted more books. She wasn’t sure she had another book in her. She’d only written the first one because she needed something to do. A way to focus on anything besides that night. Her novel was created as a way to release the dream she’d had inside for so many years. A dream that died the same night Scott had.

She sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window at the falling rain as it streaked the glass. The light on her deck caused the rivulets of water to shimmer and dance. She continued to stare outside while she finished her tea. Then she went into the living room and lay on the couch, turning on the TV.

What should she watch? No cop shows. It was too painful. Strangely, comedies made her angry. Seeing people laugh felt so wrong. Scott was dead. Her career was over. And she was lost. Utterly and completely lost. The life she had now was unsustainable. The only time she’d felt alive was when she was writing that stupid book, and that was fiction. Not real.

She glanced at her coffee table. Dark Matter by Erin Delaney. She’d been able to live vicariously through her protagonist, Alex Caine. Alex was the FBI behavioral analyst Erin would never be. Alex lived out Erin’s dead dream. The FBI certainly didn’t want a broken ex-cop. The book had made a lot of money and even shot to the top of the New York Times’ bestsellers list. But it hadn’t made her happy. All it did was make it clear how empty her life had become.

Erin knew how to write. She’d taken creative writing courses in college—along with her real interest, criminal justice. Straight out of school, she’d had a couple of novels released by a small publisher. She hadn’t made any money. It was just for fun. But Dark Matter had caught the interest of a large publisher, thanks to the retired FBI behavioral analyst who had been her source—and had become her friend.

Erin had hoped writing the book would be cathartic. She’d written about an FBI profiler who watched a colleague gunned down in front of him. The rest of the book followed his mission to hunt down the deranged serial killer who had taken the life of his friend. But working on the book hadn’t healed the trauma. She was still haunted by that night.

Now her editor wanted three more books. Not only did she have nothing else to say, she was afraid of facing additional pain. Why did her editor keep calling? Her agent understood and had remained silent. But her editor wouldn’t take no for an answer. Was it the money? The prestige? Erin didn’t care about any of that.

She jumped when her cell phone rang. There was only one human being who knew she woke up at the same time every night.

“Hello, Kaely,” she said when she answered the phone.

“Now you’ve got me waking up at three thirty,” Kaely said.

Kaely Quinn-Hunter had walked Erin through the details of Dark Matter. Without her, she couldn’t have written the book. As they shared things that only those in law enforcement could understand, they had bonded in a way no therapist could comprehend. Erin knew this for a fact. She’d been through three already. None of them had helped.

“Sorry. I’m sure Noah doesn’t appreciate that.”

Kaely laughed. “Noah sleeps like a log. Nothing wakes him up.” She hesitated for a moment before saying, “You still having that same nightmare?”

“Yeah. It’s like some kind of dysfunctional friend who won’t go away.”

“Not sure it’s your friend,” Kaely said, then paused again.

“Okay, spit it out. I can tell you have something on your mind.”

Kaely sighed loudly. “I hope the day doesn’t come when I really need to keep something from you.”

“Why would you want to keep something from me?”

“You’re taking this too literally. I…I want to propose something.”

“If this is another invitation to visit you, you’re wasting your time,” Erin said. “You know I can’t leave my apartment.”

“Erin, you can leave your apartment. You just choose not to.”

“Says you.”

“Yeah, says me,” Kaely said. “I’m not asking you to come here, but I am asking you to leave that apartment. You can’t spend the rest of your life holed up in there.”

Erin really did want to venture out, but she couldn’t stand the idea of being in a situation she couldn’t control. She was safe here. She’d gone out a few times—but just to the doctor or the therapist. She could have groceries delivered, and she knew all the restaurants that would bring her food. She’d even bought a new car online and had it delivered. Life had certainly changed over the last several years. Now anyone could cut themselves off from the world. It was relatively easy.

“So what are you asking me to do?” she asked, certain she wasn’t going to do it.

“Just get into that nice new car you bought and drive to the Smokies. I have a friend who owns a cabin in a town called Sanctuary.”

“You’re making that up.”

Kaely laughed again. “No, I’m not. That’s really the name of the town. Anyway, I’m proposing a week in an isolated cabin, just you and me. We can talk, cry, yell, do whatever we want with no one to bother us. I’ll even pick up our groceries, do whatever I need to. All you have to do is be there. The area is gorgeous. You’ll love it. What do you say?”

Erin searched for an argument, but as she gazed around her kitchen, realizing how tired she was of looking at the same walls, she heard herself agreeing to go.

After getting more information from Kaely, Erin hung up and wondered what she’d just done. She wanted to call Kaely back and explain why she couldn’t go, but suddenly the image of that box in the closet flashed in her mind. She had the distinct feeling that if she didn’t meet Kaely at the cabin, one of these nights she might finally unlock it.

Nancy Mehl (NancyMehl.com) is the author of more than fifty books, a Parable and ECPA bestseller, and the winner of an ACFW Book of the Year Award, a Carol Award, and the Daphne du Maurier Award. She has also been a finalist for the Christy Award. Nancy writes from her home in Missouri, where she lives with her husband, Norman, and their puggle, Watson.