She climbed out and followed Nick through a screen door. It slapped shut behind them, nearly making Molly jump out of her skin. Tonight had been one of those nights.
She stopped in her tracks as the room came into view. Wood paneling still graced the walls, lines of picnic-bench-style tables stretched across the room, the cement floor was painted red and a lopsided serving area occupied one corner. “Wow, nothing has changed, has it?”
Nick pulled his hands up to his hips and rested them there as he looked around the room. “Nope. We’ve been happy just to maintain the facilities. No money to upgrade them.”
She touched one of the veneer tables, picturing herself sitting there at seventeen, eating bland spaghetti and canned fruit cocktail off plastic plates. “I never thought I’d be back here again.”
“Too many bad memories?”
She averted her gaze to the floor. “Just the opposite, actually.” She cleared her throat, realizing she’d said too much. “So where am I staying?”
“You’re staying in the nurse’s quarters. Right over here.” He directed her to the back of the cafeteria, where a hallway led to the bi-level staff quarters, bathrooms, a lounge and, finally, the nurse’s quarters. A small clinical area was at the front and a door separated that from the area where she’d sleep.
“I’ll just make myself at home. I know you have other things to worry about right now.”
He offered a clipped nod. “I appreciate it. I’ll be upstairs in the office for the next few minutes, so if you need anything, let me know.”
Molly nodded. Relief filled her when she was able to shut the door to her quarters and have a moment to herself. She had nothing to unpack at the moment. She simply wanted some time to compose herself.
She sighed and stepped toward the bathroom. Maybe a splash of water on her face would help refresh her.
Her foot hit the tiled floor. She stopped in her tracks and screamed.
The words “Get Out or Else” were written in red across the mirror.
* * *
Nick heard the scream from downstairs and forgot about the paperwork, the damaged sign out front, the flying bullets and even the shock of Molly’s unexpected arrival. He took the stairs by twos in a rush to get to the first floor. Without bothering to knock, he threw open the door to the nurse’s quarters. Through the doorway to the bathroom, he saw a pale-faced Molly staring at something out of his line of sight.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” He rushed to her side.
She lifted a shaky finger and pointed at the mirror. Nick turned his gaze away from her and saw something written in red across the mirror. Get out or else.
He touched Molly’s elbow, afraid she might pass out. “Let’s get you something to drink while I call the sheriff.”
“Why would someone write that?”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it. Just hold tight.” He led her to one of the cafeteria-style tables. “Let me get you some coffee. You okay with that?”
She nodded, her eyes still having a dazed look about them. He hesitated to leave her, feeling the need to be by her side. But he needed to call the sheriff. He hurried across the dusty cement floor into the kitchen, grabbing his cell phone as he did so. He prayed for service—which could be spotty out here—and dialed the sheriff’s number. He lowered his voice when Sheriff Spruill answered and explained everything that had happened. As soon as the sheriff finished up at the incident on the highway, he said, he would stop by to file a report.
As he hung up, Nick grabbed a plastic coffee mug and poured a cup of stale coffee for Molly. He wished he could offer more, but this was the best he had.
He stepped into the cafeteria and immediately sucked in his breath again. He wished that Molly still didn’t have that effect on him. But even after all of these years she still managed to take his breath away. Age had only made her more beautiful. Her auburn hair still shined and fell in waves around her face. Her porcelain skin appeared smooth and soft. Her blue eyes exuded kindness...and something else, too. Weariness? What had changed about her gaze?
He set the coffee on the table in front of Molly. She looked up, obviously startled. Her face still looked pale. Her hands still trembled so badly that he doubted she could even drink the liquid he’d brought her. He wanted to cover her hands with his own until the trembles stopped.
But Molly had given her heart to him once. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to even pretend she could fall in love with him again, not after the way things had ended between them. Besides, Nick had settled on the fact that he’d never marry, that he had nothing to offer a wife. The walls around his heart were insurmountable. If someone did get past them, they’d be shocked and dismayed by the empty space on the other side. Deborah, the woman he’d dated for six months, had affirmed that. He was meant to give to others, but unsuited for the give-and-take of romance.
“The sheriff is on his way,” he said.
“This is a nightmare. I should have never come. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Everything’s going to be okay. The good thing about nightmares is that eventually you wake up. They don’t go on forever.”
The strain in her eyes as she looked up at him was enough to make him back his chair away. That’s what was different. There was something broken about Molly, he realized. Something that hadn’t been there ten years ago.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been telling myself,” Molly murmured.
Now what did that mean? Just why had she taken a job here? And why had someone sneaked into the nurse’s quarters to write that message on the mirror? It had to have happened between the time Nick left for Bible study and the time they arrived back at camp. Who could have done that?
Someone who was keeping a close eye on the place.
He resisted a shiver.
Nick had come here as a retreat, a time to reevaluate his life and his choices. He’d had no intentions of helping with the camp during that time because Gene was supposed to have a handle on those obligations. Nick knew he needed time to decompress after everything that had happened over the past year. First his grandfather had died. Then he’d ended his relationship with Deborah. A few months later, his best friend—another chaplain—had been killed by friendly fire while in Iraq. He needed to spend time seeking God before he figured out the next step in his life. So he’d stayed at his home and tried to block out life.
But now, it seemed like everything that could go wrong had. And it was only getting worse with each tick of the clock. First Gene had left unexpectedly, then an air conditioner went out, followed by the filter at the pool breaking, then two churches that had been big donors to the camp decided they couldn’t financially support Camp Hope Springs anymore. And then there was today. Molly showing up and hitting a dead man, the sign at the entrance being destroyed, the flying bullets, and now this.
Suddenly, Molly stood, reminding Nick a bit of a cornered animal trying to escape captivity. “I want to leave.”
“You can’t leave. The sheriff ordered that you stay.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I want to leave. I wanted a new start, not—not...not this. I just want peace.”
“Peace doesn’t come from the outside, Molly. It comes from the inside.” Talking as if he was preaching a sermon seemed to come naturally. And he hated himself for it, even if what he said was true.
“You have no idea, Nick.”
He sucked in a breath before rubbing his chin
. “Actually, I do. Why don’t you sit back down? Leaving now won’t get you any peace. In fact, it would probably get you more heartache, especially when the sheriff finds out you violated his orders.”
Her gaze skittered toward the door and then back at him. Finally, she nodded. “You’re right. I just... I just...”
“It’s okay, Molly. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
She sat down and shook her head, some of the worry leaving her eyes. “You’ve still got it.”
“Got what?”
“The ability to take chaos and make sense of it, to make people feel like everything will be all right. How do you do it?”
If only he could take his own advice...advice to let people in, to realize that getting hurt was worth the risk, that being misunderstood was a small price to pay for being authentic. Instead, he shrugged. “I just try to tell the truth.”
She nodded again and looked away. Her fingers rubbed the coffee mug before stealing a glance at him. Her gaze looked tortured. “I’m sorry, Nick.”
Sorry for what? For showing up here? For ever falling in love with him in the first place? Before he had a chance to ask, the front door opened and the sheriff walked in. Would Nick ever know the answer to that question?
No, he decided. He’d put as much distance between himself and Molly as humanly possible. He’d be busy with camp opening, so it shouldn’t be a problem. His path would virtually never have to cross with Molly’s. She’d be busy being a nurse, most likely hanging out in her quarters, while he’d be running around tending to everything else.
Guarding his heart should be perfectly easy and no problem. He’d perfected the act for the past ten years.
The sheriff nodded toward them in greeting. “The good news is that we just caught two hunters in the woods. They were both as a drunk as a skunk and without a license. We’re fairly certain they’re the ones behind those bullets earlier.”
“Those shots didn’t seem like that of a drunk man. They seemed purposeful, like they were aiming at us,” Nick said.
The sheriff locked gazes with him. “Now why would someone do that?”
“I have no idea.”
Sheriff Spruill turned his attention to Molly. “You sure you don’t know that man who was hit?”
Molly nodded. “Positive. Why?”
“Your employment application was found in his pocket.”
She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. I faxed that application to Gene a month ago.” She paused, her eyes widening. “The man wasn’t...Gene. Was it?”
“No, it wasn’t. We’ll have you take a look at the man in a few days to make sure you don’t know him.” The sheriff ran a hand over his face. He looked weary, tired and a bit overwhelmed. He should be. They hadn’t had this much excitement in the county for a long time, if ever. “Now, where’s this message that someone left you?”
“I’ll take you,” Nick volunteered. “You okay staying here by yourself for a minute, Molly?”
Molly nodded, her eyes still appearing hollow. He hesitated to leave her, but he wanted the chance to speak to the sheriff alone for a moment.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Nick leaned in close to the sheriff. “Any idea what’s going on around here?”
“No, but I don’t like it.”
“Do you think that man was dead before Molly ran over him?”
“All the evidence indicates that he was. We still don’t have an I.D. on him or an indication as to why he might have been lying in the middle of the road. The medical examiner said he most likely died from blunt force trauma to the head. Rigor mortis indicates that he’d been dead for twelve hours when that young lady had the misfortune of finding him.”
“I drove down that road today. That man wasn’t there twelve hours ago.”
“Apparently the body was moved there.”
They reached the nurse’s quarters and Nick directed him inside to the bathroom. The message glared at him, sending icicles shooting through his veins.
The red color couldn’t have been an afterthought. The message was supposed to look like blood, supposed to evoke fear.
The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “Now why would someone write that message here?”
Nick shrugged, hating to even think about that possibility. “Your guess is as a good as mine.”
“You know the girl?”
Nick nodded tightly. “Yeah, we came to camp here together one year in high school.” Nick made their friendship sound casual. However, at one time the two of them had talked about forever.
“Any reason why someone wouldn’t want her here?”
He shook his head definitively. “Not that I know of. I haven’t talked to her in years, though.”
“More concerning than that is the ‘or else’ part of this message.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to know that means.” An empty threat, Nick told himself.
The sheriff snapped a picture and then reached forward, touching a word slashed across the mirror. He pulled his hand back and examined his finger. He leaned forward and took a whiff of the liquid.
Nick waited to hear his analysis. “What is it? Paint?”
The sheriff shook his head. “No, I’m pretty sure this is blood.”
THREE
“Blood? Real blood? Human blood?” Molly walked into the nurse’s quarters just in time to hear the sheriff’s proclamation. She felt the color drain from her face. As a nurse, she saw human blood all the time—but not human blood used as ink.
“Don’t jump to any conclusions.” Nick appeared at her side.
Jump to conclusions? What else was there to do but jump to conclusions? Someone was sending her a blatant, deadly threat. Since she’d just arrived, she had to wonder if the threat was directed to everyone at the camp and not just her, though. After all, Gene was apparently the only person who’d known she was coming, and Gene was nowhere to be found. What had she just walked into?
The sheriff cast his sagging eyes toward her. “Does anyone else know that you’re here?”
Molly shook her head. “I told a few friends before I left that I was going away, but that was it. They didn’t know that I was coming here.”
“I’m assuming you didn’t see anyone else at the crime scene? No other cars passed by?”
“No, no one.” Just imaginary eyes watching her from the woods. But what if they hadn’t been imaginary? What if those shivers she’d experienced had been because someone really had been out there? She trembled at the thought.
Nick placed a hand on her forearm. “I think Molly’s probably been through enough tonight. She needs to rest.”
“We need to dust the place for prints, collect some samples, take a few more photos. I’ll send my crime scene guys out.” The sheriff turned his gaze to Nick. “Anyone have it in for the camp?”
Nick flinched. “What do you mean?”
“The sign out front. This threat in the quarters. Maybe someone is trying to send a message.”
“The camp doesn’t have any enemies. None that I know of, at least. Of course I’m new here. I don’t know exactly what happened before I came.”
“You mean before the previous director disappeared?”
Disappeared? Disappeared seemed more ominous than saying the previous director simply left. Molly shivered again.
Nick visibly tensed and sucked in a breath, as if reality was finally hitting him. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“
Who has keys to this building?”
“It wasn’t locked. We usually don’t lock up until 11:00 p.m. That’s lights-out.” Nick removed his hand from her arm and instead placed it on his hip, as if he was over the shock from the sheriff’s questions and now ready to fight whatever was going on.
Sheriff Spruill nodded. “I’ll put a call in to my guys now. You should have your room back in the next couple of hours.”
Couple of hours? Great. What would Molly do for two hours? All she wanted was to be alone. Her dreams of curling up in bed and trying to forget about, well, everything, obviously wouldn’t be happening.
She’d stepped out of one nightmare and into another. Sometimes she just felt as if God had it in for her.
She shook her head. No, God didn’t operate like that. God loved her, despite what happened in life. She constantly had to remind herself of that.
“Come on.” Nick took a step toward the hallway door. “I’ll find a place where you can be comfortable until your room is ready.”
Good old Nick. He’d broken up with her all of those years ago because, basically, he was out of her league. He came from a picture-perfect family whose worst crime was skipping church while on vacation. Molly, on the other hand, came from a broken family who lived—to use the old cliché—on the wrong side of the tracks. Her father left when she was a toddler and her mother had turned to men and drugs to numb her problems. With no supervision, Molly had turned to partying to fill the gap. That was, until she’d gone to church with a friend and found Jesus. Her life had been turned around when she discovered what true hope was—Who true hope was, she should say.
When she and Nick had started dating, things had gone great for the first few months. They’d seen each other every weekend during the summer, going whitewater rafting with Nick’s youth group, visiting the local amusement parks together and even working at a soup kitchen in downtown Richmond. Then Molly had started classes locally to become a nurse. Nick went to seminary three hours away. They continued to see each other on weekends whenever possible. But eventually, Nick had excuses as to why he couldn’t make it back to town. The phone calls had become less frequent. Molly had known something had changed. She’d wanted, at first, to believe that he truly was busy with his studies. But then he’d called her, saying they needed to end things. They were two different people, he’d said. A long-term relationship between them would never work out.
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