The Shadow: Someone is Watching (Rahab's Rope Series Book 1)

by Kimberly Rae

  “I can do it,” Meagan’s silver-haired grandfather offered. He set his guitar on the floor. “What’s distracting you, Meagan? I heard you say something about a guy following you home. Sounds promising.”

  “Oh, Grandpa, stop teasing.” Meagan felt ridiculous for blushing. “He’s just a guy trying to dish up dirt on me, that’s all.”

  “Well, why don’t you dish up some of that peanut butter fudge you’re so good at making, and change his mind?” He plunged the needle in without any signs of pain. After thirty years of daily shots, he said his skin was so thick he didn’t even feel them anymore.

  “This girl needs to get a husband, or at least a boyfriend, before I kick off,” Pops said to Kelsey. Her eyes widened, but Meagan laughed. He’d talked like that since she was a kid. “Here I am, old as the hills. All my friends are sick or dead, but I can’t die or even go senile until I know my little girl is taken care of. Seems kind of inconsiderate of her to make me hold out this long, don’t you think?” He reached over and patted Meagan’s hand. “Get yourself a guy who can fix things. That pipe under the kitchen sink is leaking again.”

  While Kelsey mumbled, “Good gracious,” Meagan thought unaccountably of Cole’s statement that he couldn’t fix cars other than hitting them with a hammer. Maybe he could hit the pipe back into place.

  What was she thinking?

  “It’s time I got you to bed,” she told her grandfather, clearing the empty syringe and sugar-testing machine off the table, and placing his pills—two large, three small—on it within reach. She stood next to his chair, hands full, until he had taken all five pills with water. “It’s late.”

  “You women love telling us men what to do,” he grumbled, rocking back and forth until the momentum was enough to lift himself out of the chair. She was glad to not have to help him up tonight. He had a good fifty pounds on her, and she felt drained in every way.

  “Do your legs feel tight?” she asked.

  “The wrappings feel tight, if that’s what you mean. Can’t feel my legs much at all these days.” He winked at Kelsey, mischief in his eyes. “I think about a third of me has already died and gone to heaven. The rest of me is just running late.” The seventy-five-year-old man wobbled and fell back into the recliner.

  “You did that on purpose,” Meagan said, using his same teasing tone, “just so I’d have to check your legs again tonight.”

  “Well, it takes a lot for a guy to get any attention around here.”

  Meagan heard Kelsey’s soft laugh from her stance near the window. When Meagan left the room to wash her hands before re-bandaging her grandfather’s legs, Kelsey followed her. “You’re blessed to live with someone with such a sense of humor,” she said. “But how do you know when he’s serious?”

  “He’s serious about me getting settled,” Meagan said. She lathered her hands then rinsed off the soap. “After Nana died, my parents wanted him to go to a nursing home where he could get full-time care, but he wouldn’t consider it. He says he has to stay in this house until I’m ready for him to give it to me.”

  “Who takes care of him when you’re in India?”

  “My parents pay for someone to stay with him during the day while I’m gone. I know I’m supposed to trust God and not be anxious about anything, but I struggle with worrying about him when I’m overseas. One time he fell during the night, and had to lie there until someone came the next day to help him up.”

  “So what, in his mind, means you’re ready for this house?”

  “Getting married.” She smiled as she filled a glass with milk and carried it back into the living room, speaking loudly enough for both of them to hear. “He wants to leave this house to a future generation, not just a single girl, right, Pops?”

  “Right-o,” he said, accepting the milk as she propped up the recliner’s footrest and pushed his brown polyester pant legs above his knees to look over the bandages. Diabetes had taken its toll on him. The skin on his lower legs was so thin that just pulling on his pants tore into it like it was tissue paper. A nurse had taught Meagan how to wrap his legs in protective layers of mesh and ace bandages, and Meagan had grown to enjoy the ritual. She got to hear stories from Pop’s life she would have missed otherwise in her busy schedule. “This house needs to be full of kids, not just giggling females in their pajamas.” He grinned at Kelsey. “No offense.”

  She smiled back. “My pajamas aren’t nearly as worthy of offense as Meagan’s.”

  He let out a hearty laugh. “Never saw anybody dress the way she does for bed.”

  “There’s a reason for it,” Meagan defended, glancing down at her big slippers, fleece pants covered with red-nosed reindeer, pastel purple flannel nightgown that came down to her thighs, and her silk flowered robe that wasn’t as long as the nightgown. “I like to sleep in a nightgown, but Grandma used to sleepwalk sometimes, and I couldn’t run around the house with bare legs, so I started wearing pants with it. The robe was a gift from her. And the slippers...” She grinned at the bunny heads on her feet. “It just cracks me up to wear bunny slippers.”

  “They don’t match the reindeer,” Kelsey said.

  “But they go great with the flowers,” Pops joked.

  Meagan laughed with them. “I like them and I’m going to keep them.”

  Her grandfather chuckled as he sipped his milk. “And she wonders why she’s not married yet.”

  “Hey, no guy has ever seen my slippers.”

  “Maybe you should keep it that way.” Kelsey grinned like a child and Meagan smiled. It was good for her to have a night away from the store and the phone and the needs always coming in. Atlanta was one of the worst cities in the world for human trafficking. Their work in Gainesville encountered the spillover, and there was always more than they could handle, particularly when the bulk of their focus and time stayed allotted for their passion for rescuing victims in India. They should get together away from work more often.

  Meagan tightened and secured the bandages before pulling her grandfather’s pant legs back down to his own staid, practical set of slippers. “Well, I think that—” She heard the crunch of gravel outside. “What was that?”

  Kelsey rose and looked out the window. “There’s a car coming down the driveway.” She turned to Meagan. “Are you expecting someone?”

  Meagan shook her head. “Not at ten-thirty at night.”

  “Should I call Nathan?”

  Meagan glanced at her grandfather, who sat straighter to look outside. The car stopped just in front of the house. “Someone’s come to visit. How nice.”

  His words were pleasant, but they shot cold fear through Meagan’s heart. She looked at Kelsey. “What should we do?”

  19

  Friday, January 2

  10:30 p.m.

  Stephanie Campbell used to hate nights like these, when Steve worked late and didn’t bother to call. When they were first married, she would eat her fingernails to the quick, afraid he’d been shot, or was lying in some ditch, beaten half to death.

  Now she just filled the holes with other things—the holes he made in her days and nights with his long absences, and the holes in her heart from their marriage fading into two annoyed strangers who shared the same house. She’d had such hopes for their life together, for the baby. Her miscarriage had been the turning point. Steve disappeared into his work. He never talked about it, acted like nothing had happened. Didn’t he know her most beautiful dreams had died? Didn’t he understand how much she needed his comfort and reassurance?

  If he did, he didn’t care. So she decided not to care either, about the food she ate or the clothes she wore or the spreading condition of her body. He never looked at her anymore, so what was the point? She turned to other things to fill the lonely hours. First it was romance novels, stories of first love, passion, desire, all the things Stephanie missed most. In the books she remembered and felt desirable again for a time. Once the book was closed, however, reality came in, harsh and stifling and dark. Nights
were the worst. She told herself that she needed the videos to keep herself distracted from the fear and loneliness. Most of them weren’t bad, after all. The best kissing scenes from movies—nobody could judge her for watching those. She’d slipped into heavier material, nothing anyone would call hard porn, but told herself if she had some attention from her husband, she wouldn’t need to get the feelings her computer now provided. If she deleted the computer history before Steve came home, well, that was to avoid endless arguments about how she never met his needs. His needs? What about her needs?

  The word divorce reared its ugly head, as it had more and more lately. Stephanie had never wanted to go through that kind of pain, but would it be any worse than the rejection she felt already? At least then she could move on with her life, find someone else who would appreciate her. She could admit her marriage to Steve had been a mistake and start over.

  She picked up the romance novel on the top of the second pile beside her chair. Its cover showcased a muscular man without a shirt caressing a woman whose clothing seemed in danger of blowing off in the wind. It wasn’t the steamy scenes she fed on most, Stephanie told herself, but the looks he would give her, the words he would say, the love she would feel, even if it was in a fantasy world.

  After a skim through the book for the best parts, she tossed it aside. She had to find something more distracting than a book. She reached for the computer on the arm of the couch next to her chair, always set within reach now. It booted up too slowly, and Stephanie considered getting up to dish herself another bowl of ice cream. The little dings that meant the laptop was ready convinced her to stay put. She clicked on the internet icon and tapped her fingers on the keyboard while she waited for it to pull up. Just one video tonight. A romantic one, where the man wants the woman with desperate desire and pursues her until she can resist no longer. She just needed one. Then she’d go to bed.

  The distinct sound of a key in the lock made Stephanie want to cry out in frustration. Why did he have to come home right at that moment? Couldn’t he even let her have one enjoyable thing in her day? The door opened with a slow creak, like some horror movie before the wife alone at home gets murdered. Stephanie wanted to laugh. The door creaked because her husband was so busy hunting recognition he never got around to oiling it.

  “Ran out of things to do at the office?” she said in greeting.

  Steve stepped inside and looked over the room, at the books, the computer, at her in her aqua sweats and t-shirt. He sighed. “I thought you’d be in bed by now.”

  She shut down the internet connection and closed the computer lid with a snap. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “No, I just...” He frowned. “Is there anything for supper?”

  “Supper?” She set the laptop back on the couch. “As in the food eaten in the early evening? It’s going on eleven, Steve.”

  “I know. I had a long day.”

  “So did I.”

  “Yeah?” He dropped his coat onto the couch and tossed his keys on the side table. “Do anything interesting?”

  “Like you care.”

  “Do we need to have this conversation right now?”

  She lowered the footpad on the recliner but did not get up. “There are leftovers in the fridge.”

  He walked around where she sat, not stopping to give her a kiss or any kind of touch. Of course. On his way by the chair, his leg knocked over her two stacks of novels. “What are those doing here?” He kicked at them.

  “Stop!” She reached over the armrest and tried to keep the stacks from falling further. “I’d just organized those into the ones I’d read and the ones I hadn’t. Can’t you be even a little considerate?”

  “Me?” Steve threw out his hands. “You’re home all day, but the house is a wreck. I never get a home-cooked meal. And you’re still wearing the same thing you’ve slept in all week. Who’s being inconsiderate?”

  “All you do is complain! You don’t ever try to understand.” She let the tears go. They were always just below the surface. Let him see them and feel guilty. He should. “You never try to help, or be here at all. Why should I clean the house when you’re always gone? Why should I bother to get dressed when you don’t even look at me anymore? And—”

  “I’m looking at you now.”

  He was, and it made the hurt cut deep. She knew what he saw. She had seen herself in the mirror that day, a sad, broken woman who had nothing left to live for. “Why weren’t you there for me, Steve?” Her voice was hoarse. Her hands clutched at the front of her wrinkled shirt as she stood and faced him. “Why didn’t you care when our baby died and my heart broke?”

  For a moment, the skin on his forehead lined with compassion. He lifted a hand and rubbed the creases away. “Stephanie, please, not tonight. I’m tired. I’m on a case that’s getting more complicated every day. Did you know the DEA investigated over ten thousand meth lab incidents in the U.S. last year? I’m just—”

  “You’re just so busy playing superhero you don’t have time for your wife!”

  “Do you want to say it louder so the policeman who dropped me off can hear you?”

  She walked over to look through the one window out onto the street. “Why did someone else bring you home?”

  “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

  He left the room but she followed him into the kitchen. “Where’s your car?”

  His head was down and his words muffled as he rummaged through the nearly bare refrigerator, but still she heard his irritation. “Cole’s car ended up in the river tonight. I had to loan him mine for a while.”

  “A while? How long is a while?”

  He pulled out a can of beer and popped the tab. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just use yours. You don’t go anywhere anyway.”

  “I would if there was somewhere to go. Now I’m stuck here!”

  “You want somewhere to go?” He slammed the can down on the table and she jumped. He came close and said, “Then I’ve got a place for you to go. I dare you to go.”

  His anger always scared her. She could only whisper, “Where?”

  “To church. Sunday morning.”

  It was hard to wrap her mind around the unexpected words. “What?”

  He turned his back on her and took a swig of the drink. “I’ve got a job for you, if you’d get out of your sweats and off that chair and actually do it.”

  She searched for words with bite to volley back at him but he continued. “There’s a girl, Meagan Winston, our main suspect in the drug trafficking I was telling you about. She goes to a church near here. I found out what Sunday school class she’s in, and the lady I talked to said the lesson is interactive.” He sent an unpleasant smile back her way. “Which means they like to talk. You could go to her class and scope her out, get her talking about India. I need to know where she goes. Who she sees.”

  “Why would a drug pusher be going to church?” The thought of going out in public, having to talk to other people, made her feel cold all over. Had it been that long? What was wrong with her? She used to love getting out and meeting new people.

  “She’s hiding behind this good girl persona.” He crossed his arms and she heard the challenge in his voice. “What do you think? I stay home Sunday morning and you go find out about this girl?”

  She sneered. “Why don’t you come to church, too? You could use some religion.”

  “I brought her in for questioning already, so she knows me. You’ll need to use your maiden name.”

  “No problem. I don’t feel all that married these days anyway.”

  “What a nice thing to say.” He downed the beer and crunched the can between his hands, tossing it on the table. “I’d throw it away, but I’ll get to it some other time.”

  He always knew how to hit back. Why would anyone want to stay in a marriage like this?

  “Fine.” She’d take his challenge. “What time does Sunday school start? It’ll be nice to have a reason to look good for a change.”

&nbs
p; He left the room without a word or a look back. She stood next to the cluttered kitchen table, seething. She’d show him. On Sunday he’d be watching her leave the house. She’d look like a million bucks and walk away from him just as he’d walked away from her a thousand times now.

  Let him be the one sitting at home wishing her back.

  20

  Friday, January 2

  10:30 p.m.

  With calculated movements, Meagan patted Pop’s knee and stood, speaking casually as she made her way to the window. “Who could be coming to see us so late at night, I wonder?”

  Kelsey caught the caution in her tone and kept the conversation light. “Perhaps it’s that handsome new suitor of yours.” Her smile was wide but not quite genuine. She faced Meagan’s grandfather. “Did Meagan tell you about the man who came into the store the other day for a tour? He’s tall, and Meagan told me he’s a soldier. He must look wonderful in his uniform.”

  “He’s not a soldier anymore,” Meagan commented. She positioned herself beside the window out of sight, and moved the curtains enough to see porch lights and headlights. Whoever was in the car had yet to step out. “And he’s not a suitor. In truth, I think he doesn’t like me much at all.” She wasn’t telling her grandfather that said man, handsome or not, thought she was some kind of drug lord.

  The older man’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, the look of love is so rarely seen at first by its recipient, though it is clear to others. You might be in love and not know it. You didn’t eat much at supper.”

  Of all the nights for him to wax poetic. “My stomach still hasn’t gotten over all that Indian food yet.” Heart thudding, and not because of some assumption that Cole Fleming was anywhere near in love with her, Meagan brought her hand up and edged the curtain away from the window again. The car remained running, headlights shining toward the porch.