For Her Eyes Only. Sharon Sala
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she feared if Brenda saw her face, she would know. “I already told you. I have nothing in common with the man. You’re the one he dated, not me.”
“And there’s your answer. Dated. As in…past tense. Also, that was ages ago. I haven’t given him a thought in forever.”
Yeah, well, I wish I could say the same.
Brenda stuffed her nightgown into her bag. “There. I think I have everything. I need to go home and feed the cat and check my messages.” She glanced toward the clock and realized it was running. “Oh, look! The power is back on.”
Jessica followed her sister’s gaze and sighed. At least one part of this nightmare was over.
Brenda continued, unaware of Jessica’s disinterest. “The boss is out of town and probably frantic because no one’s there. However, I doubt there’s a soul in town who’s interested in redecorating their home right now.”
Jessica nodded. “I know. I was in the middle of payroll at the lodge when the power went off. Everyone’s probably having a fit because their checks will be late, but I didn’t want to risk direct deposit—and I was right. Who knows if the bank would have received everything.”
Brenda picked up her bag and then fixed her baby sister with a long, assessing stare.
“Jessie.”
Jessica looked up.
“About last night and what you said…”
“What about it?” Jessica asked. Her voice was defensive and she knew it.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be telling just anyone that you’re having hallucinations. They might get the wrong idea.”
Jessica’s lower lip slid slightly forward. “What if it’s not a hallucination?”
Brenda shrugged. “I still wouldn’t be talking about them.” Then she glanced down at her watch. “I’ve got to run. You’ve got juice in the fridge and cereal in the cabinet. However, your milk is sour.”
“Oh, yummy.”
Jessica’s sarcasm was not lost on Brenda. She grinned. “I’ll call you later. Stay in bed. Rest. I love you.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “In spite of your incessant need to boss me around, I love you, too.”
Brenda left, and then moments later, came back on the run.
“Jessie, have you seen my car keys? I can’t find them anywhere. I thought they were in my bag, but they’re not.”
Without waiting for Jessica to answer, she began turning the bedroom upside down, looking under cushions and then dashing into the adjoining bathroom to see if they might be there.
Just as Brenda slammed a cabinet door, Jessica began to lose track of where she was. The air in front of her seemed to shift, and suddenly she had a clear and perfect vision of a set of keys sticking out of the lock on a trunk. She got out of bed just as Brenda came out of the bathroom.
“Shoot,” Brenda muttered. “I can’t seem to find them—”
“You left them in the trunk lock last night.”
In the act of looking under the bed, Brenda froze. Slowly, she looked up, meeting her sister’s gaze over the edge of the mattress.
“What did you say?”
“I said, they’re in the lock on the trunk.”
Realization dawned. Brenda remembered opening the trunk to get her bag. Yes! That was the last time she’d had them! She got to her feet with a look of relief on her face and was almost out of the room before it hit her.
Jessica hadn’t been outside. In fact, she hadn’t been out of her bed since Brenda had put her there last night. She stopped and turned.
“Jessie?”
“What?”
“Why did you just say that?”
Jessica shrugged. “I don’t know. I just suddenly saw them dangling out of the lock.”
The hairs stood up at the nape of Brenda’s neck. She shivered, refusing to give way to what she was thinking. “Nothing more than a lucky guess. That’s all it could be.”
Jessica’s expression didn’t change. “Go see if I’m right.”
She listened, and when she heard the sound of a car engine firing, she shuddered and crawled back into bed.
Toad tracks. Now I am scaring myself.
She lay back on her pillow and flung her arms above her head in a dramatic gesture of disgust. The longer she lay there, the more convinced she became that something out of the ordinary was happening to her. The question remained—what was she going to do about it?
Chapter Three
That night, Jessica ate her evening meal by the light of the moon. Although the power had been restored all over town, she still felt the need to escape, and the dark of her backyard was as far as she could go. She sat on her porch with a can of pop in one hand and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the other, unwilling to move indoors.
Grape jelly squished out of the edge of the bread as she took a big bite. Before it could drip, she caught it with the tip of her tongue and swallowed it whole. It wasn’t exactly fine dining, but for Jessica, who at her best was just a fair cook, it sufficed.
Thanks to a co-worker at the lodge, her car was back in her driveway and her purse and cell phone were safely on a chair in her bedroom. But her stitches kept pulling beneath the bandage and her long hair was driving her crazy. The longer she sat, the more she thought about cutting part of it off. At least, the part that was making her nuts.
It shouldn’t be all that hard. She had scissors, and thanks to the power company, a good light by which to see. Since she could work any computer program on the market, she could surely cut her own hair without making a mess. Besides, Dr. Howell had given her a jump start by shaving the part around her stitches. All she had to do was tidy it up a bit.
An hour and a half later, she stood before her bathroom mirror, staring at herself in disbelief. Yes, she was a whiz with figures, but she should have remembered that she couldn’t sew on a button without bringing blood.
The length was gone, just like she’d wanted. But so was the shape and the style. And for hair that was remarkably straight and limp, she’d somehow given it a life of its own. It no longer lay on her head. Instead, it sort of sprang from it, like new sprouts on a severely pruned tree. Oddly enough, the new cut gave her gamine features an engaging quality that her old style had not. The flyaway do was, in its own way, quite charming. But Jessica couldn’t see the charm for the harm. She dropped the scissors in the sink and sighed.
“Mouse poop.”
That pretty much said it all.
* * *
The next day dawned with an inevitability she couldn’t ignore. She needed to go to Squaw Creek Lodge and finish the payroll. When she got in her car, her nerves began to draw. A short while later, she turned into the parking lot and sat with the engine running, staring up at the grand log-and-stone edifice with dread. And as she stared, the same thought kept running through her mind. This is where it happened.
But she wasn’t referring to the accident. It was what happened afterward that was making her nuts. While she sat, lost in thought, someone knocked on her window. She turned with a jerk, expecting to see Olivia Stuart’s ghost.
But it wasn’t a ghost. It was Sheila Biggers, administrative assistant to the manager of the lodge. Jessica glanced at herself in the rearview mirror as she killed the engine. No use putting this off any longer. At least she wouldn’t have to go inside alone.
Sheila squealed. “Jessica, ooh,