It's Never too Late

She peered through the peephole. Mark stood there, cell phone to his ear.

And the inanity of her first thought—that he didn’t have a smartphone—brought her more completely back to reality.

She pulled open the door.

“What happened?”

She had to get rid of him.

“Nothing.”

“You look like hell.” He stood firmly in the doorway, staring at her, and then past her.

“I wasn’t expecting company. I just got out of the shower.”

“I don’t mean your... Your looks are fine,” he said, glancing her up and down quickly and then focusing on her eyes as though he was avoiding the rest of her. “You’re flushed. Your bangs are sticking to your forehead. And...you’re shaking.”

Men weren’t usually so observant. Leave it up to her to move next door to one who was. “Are you here alone?”

He motioned for her to nod or shake her head in lieu of a spoken answer.

She nodded. And then added, “Yeah, I’m here alone.”

“Then you won’t mind if I come in and check, will you? Either that or I call someone else to do so.”

He wasn’t giving up. And while a small little something deep inside of her was comforted, Addy didn’t want anyone in her house. She didn’t want anyone near her at all.

She especially didn’t want the sheriff of Shelter Valley at her door.

“I’m fine,” she said aloud. To Mark. And to the rest of Shelter Valley, too. But she stood back and held open her door.

Better Mark than anyone else.

He made quick work of checking out her living quarters—helped, she suspected, by the fact that his unit was identical to hers.

She waited in the living room. Stood by the couch with her arms crossed against her chest and held on until she was alone again.

“There’s no TV on.”

“I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

“No radio, either.”

Did he have a problem sitting quietly with his own thoughts? Or think it odd that someone else chose to do so?

Not that she entertained personal thoughts all that much. Most of her quiet time was spent pondering other people’s problems. And more particularly, figuring out solutions to their problems.

Or holding internal debates with opposing counsel in an attempt to prepare herself for anything with which she might be presented.

“I heard you.”

“Excuse me?” Did he want her to believe he was a mind reader?

“You were in pain. Crying out. I heard you.”

The nightmare.

The screams. They’d been real?