Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Dark
The house was completely still except for the intermittent hum of the furnace pushing heat through the floorboards. Nora knelt in front of her daughter, gently taking the heavy cookie tin from Abby's rigid fingers and setting it aside on the telephone stand.
"Nobody you need to worry about, sweetheart," Nora lied softly, brushing a stray strand of blonde hair from Abby’s forehead. Her hands were still trembling, but she forced her breathing to remain rhythmic and calm. A nurse’s greatest skill was never showing panic to a suffering patient. "Just someone from a long time ago. Let's get you into warm pajamas, okay?"
Abby didn't move. Her hazel eyes, so painfully reminiscent of a man Nora wished she had never met, searched Nora’s face with terrifying maturity. "Grandma said bad things about me, didn't she? That's why Uncle Richard brought me back. Because I'm bad."
"No," Nora said, her voice fiercely cracking. She pulled Abby into her arms, pressing the little girl's head against the crook of her neck, holding her so tightly she could feel the rapid flutter of Abby's heartbeat. "You are the best thing that has ever happened to this world. You are kind, and smart, and brave. Grandma and Uncle Richard... their hearts are sick, Abby. They don't know how to love people unless they can take something from them."
Abby wrapped her thin arms around Nora's neck. "Are we going to be okay?"
"We are going to be more than okay," Nora whispered into the child's hair. "I promise you."
After making Abby a cup of warm milk and tucking her beneath the heavy flannel quilts in the bedroom, Nora stayed by the bedside until the little girl's breathing deepened into steady slumber. Only then did Nora allow her own knees to buckle.
She walked into the dimly lit kitchen and leaned against the counter, her hands clutching the laminate edge until her knuckles turned white.
Evelyn wasn't bluffing. Her mother had always been a hoarder of leverage. If Evelyn knew how to reach Caleb—or worse, if she had already been in contact with him—everything Nora had built over the last seven years was in imminent danger. Caleb was an enforcer for a regional motorcycle syndicate in northern Ohio. When Nora found out she was pregnant, she had fled in the dead of night with nothing but two duffel bags and thirty-four dollars in her checking account, hiding behind her father's protective wall until Caleb stopped searching.
Her father had guarded her secret with his life. But Evelyn? Evelyn would sell her granddaughter's soul if it meant keeping a roof over her own head.
Nora's phone buzzed sharply against the kitchen island.
The screen illuminated in the dark. It was a text message from an unknown number with an Ohio area code.
The message contained only five words:
May you like
*I hear my girl is waiting.*
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