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Back The Ursulina Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. I know you'll never forgive me...
  2. Part One - Your Father
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Part Two - Your Mother
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. About the Author

I could even trace the path of my wet footsteps leading to the bathroom and then to the bedroom door, where I’d secured it with the chair.

My footsteps. No one else’s.

I should have left it at that, but I was curious like a cat. I went to the bedroom door and pushed the chair aside, and I opened the door to stare into the cold black maw of the rest of the house. The wooden frame groaned. That was the effect of the wind rattling the walls.

Wasn’t it?

No one was here. I was alone.

I made sure my bare foot was dry. Then I stretched out my toes and slid them along the carpet in front of the bedroom door. To my horror, they came away wet. The carpet outside the room was wet. Damp the way it would be if someone had tracked wet shoes from inside the bedroom.

I closed the door and put the chair back in place under the doorknob.

I got into bed and left the bathroom light on. That night, I kept the gun not under the pillow but in my hand.

I didn’t sleep at all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Two nights later, I had dinner with Darrell and his family at the 126. It was all-you-can-eat fried chicken night, and hot, greasy chicken legs were one of the more normal things I’d been craving lately.

Ever since my father died, Darrell had sort of adopted me. He’d always treated me like a daughter, but he seemed to make it official at that point. His oldest was just a few years younger than me—she was twenty-four—and he had two younger girls, one who was eighteen, one who was sixteen. I felt honored that they included me as part of their family, since I didn’t really have a family myself. But I also felt guilty, because Darrell had other things to worry about. His wife, Marilyn, was in her early fifties, but it only took one look to realize she wasn’t doing well. She’d been battling lung cancer for two years, and the disease was winning. She was rail thin and pale, and her curly black hair had been replaced by a wig. I could see in Darrell’s face, in his forced smile, that he knew what the future held. He was a strong man, but losing a spouse could bring the strongest of men to their knees.