Courtney’s grandmother was lying face-up on the rug. Blood drenched her blue shirtdress and spattered her dark skin. Her small, slight body was motionless. Her jaw hung open, slack. Her cloudy brown eyes were fixed upward. Her bifocals lay beside her on the rug.
“Grandma Kay!” Courtney rushed to her grandmother, phone in hand. “No, no, she’sdead! Somebodyshother!”
“Oh my God!” Julia said, horrified. The phone screen tilted sideways, showing a nightmarish living room, an end table knocked over and a broken ceramic lamp, its shade askew.
“Oh God, no, no! There’s so much blood! Jesus, no, she’swarm!” Courtney wailed, and just then a door slammed somewhere in the house. “That’s the back door! Somebody’s in the kitchen!” Courtney must’ve scrambled to her feet because the phone screen jolted crazily, blurring the room. “I’m going after him!”
“No, don’t! Go back to your car!”
“Hell, no!” Courtney hollered, the phone screen lurching.
“Courtney, don’t chase him!” Julia’s heart leapt to her throat. She heard Courtney’s ragged breathing and racing footsteps. The phonescreen showed a blurred streak of darkened hallway, then daisy-covered wallpaper.
“Stop, you!” Courtney blew through a back door. Julia heard theslam. The phone screen adjusted to bright sun. Flashes of waist-high grass. Overgrown pasture in jagged motion. “Jules, he’s running to a pickup truck, it’s black, and—”
“Courtney, no, don’t!”
“—he’s white, average height, maybe forty? Dark T-shirt, jeans, black ballcap!”
“No, stop, let him go! He’ll hurt you—”
“I can’t see the license plate! The brush is too tall!”
“Courtney, please!” Julia said, helplessly. The phone showed a jittery swipe of bushes and trees.
“Oof!” Courtney grunted in pain. There was a horrible shuffling sound. The screen went abruptly still and dark.
“Courtney!” Julia shouted, terrified.
“I fell, but I’m okay! Jules, he got to the truck! He’s getting away!”
“Let him go!” Julia heard an engine ignite. It had to be the killer driving away.
“I had him, I almost had him!” Courtney picked up the phone. Her agonized face filled the screen, her lovely features distorted by anguish. She heaved a deep sob. “Jules, he shot… Grandma Kay! He…killedher!”
“Go inside. Lock the door. Call 911.”
“Okay… okay.” Courtney struggled to her feet, crying. The phone screen jostled as she ran back to the house.
“Hurry, go now.”
“I will… I am.” Courtney locked the door, making the phone screengo awry, then hurried down the hall. “Grandma Kay, Grandma Kay!” she called futilely, which tore at Julia’s heart. The phone screen flickered dark and light until Courtney reached the living room. “Jesus, no, no, no! She’s dead… she’s reallydead! He…killedher!” Courtney collapsed into sobs. “Why, why, why? Why would anybody… killher?”
“I’m so, so sorry.” Julia flashed on her late husband’s murder, on holding Mike as he bled in her arms. She knew in her bones the agony Courtney was feeling this very moment. There was nothing worse than experiencing the violent death of someone you loved. Only survivors knew that unique horror, and once known, it never left.
“Youtoldme… not to go in the house… youwarnedme.” Sobs choked Courtney’s words. “Did youknow… like before… with Mike?”
“Yes, I think so.” Julia hated to admit it. She didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want to have premonitions, much less everything that came afterward, like last time. Courtney had gone through it with her.
“Did you know… she was dead?”
“No, no, I just knew something was wrong. I’m so sorry, Courtney.” Julia glimpsed her reflection in a wall mirror. She’d gone pale, and her teary eyes looked strange, the blue of her irises oddly dilute. Her dark blonde hair framed a haunted expression, her thin lips parted with unspoken words.
“Jules, can you… come home? Please, come home?”
2
Julia packed her sweater in her roller suitcase, which lay open on the bed. She’d canceled dinner after the terrible news of Kay’s murder, and her in-laws and Fiamma had gone home with the food. She was booked on the next available flight to Philadelphia, which left tomorrow morning.