Just then, a loud thump coming from the other room startled her. She immediately froze and her heart began banging inside her chest. The adrenaline that had cleared from her bloodstream only seconds before was again surging through her body.
In the seconds that she took to decide what to do, Tucker came bounding around the corner, his stubby tail wagging.
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me.” She bent over and hugged the dog, smiling at how silly she had been. “You’re supposed to be outside. Did I leave the door open? Is that how you got in here?” Lauren walked toward the garage, expecting to find the side door ajar. She flipped on the light and peered in. The door was closed.
Then, it hit her. “Michael! Michael, where are you?”
Lauren moved swiftly through the house. But the doors and windows were locked. There were no notes. And Michael’s Chrysler was not in the carport.
Lauren stood there for a second, then looked down at the dog. “I know I left you outside this morning.” She began wandering from room to room, again hoping to find some kind of explanation.
Her mind flashed on the headlights in the darkness… on the car that had been following her. Or had it been following her?
She walked into her room, sat down on the bed, and stared at the antique bureau where her wedding picture sat. Happy times, the photo said, full of blissful promise for the future. That was only four years ago, yet it felt like an eternity. So much had happened since then, little of it good.
She curled up on the bed, hugging her knees tightly against her chest. As tears began to roll from her eyes, Tucker came over, sat down, and licked her face. He nuzzled her cheek and did not move until she touched his snout and stroked it. He loved it when she did that. The dog stayed right there by her side, the only calming influence in her life other than Michael.
And right now, Tucker was all she had.
Lauren lay there for several minutes. Unable to step out of her role as psychologist, she couldn’t help but analyze her own thoughts and feelings. She concluded that, despite all that had happened this evening, the fact that Michael was away — that he hadn’t returned home when he was supposed to have — was wearing on her. She glanced at her watch. He was now thirty-four hours overdue.
Suddenly, Tucker lifted his head. His eyes were wide and his ears straight up, like radar zeroing in on an errant noise.
“What is it?” Lauren asked, straining to hear what had caught Tucker’s attention.
The dog looked at her, then, satisfied that the noise was not a threat, rested his head back on the bed.
Lauren chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then pushed Tucker aside and knelt at the edge of the bed, reached underneath, and pulled out her trunk. It was the same wicker case she’d had as a child, the one she had lugged from dorm to apartment to its final resting place beneath their bed shortly after marrying Michael.
Lauren opened it and moved aside some personal effects: an old jewelry box with the chains, rings, and necklaces she had worn as a teenager; the dress her mom had bought for her sixteenth birthday, folded neatly and sealed in a small cardboard container; and a weathered oak container that had been in the family for fifty some odd years.
She removed the box, pushed the trunk aside, and sat cross-legged on the floor. She reached around her neck for the delicate chain she had worn for the past twenty years and fingered the small metal key that hung from it. Although Michael did not know the whole story behind it, he knew it had been a gift from her father, and that it held special meaning for her. Just after Lauren’s partner announced her intention to leave the practice, Michael had had the keepsake gold-plated in an attempt to lift her spirits.
Using the key, Lauren unlatched the tiny lock that sealed the wooden box. She lifted a velvet-covered object from the container and held the heavy weight in her left hand. She sat there staring at the soft bag for a long moment before reaching inside and pulling out her father’s Colt six-shooter pistol. The chrome was tarnished and dull, the handle worn… but the letters N. R. — her father’s initials — were still visible. She held the weapon in her left hand and slowly caressed it with her right. Gentle strokes, the smooth ridges of the cold metal passing beneath her fingertips. Had it been her lover, it would have enjoyed the intimate contact.
She brought the pistol over to the desk in the loft and flicked on the halogen light. As she began to clean it, she thought back to the night when she had first become acquainted with this old friend.
It was 2:46 in the morning twenty-five years ago when Lauren was awakened from her sleep by shouting from her parents’ bedroom. She ran down the hall in the direction of the commotion. There, in the dark, she heard the sobs of her mother… then the scream “Lauren, get out!” and the gunshot, the one that sent her father hard to the floor. The dark-masked figure had then turned and pointed the gun at Lauren. She stared at the barrel, the fear welling up in her chest as her mother screamed, “No!”
And then the gunshots, the two that struck the intruder in the chest, and the one that whizzed by her head as the man fell to the floor, blood pooling out around his body in a matter of seconds as she stood there. Too scared to move—
Until her father called to her, in a weak voice.
He was flat on his back, his own blood pumping from a hole in his abdomen, the Colt lying in his open hand. Young Lauren looked at her mother, who was crumpled in a corner, her face frozen in shock.
The terrified ten-year-old grabbed the phone and dialed 911, gave the location of their house, and told the woman, “My dad’s hurt, there’s blood all over. Please hurry!”
Lauren set down her brush beside the Hoppe’s cleaner and cotton patches. As she thought about that night, she remembered the paramedics carting her father away. He survived that injury but had been paralyzed from the waist down, a condition that caused his premature death five years later. He had left her a gun in his will, along with an apology for not being able to leave something more valuable to make things easier for her. But having the gun that had saved her life was far more precious than he could ever know.
She polished it lovingly and brought the chrome to a bright, reflecting shine, just as her father had liked it. One by one, she inserted the six bullets and took aim at the wall in a phantom shooting stance. But she felt strangely repulsed by the thought of using the weapon. In the years since his death, she had viewed the firearm with conflicting emotions: it may have saved her life, but one just like it had sent her father to an early grave.
With the immediate threat now behind her — if that car was even a threat to begin with — Lauren returned the Colt to its box and placed it on her night table. She lay back on the bed and Tucker spread himself out across the wood floor in a spot where he could see clear down the hallway to the staircase.
She grabbed Michael’s pillow, closed her eyes, and gently rubbed her face against the soft cotton, taking in her husband’s familiar scent.
“Michael, where are you?” she whispered, then fell off into a fitful sleep.
3
Lauren had only slept for three hours before awakening suddenly at one o’clock in the morning. She was lying on her bed and sweating profusely, still gripping Michael’s pillow. Tucker was on the floor near the doorway, sleeping.
She sat up and was instantly wide-awake. Her mind was swirling with thoughts… questions about patients, progress notes she had forgotten to dictate, and… Michael. She looked back at the bed where the sheets were still tucked in.