Picture Me, A Mystery by Amy Schisler

Author:Amy Schisler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Maryland, politics, romance, suspense, Eastern Shore
Publisher: Chesapeake Sunrise Publishing
Published: 2016-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 51

November 23, 2014

The processional was just about to start the next morning when the door to the church opened. Julie and Helen were standing with their hymnbooks open when Eric genuflected by the pew and nudged Julie to make room for him. Julie and Helen both picked up on a hint of smoke lingering in Eric’s freshly washed hair and knew that he must have been at the fire in Easton the previous afternoon. Helen lifted her eyes upward as they began to sing The King of Glory. Julie felt that Helen had been praying for this day for a long time.

Over their Sunday dinner, Eric told the women about the fire, and Helen and Julie planned the menu for their Thanksgiving dinner. There was never a question that Julie would be spending the day with Eric and his mother.

“Don’t forget Lisa’s crew,” Helen said. “She would be insulted if we didn’t ask her to bring something.”

In the weeks since she arrived in St. Brendan, Julie heard Eric’s sister mentioned several times in the tales about his childhood, but she never really made a real-life connection between the two siblings. Eric was thirty-five, but his older sister, Lisa, was in her forties. It was a bit of a surprise when Helen discovered she was pregnant with Eric after long giving up on having another child. Though Julie had seen her in pictures and knew Lisa called her mother regularly, she hadn’t really thought of her as being part of this family that Julie had come to know.

Julie turned ghostly white as she remembered something Helen mentioned one time a few weeks back. Lisa’s boys were going to Hershey Park in the Dark, a Halloween celebration at the famed chocolate-themed amusement park, with their Cub Scout Troop. At the time, Julie thought nothing about it. People from all over the mid-Atlantic went to Hershey Park. But now, her heart began to race at the implication.

“Where did you say Lisa lives?” Julie asked with a tremble in her voice. Eric looked at her with concern, and Julie knew that he recognized the look of panic in her eyes.

“Lancaster, Pennsylvania,” Helen answered as she picked up another bite of lasagna, seemingly oblivious to the change in the atmosphere.

Julie swallowed the sick feeling that rose in her throat and grabbed the edges of the table. She thought she might pass out. Her ears roared with the echo of Helen’s words, and her head began to spin. She held onto the table to steady herself and felt the warm Italian food roll in her stomach.

“Helen, I have to go,” she managed to say. “I think I’m coming down with something. I think, I think I’m going to be sick.” Helen looked up in alarm as Julie, feeling ill and unsteady, stood and shakily ran from the room.



After she left, Helen turned toward Eric. “What was that about, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling that her mysterious past is somehow tied to someone or something in Pennsylvania.

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