Stain of Guilt by Brandilyn Collins

Author:Brandilyn Collins [Collins, Brandilyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Fiction, USA
ISBN: 9780310251040
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2013-12-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Little good my plans for working that afternoon did me. I couldn’t concentrate. Mostly I sat at my desk, staring at Bland’s picture—the features I’d come to hate. When I could focus my thoughts, I saw him as he would be today. I visualized the droopier eyelids and mouth, the less defined jawline. But my mental projector constantly kicked into gear, flashing scenes of him stalking the school, watching Kelly as she got out of the SUV.

To think that he’d been that close to her.

More than once I shoved his photo away, disgusted, only to pull it back. I hated his face; I couldn’t get enough of his face. At least until I completed the update. Then I’d just as soon never look at it again.

When I wasn’t bound up in Bland, I worried about whether or not to tell the kids what was happening. Practicality said I should. As Chetterling noted, Kelly and Stephen needed to be extra careful in the next few days. And they surely wouldn’t comply if I didn’t give them a reason. Especially Stephen.

Anxiety voted I shouldn’t tell them. Stephen would hide his fear, whispering the news in morbid fascination to his friends. Kelly would hide nothing. She just plain wouldn’t sleep at night. Nor would she keep it from Erin. And really, she couldn’t. Right now I wouldn’t allow Kelly to so much as walk across the street alone to Erin’s house, nor even allow the girls to walk back together. How would I explain that to Erin—without the truth?

And if Erin knew, Dave would have to know. I bent over the desk, feeling almost physically sick at the thought. How could I put the two of them through fear again, after what they’d endured? Ten months after seeing her mother murdered in their home, Erin was just beginning to heal. How far back psychologically might this push her? What would it do to Dave?

What a horrible neighbor I’d turned out to be. Worse than someone in a Stephen King novel.

Face it, Annie, you’ll never get over your guilt about Lisa’s death.

Then again, why should you?

The technician from the Sheriff’s Department arrived, recording device in hand. I hung back, hitting my knuckles against my chin, as Jenna and I watched him perform his duty. Afterward he explained the details and what we should do if a call from Bland came. In quick sequence my mental projector flashed scenes of my hearing Bland’s voice, punching on the recorder, then of Delft and Chetterling, leaning over the tape, listening intently to the rasp of Bland’s words, my hitched breathing…

By the time the technician left, my nerves zinged with the sense of privacy defiled.

I could not wait to see Bill Bland in jail.

At three o’clock, Jenna and I headed out the door to pick up the kids. We spoke little in the car, except that she read my mind. Naturally.

“You still haven’t decided how much to tell them, have you?”

“No.”

“When are you going to figure it out?”

“When I see them.

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