Dreamcatcher: Daughters (Balfour Mystery Series Book 4) by KC Pearcey

Author:KC Pearcey [Pearcey, KC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 37

The child’s terrified screams cut through the gray fog of early morning, thrusting an already sleep-deprived Cora into technicolor reality.

She sat up and snapped on the lamp on her nightstand.

The indented space beside her was empty and yet still warm, the pillows and quilted cover thrown carelessly aside.

Like the championship quarterback he’d once been, Thomas had leapt from the bed before his wife, his feet pounding the hardwood floor as his muscular frame filled the doorway and disappeared to the left into the hallway.

Cora snatched her robe, slipping her arms through the sleeves as she sprinted close behind her husband.

A sobbing Jane, rubbing her red-rimmed eyes with tiny fists, was sitting upright against a mound of decorative pastel-colored pillows. Her tiny arms clutched the matching black stuffed kittens against her heaving chest, the rose-patterned flannel pajamas rising and falling as she sobbed.

“He’s here!” she screamed, a high-pitched shriek of terror. “He’s going to find me! He’s going to hurt me!”

Thomas, not quite certain what he was expected to do at this point, stood frozen as Cora swept past him and gathered the trembling child into her arms.

Once the sobs turned to muffled sounds against his wife’s shoulder, he did what he knew best—the mundane and manageable. He turned on the ceiling light and began methodically inspecting the room for signs of any intruders.

Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he gave his wife a curious, questioning glance, and she nodded.

I’ll never get used to this, he thought. It’s so hard to remember what I’m supposed to do when I hear her screaming. So fragile. So broken. I don’t know how to pretend that I’m not scared out of my mind too.

He reminded himself that it had been this way with many of the foster children who’d come to them through the years. Night terrors, sleep anxiety, and bad dreams that varied in frequency and severity but all more or less common.

Part of the healing process. Part of the change that brought them one by one out of the darkness of their memories and into the light of hope.

Cora had trained him in what he should do—how he should respond. He’d been a willing and eager student, thankful to be part of her work. Grateful for the results of his wife’s tender healing. He’d played his part impartially and unemotionally, searching the closets, behind doors, and under the beds for the bogeyman or whatever demon that haunted their innocent young charges.

He’d been sympathetic but unmoved.

But not with Jane.

Never with Jane. Everything was different now.

Jane was theirs—and Thomas especially found her fears and her pain a difficult and disturbing burden to bear.

“What can I do?” he asked.

Cora motioned to the rocking chair in the corner, and her husband dutifully took his seat as sentry, his arms folded against his chest, his bare feet planted firmly, rocking slightly as he readied himself for further instructions.

Jane turned her head to watch him through tiny swollen red eyes.

“Daddy,” she sobbed. “The blue-eyed man’s here!”

Thomas opened

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