The Suicide Gene by C. J. Zahner

Author:C. J. Zahner [Zahner, CJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, mainstream, thriller
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2018-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Monday, March 30, 2015

Forty-five days.

“Josh did not try to break into your house.” Sharon seemed adamant. “I have to leave. I’m late. I texted Giff. He’ll stop by when he gets back to Erie, but lock the door behind me.”

“Sharon, I’m fine and, yes, it was Josh. He was angry because he couldn’t get in. No one will burglarize the office.”

“I talked to him, Emma. It wasn’t him.”

“Well, of course, he won’t admit he tried to smash my door to smithereens.”

She wasn’t sure who attempted to flatten the brand new lock on her back door—maybe kids looking for beer—but she blamed Josh in order to keep peace with Sharon, Giff, and Ally. Whoever it was didn’t get in. For the rest of her life, she’d recommend that weekend warrior of a locksmith, all three hundred pounds of him. He’d installed his Goliath locks. They held.

“Listen, you can’t take chances. It could be anyone. All these clients, my God, it could be Matt McKinney.”

“Sharon!” Her face reddened. “Stop accusing Matt!”

“You can’t be sure it isn’t him.”

“Think.” Emma stood and put her hands on her hips, waiting for Sharon to come to her senses. “Do you really believe if Matt McKinney wanted to get in my house a lock would stop him?”

She paused, waited for Sharon to imagine Matt McKinney’s big arms swinging a hammer toward her backdoor lock, and then him retreating, head hung low, when he couldn’t dislodge it. She almost watched the scene unfold in her head.

Sharon broke into a smile. “Okay,” she said, “but please. Just lock the door.”

When she was gone, Emma did lock the door. For one grateful second, she leaned her forehead against its wood and sighed thankfully, glad she’d escaped without admitting to Sharon the hang-up calls had begun again.

She was fairly certain those calls came from Josh or Anna or maybe Mary McKinney. Okay, she didn’t know who made the calls, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone about them. She would change her number again as soon as she had the chance, but for now, she hustled toward a “to-do” stack that approached National Archive magnitude. These days, her mind puttered in slow motion, recovering but limping, from the stabbing realization she suffered at Trinity cemetery.

She struggled to permanently cross the McKinneys off the consanguinity list. She believed they weren’t family, then didn’t. Believed and didn’t again. It was like taking a pregnancy test—which she’d done twice—and the results confirm you’re not pregnant, but you can’t rid yourself of that back-of-the-mind doubt. The uncertainty doesn’t subside until you have a full-fledged period. In the same way, she wasn’t sure she could run that pen across the McKinney name until she identified her biological family.

There had been so many clues.

Still, sleep came more peacefully now, and if not for the attempted break-in and returned hang-up calls, she would have slept like a baby in a car seat on a long ride.

Her clearer thinking made her keenly aware it was imperative to intervene medically for the twins.

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