Read Online Retribution by Regina Smeltzer - Free Book Online

tell him?
    He passed the room assigned to Lillian and hesitated. Not a sound penetrated through the door. Should he knock and check on her? What had been written on her face when Trina appeared? Shock? Pain?
    The thought drifted into his mind as gently as a mother’s touch, but it left him rocking as though punched. Would they find Lillian Hunter dead in the morning?
    Then he knew. That’s what he had been feeling all day. Death.

6
    After Lillian had escaped from the porch, she had waited, expecting Ted to pound on the door of Trina’s favorite room and demand that she leave. No one had come, and as the darkness outside had deepened, she had heard footsteps enter the house.
    Voices, mumbled and indistinct, had flowed under her door like wisps of smoke.
    Numbness had covered her in its cocoon, and eventually sleep had overtaken her.
    Now, early morning sun dappled patterns on the walls, leafy, lacy designs that shifted from stout to elongated with the bend of the limbs outside the window. She blinked in the brightness. The warmth of the rays battled with her mood.
    God, why here? You know how far I’ve come to regain my life. I shared secrets with You that I keep locked in the darkest corner of my heart. My arms ache from emptiness. The pain feels like parts of me are being ripped off my body each time I see small children. Or pregnant women, their joy just beginning. You should have stopped me…
    She rolled away from the window, and tears escaped through her clenched eyes. A guttural moan rose from her throat as she pushed her face into the bedding and wrapped the edges of the pillow around her head, muffling her pain from any listening ears.
    With tears purged, she dragged unsteady hands across her wet cheeks and reached blindly toward the nightstand. Breath caught in her throat as her fingertips touched wood. Launching upright in bed, she stared at the table with its small Big Ben clock and antique lamp. The Bible that she had laid there was gone.
    The suitcase stood open against the wall and she collapsed back onto the bed, sighing in relief. Last night, in her anger, she had tossed all her possessions into the suitcase before throwing herself on the bed in tears.
    The Bible found, but lacking the strength to cross the room to retrieve it, she rolled onto her back. Her eyes kept dropping closed. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or the long drive that made her unusually tired. Or the task that lay before her.
    The homeowners deserved an explanation. Did she have the physical or emotional energy to share the truth with strangers? And what was the truth? Had God let her down? She had not doubted His love during the months of agony after Craig’s and Susan’s deaths, so why the prickling doubt now? Craig would tell her to trust, but it was so hard…
    Eventually she had to go downstairs and confront the woman and her swollen belly. Dr. Widder had predicted correctly; her behavior in the past twenty-four hours had been erratic. First, the incident at the rest area, then her childish enjoyment over the handsome patrolman, and finally her reaction to the homeowner, pregnant and glowing.
    She had to leave the McIverson Bed and Breakfast.
    With dragging feet, she headed to the bathroom. As the water from the shower pulsed against her back, she again considered how to explain her actions. There was no excuse for her poor behavior except the truth, and she refused to dig that deeply into her shame with strangers.
    Standing in front of the mirror, she examined her beige slacks and hunter-green silk blouse. Folds of fabric that her body once had filled sagged around her. As she patted the loose material, hoping to minimize the gaps, strawberry blonde curls, still damp from the shower, sprang around her face. She shoved part of the unruly hair behind her ear, knowing the effort was futile; the curls would eventually form childish ringlets around her face.
    Now, she needed to settle the bill and put this behind her. She tossed