His father believed that life was one big learning experience.
Forced to abandon a career in the military when a freak accident left him with permanent heart and lung injuries, his father had been at a loss as to how to fill the void the army left behind. He retrained and took a job as an accountant because he liked the consistency of numbers, but his father’s real passion was training them.
And he was a tough taskmaster.
Fun was not a part of the vocabulary in their home. They didn’t own a TV or any video games. They owned few toys and didn’t have friends come over for playdates. Their father expected every second of his and his sisters’ lives to be occupied with learning something. After school, they completed homework and then studied. Weekends were for various learning activities, from first aid to survival skills to weaponry and self-defense.
By the time he was three, Sam had been taught never to cry, crying was a weakness, especially for a man. By the time he was six he knew tonevercomplain about anything, whining was not tolerated in his home. By the time he was eleven he was competent in using a range of different guns. By the time he was fifteen he had more first aid training than most paramedics.
Their mother was no warmer than their father. She was quiet and obediently compliant with everything her husband said and did. She cooked and cleaned and did the laundry, but she had no life outside the house. She rarely spoke, and when she did it was often just to reinforce their father’s will.
With cold, distant parents, the only light in their house came from Maria. While he and his middle sister, Fiona, inherited their parents’ inability to communicate emotion, Maria was like an explosion of love. She was unsquashably happy, bright, and bubbly.
Now she was sitting beside him, the light inside her extinguished, and he didn’t know how to help her. He’d never felt so inadequate and useless in his entire life. He would do anything to take his sister’s pain away. If he could bear it himself so she didn’t have to then he would gladly do it.
“How can Anthony be gone?” she asked in a lost little voice that further served to stab at his heart. “It seems like just yesterday that he was this adorable, pudgy little baby.”
Sam had been ten when his sister, herself only eighteen, gave birth to her son. Their father had wanted to throw her out of the house for disgracing the family by having a child out of wedlock. But for once their mother had stood up for one of her children, and Maria and Anthony had lived in the family home until Sam was fourteen. His little nephew had been every bit as sweet and loving as his mother, and Sam had missed them both desperately when they finally moved into a place of their own.
“I could swear that just yesterday he was learning to ride a bike and losing his first tooth. I remember he wouldn’t go to sleep that night.” A pained smile lit his sister’s tear-stained face. “He was so excited about the tooth fairy coming. I had to be up early for work, but I couldn’t go to bed until I slipped the money into the little box he’d made to put his tooth in. I think it was midnight before he finally fell asleep, I was a wreck at work the next day, but he woke up his usual happy, perky little self.” Maria gave a laugh that ended in a sob. “I still have all his little baby teeth. Who … who would do this? Who would kill my son?”
He hadn’t told her yet about Naomi’s stalker and his threats to murder people around her. There would be time later to explain it all to her, but now wasn't it. Knowing it all right now wasn't going to make things better. It wasn't going to ease her pain or make any of this easier to understand because really the whole thing was incomprehensible. Sam was about to offer her some platitude about how life was unfair, when Maria continued.
“And what about this poor little baby?” She tightened her grip on the child, holding her firmly against her breast. “Already lost her mother, and now her daddy too.”
Anthony had met, fallen in love, and married by the time he was nineteen, nine months later baby Bethie had come along. Heartbreakingly, his wife had died in childbirth, leaving him with both a gigantic hole in his life, and the most precious gift he could ever receive. Being a single father at the age of twenty was difficult but Anthony handled it like a pro. He worked nights as an orderly at a hospital so that he could look after his daughter during the day, while juggling school as he studied to become a radiologist. When his wife had died, Anthony and Bethie had moved in with Maria, so that she could be there with the baby overnight.
“She’ll be okay,” Sam consoled. “She has you. What better role model could she have?”
“It should have been me. I should have been the one there, he should have killed me, not my son. Not my baby boy.” Maria sobbed, huge gulping sobs that tore through her petite frame.
Pulling his sister onto his lap, Sam held her and the baby. His sister’s pain was unacceptable and had been avoidable. Someone had to pay for it.
* * * * *
10:28 P.M.
“Go to bed, Naomi.”
“Bed?” she repeated, shooting Nick an incredulous look.
He gave her a half-smile. “Yes. Bed. You still know what that is?”
“I know what it is, I just have no need for one right now.” She couldn’t have slept even if she wanted to. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sam’s face when he found out that his nephew was dead. Dead because of her.
She couldn’t take the guilt.
It was crushing her.
Three people dead all because someone wanted to torture her. Who was he going to go after next? This was hell.
“Naomi, you're recovering from a concussion and smoke inhalation, you need to sleep.” Nick’s dark blue eyes were studying her with concern.
“I can’t go to bed here in Sam’s house.” Right now, she wished she was any place but here.
“Well don’t go getting any stupid ideas of leaving again.”
When Sam had gotten the call that his nephew was the latest victim of her stalker, she had tried apologizing to him, but she wasn't even sure he’d heard her. He had been so angry. Not that she could blame him. It was her fault. Of course he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. He hadn’t even been able to stand being inside the same house as her, instead he had waited outside in the snow for Nick to arrive to babysit her.