Stranger in the Shadows

Shirlee McCoy

Someone was watching Chloe Davidson She had the unsettling feeling the stalker was waiting to strike.But who could it be? After a heartbreaking tragedy, Chloe had relocated to sleepy, safe Lakeview, Virginia, where she'd spent idyllic summers as a child. Where handsome minister Ben Avery had welcomed her and helped her believe in more than she'd ever thought possible. Yet her fear had followed her.Chloe kept seeing a stranger lurking in the shadows. And her things were going missing. Was it just her fragile imagination? Or was a sinister somebody much closer than she ever expected?

Stranger in the Shadows

Shirlee McCoy

To Brenda Minton who makes me laugh when I

want to cry. Thanks for the brainstorming sessions

and the pep talks, but mostly thanks for being you.

And to Bob and Jan Porter and

Dick and Carolyn Livesey who are

true encouragers.

Thanks for always cheering me on!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

ONE

It came in the night, whispering into her dreams. Silent stars, hazy moonlight, a winding road. Sudden, blinding light.

Impact.

Rolling, tumbling, terror. And then silence.

Smoke danced at the edges of memory as flames writhed serpentlike through cracked glass and crumbled metal, hissing and whirling in the timeless dance of death.

Adam! She reached for his hand, wanting to pull him from the car and from the dream—whole and alive. Safe. But her questing hand met empty space and hot flame, her body flinching with the pain and the horror of it.

Sirens blared in the distance, their throbbing pulse a heartbeat ebbing and flowing with the growing flames. She turned toward the door, trying to push aside hot, bent metal, and saw a shadow beyond the shattered glass; a dark figure leaning toward the window, staring in. Dark eyes that seemed to glow in the growing flames.

Help me! She tried to scream the words, but they caught in her throat. And the shadow remained still and silent, watching as the car burned and she burned with it.

The shrill ring of an alarm clock sounded over the roar of flames, spearing into Chloe Davidson’s consciousness and pulling her from the nightmare. For a moment there was nothing but the dream. No past. No present. No truth except hot flames and searing pain. But the flames weren’t real, the pain a fading memory. Reality was…what?

Chloe scrambled to anchor herself in the present before she fell back into the foggy world of unknowns she’d lived in during the weeks following the accident.

“Saturday. Lakeview, Virginia. The Morran wedding. Flowers. Decorations.” She listed each item as it came to mind, grabbing towels from the tiny closet beside the bathroom door, pulling clothes from her dresser. Black pants. Pink shirt. Blooming Baskets’ uniform. Her new job. Her new life. A normality she still didn’t quite believe in.

The phone rang before she could get in the shower, the muted sound drawing her from the well-lit bedroom and into the dark living room beyond.

“Hello?” She pressed the receiver to her ear as she flicked on lamps and the overhead light, her heart still racing, her throbbing leg an insistent reminder of the nightmare she’d survived.

“Chloe. Opal, here.”

At the sound of her friend and boss’s voice, Chloe relaxed, leaning her hip against the sofa and forcing the dream and the memories to the back of her mind. “You’ve only been gone a day and you’re already checking in?”

“Checking in? I wasn’t planning to do that until tonight. This is business. We’ve got a problem. Jenna’s gone into labor.”

Opal’s only other full-time employee, Jenna Monroe, was eight months pregnant and glowing with it. At least she had b