Cherie tracked mud into the store then stood before the clerk like the wolf frozen by her headlights.
"What can I do for you?" the clerk asked.
Cherie stared at him. She didn't know him. She didn't really know anyone. She was going to ask to use the store phone to report the hand she'd seen but suddenly it seemed like a foolish idea. How did she know the clerk wasn't the killer? Where would she go after the sheriff started asking her questions she didn't want to answer? She'd have to move. Where to? Right now she blended in. No one knew her. She had a job. She had a place to stay. If she reported the hand, all that would instantly change.
"Can I get somethin' for ya?" the clerk asked again.
"I forgot my wallet. Sorry." she turned and left the market.
Cherie spent the next few hours chain smoking in her tiny wooden house that once had been owned by the railroad. It was hard to stop thinking about the gruesome stories Skipper told earlier that day about a killer who had never been captured and probably moved on to another state.
She shuddered remembering Lewis's arms around her when she sat in his lap in the tire tube. The once comforting memory of his body heat radiating up the back of her neck now sent chills down her spine. Anyone of them could be the killer.
She would regain her equilibrium before it was morning. She would show up at work as if nothing had happened.
"We better get some sleep," she said out loud to herself.
~ To Be Continued ~
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