As the miles passed by, she alternated between planning and praying. The gasoline can was in the car trunk, and the Pocket Torch lighter was in the glove compartment.

“Help me, merciful God, my loving heavenly Father. Guide my hand in Thy service. I will do Thy will.”

If Reverend Kelley came to the back door tonight, it would be a sign from on high. If someone else answered her knock, she would stay hidden in the shadows and know that tonight was not the night.

Chapter Nineteen

Bruce stood in the doorway watching Mirabelle as she sat on the side of Sandie’s bed, soothing her with a tender touch and soft words. He had never felt as helpless in his entire life as he did now. During the brief time Mirabelle had been living with them, she had become his wife’s surrogate mother, sister, child and friend. In her lucid moments, Sandie treated Mirabelle as the half child, half woman she was. Bruce knew that Sandie, the woman he had loved for most of his life. In other moments, when his wife teetered on the brink and was often confused and occasionally hostile, Mirabelle became her friend, the girl’s sweet innocence seeming to somehow relate to the lost child in Sandie. And in the worst moments, when Sandie crossed over into a realm where she didn’t know who he was, who her own children were, she looked at Mirabelle and saw her mother and occasionally her sister, Allison, both women long dead.

Tonight had gone well. Sandie had been herself during dinner and for several hours afterward, but shortly before ten, she had become disoriented. For the past two hours, he and Mirabelle had done whatever they could to keep Sandie calm and reassured as they prepared her for the night. As much as he hated sedating his wife, he now knew when it was best for her-and, yes, for him, too-to be given medication to help her rest. At eleven-thirty, he had prepared a glass of chocolate milk for her and doctored it with a sedative. Mirabelle had taken the milk to her and smiled triumphantly when she’d brought the empty glass back to him.

With the medication taking effect now and Mirabelle at Sandie’s side, Bruce allowed himself to breathe a free, relaxed breath, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the doorway. Not yet. Not until Sandie was asleep. Not until he felt certain that Mirabelle would be all right on her own.

Once he felt reassured that all was well, he would go to the guest bedroom where he now slept and read for a while until God blessed him with a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The ting of the doorbell surprised him, the sound echoing up the staircase from the ground floor. At first he hadn’t been sure what the sound was, but when the bell rang again several times, he realized exactly what it was. But who would be at their door this time of night, at midnight?

Mirabelle looked his way, and their gazes met, hers silently repeating the question he had just asked himself about who their midnight caller was.

Using hand motions, he told her he was going downstairs. She smiled and nodded her understanding.

Even though it was midnight, Bruce still wore the khaki slacks and short-sleeved plaid shirt he’d worn all day. He made his way down the stairs, across the foyer and to the front door. He turned on the porch light and opened the door, leaving the storm door locked.

There was no one there. The porch was empty.

Odd. Had some teenager playing a prank rung the doorbell and run away? He heaved a hard, weary sigh and closed the door.

The doorbell rang again.

He opened the door. No one there.

He closed the door and turned off the porch light.

Then it hit him that the back door also had a doorbell, one that was seldom used because visitors always came to the front door. Perhaps a neighbor had a problem and for some reason had chosen to go to the back of the house. Bruce trekked down the hall, through the kitchen and into the mud room. He turned on the outside lights, one on either side of the door, and peered through the half-glass back door. He saw no one.

He needed to get to the bottom of this. If someone was deliberately harassing them, he had to put a stop to it immediately. He couldn’t risk anything disturbing Sandie. Hesitant to unlock the back door, Bruce reminded himself that a burglar would hardly ring the doorbell.

With a slightly shaky hand, he unlocked and opened the door. “Is anyone there?” he called in a confident, no-nonsense voice.

No response.

“Hello, is someone out there? Do you need help?”

Except for the soft rustle of a warm June breeze rippling through the trees and shrubbery, the backyard was eerily quiet. Bruce took several tentative steps out onto the wooden deck. He glanced right and left and then out into the dark yard but saw nothing out of the ordinary, not even a stray animal.

Just as he turned to go back inside, he caught a glimpse of movement in his peripheral vision. Jerking back around, he spied a dark form hovering near the old magnolia tree a good ten feet away and to his right.

“Who’s there?”

“Help me,” a quavering female voice whispered.

Bruce moved forward until he reached the edge of the deck, all the while keeping his gaze on the small shadow of the woman in his yard.

“Who are you, and what can I do to help you?” he asked.

“God has sent me to you,” she said, her voice whispery and fragile.

A frisson of uncertainty crept up Bruce’s spine. Was the woman someone he knew, or was she a stranger, perhaps a deranged person who had sought him out because he was a minister? Could she be the Fire and Brimstone Killer?

“Show yourself,” he said, doing his best to keep his tone compassionate despite his wariness. “We’ll go inside and talk. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” He held out his hand. “Whatever you need, I’ll do my best to provide it.”

Without saying a word, she emerged from the shadows and walked slowly toward the deck. When he saw her more clearly, he sighed and relaxed. She appeared quite normal, although her expression hinted at an inner anguish.

Bruce stepped down off the deck and walked toward her. As she approached him, he noticed that she carried something held halfway behind her. A suitcase or knapsack, perhaps? Was she homeless? She appeared to be neat and clean. When she was within a few feet of him, he realized her other hand was knotted into a fist, as if she held something small hidden inside her tight grasp.

“Hello, I’m Reverend Bruce Kelley,” he told her. “And you are?”

“I am the Lord’s chosen,” she said.

A hard knot of apprehension clutched Bruce’s gut. Who was this peculiar woman? “Can I call someone for you, someone who will be concerned about you?”

When she smiled, her lips curving upward in a closed-mouth grin, Bruce looked directly into her eyes and saw sheer madness. Merciful Lord, is she dangerous? His heartbeat accelerated at an alarming pace. Real fear swelled up inside him.

He took a cautious step backward, away from his late-night visitor, but he kept focused on her face, on the wild look in her eyes.

Still smiling, she stared at him but said nothing. Her sudden silence seemed to issue a warning. Danger. Beware.

Before he realized what she intended to do, she brought what he’d thought was a small red suitcase out from behind her, lifted it into the air and flung something wet and foul-smelling on him. It took him a good ten seconds to grasp the fact that she had dropped the object in her hand-a square red can and not a suitcase-and that she had doused him with whatever had been inside the can.

His mind sped from the reality of the moment to several different scenarios, but too late he knew what was happening.

She uncurled her fist, held the small metal lighter in her hand, and flicked the ignition. Bruce froze to the spot.