Chapter One

Alex stared at the coffee cup in her hand in bewilderment; she had no recollection on how it came to be there. She couldn’t seem to stop trembling; the coffee sloshed over the mugs rim and burned her.

“Here; let me take that from you” said Kaedee gently removing Alex’s fingers from their death grip upon the ceramic. Her large brown eyes were filled with concern as she spoke to Alex “You should go back home and try to relax....”

“That’s the last thing she should be doing! Good hard work will help her now” sniffed Gideon as he rearranged the bottles of lotions in the display window.

Alex said nothing. Normally her employees would never speak in such a manner around her but her current state of shock seemed to lower the barriers of their working relationship. No matter how much she tried she couldn’t shake the image of the boy from her mind’s eye... “Someone should see to that lady over there” she said quietly with a nod of her head in the woman’s direction.

A full minute of silence passed as Kaedee and Gideon exchanged a look. Sensing a battle of wills happening Alex sighed in frustration and made to get up but Kaedee gently pushed her back into the plush chair. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

“I told you that I didn’t! Now let me get up, that poor woman will never come back....”said Alex.

This time it was Gideon who spoke “There’s no one else here. I put the closed sign up...”

Alex blinked and looked over in the corner and saw that it was indeed empty. “I’m going crazy” she said and buried her head in her hands.

Kaedee made cooing noises and murmured comforting things but it never registered in Alex’s muddled brain. After five minutes she excused herself and made her way upstairs to her office. Closing the door she leaned against it and slid down so that she was sitting on the floor.

Was it true? Could she possibly be going crazy? Her mother was only a couple of years older than herself before having her first break down... Her father kept warning her that she was just like her mother...

Shaking off those thoughts she went to her desk to concentrate on her inventory counts. The moment she sat though the phone rang. “Thank you for calling Rose Water, this is Alex speaking.”

“Get out!”

A chill ran down her spine but Alex kept her voice calm “Excuse me?”

“Leave now and never come back!” demanded the voice before hanging up.

Trembling again Alex listened to the dial tone before hanging up the phone and calling the police on her cell. An hour later she was alone in shop with the sound of the police officers words ringing in her ears...

“Just a prank call, m’am. Kids probably bored and thought they’d have a little fun scaring the new woman in town.”

He was probably right...The near accident was playing havoc with her nerves. The menacing tone of the caller was just a projection of her pent up fear from the morning. She just needed some soup and a nap.

Luckily she picked to run her business out of what was once an old Victorian residence so she kept one room for herself for bad weather nights...She would spend the night in the shop and head home tomorrow after work.

Comforted by her plan she decided to forego the soup and order a pizza instead. Indulgence in empty calories and carbs was well earned in her opinion.