Page 3 of Sachie's Hero

“No. Her parents will send the police to find me. I don’t have much time.” He turned to Sachie. “Tell Kylie that I’m sorry for dragging her into my shitty life and that I’m sorry for hurting her. She might think I’m selfish and not thinking about her, but this is the only way I can be certain I’ll never hurt another living soul.”

His voice was so emotionless, faraway and haunting.

Sachie’s heart pinched hard in her chest. “Luke, tell her yourself.”

“Ms. Jones, please, promise me you’ll tell her all that and that I loved her more than life itself.”

“But—”

“Please,” he said, his voice choking on what sounded like a sob.

Sachie’s heart broke at the sound. “I promise. But what are you going to?—”

Before she could finish her sentence, Luke pulled a gun from his pocket. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Stunned, Sachie didn’t have time to react before the teen pressed the barrel against his temple and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

“No!”Sachie Moore yelled and sat up straight in her bed. Drenched in sweat, her heart racing, it took her several seconds to realize she wasn’t in her office back on Oahu.

Moonlight streamed through the window, casting a silvery-blue patch of light across her bedroom floor. This had been the first night since she’d moved to the Big Island that she hadn’t left the light on in the bathroom. She’d purposely left the curtains pulled back for just enough natural light from the moon and stars to chase away the darkness she’d feared since that fateful day when her patient, Luke Brown, had stood three feet away from her and shot himself in the head.

The dream had been so real. She glanced down at the pale blue oversized T-shirt she’d worn as a nightgown, looking for the blood that had splattered allover her hair, face and the white button-down blouse she’d been wearing that day in her office.

No dark droplets stained her T-shirt. She raised a shaking hand to her face to brush away the droplets that weren’t there.

“Just a dream,” she murmured, the soft sound of her voice echoing loudly in the silent room.

Though she had to go to work in a few hours, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Not when she risked sliding right back into the same nightmare that had plagued her for the past few weeks.

To say she’d been traumatized would have been an understatement. She’d canceled all appointments for a week and had walked around her apartment in a daze, going through the motions. Sachie hadn’t wanted to close her eyes for fear of reliving the nightmare.

The overwhelming feeling of having failed her patient had left her gutted. Failure, nightmares and lack of sleep made her drunk with exhaustion. She’d become paranoid and suspected she was hallucinating a stalker. After a week, she’d tried to go back to work only to lock herself in her office and cancel the second week of appointments. How could she counsel others when she couldn’t help herself?

At the end of the second week of being afraid of astalker that never seemed to fully materialize, Sachie was a wreck. She’d begun to think Luke’s ghost had come back to haunt her. When her friend Kalea had suggested she come to the Big Island to regroup, she’d closed her office in Honolulu, packed two suitcases with only the essentials and moved to the Big Island. Permanently.

Sachie hoped the change would give her peace and a chance to start over without the daily reminders of her failure. And maybe, just maybe, her ghost stalker would disappear completely.

Her heart still racing, Sashie threw back the sheet and swung her legs over the side of the bed. In the muted light from the stars outside, she padded barefoot to the little cottage’s compact kitchen and grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator. After twisting off the top, she debated getting a glass out of the cabinet, shrugged and turned the bottle up, taking a long drink of citrusy freshness. As she lowered the bottle, a movement out of the corner of her eye made her turn toward the window at the side of the house.

A dark, familiar face stared at her through the glass.

Sachie screamed.

The bottle of orange juice slipped from her fingersand crashed to the floor. The glass exploded, sending shards of glass and juice in every direction.

When cold juice splashed against her feet and ankles, Sachie darted a glance downward.

In the single second when she’d looked down and back up, the face in the window had disappeared.

“No. No. No,” she murmured. “This is not happening. It wasn’t real.”

Afraid to move for fear of cutting her bare feet on the broken glass, Sachie hiked her bottom up onto the counter and scooted across the surface to the far end, closest to the bedroom. When she was fairly certain she’d gotten past the remnants of glass, she eased to the floor and ran into the bedroom. Quickly pulling on a pair of tennis shoes, she ran back through the kitchen, pausing only long enough to snatch a butcher knife from the drawer.

Armed and ready to face her tormentor, she twisted the deadbolt, flung open the door and ran out into the night, coming to a halt beside the SUV Kalea had loaned her until she could sell hers back on Oahu and purchase another on the Big Island. Tired of being scared. Tired of reliving the same nightmare and ready to face whatever it was, she stood with the knife held in front of her, straining to see into the darkest shadows.

Nothing moved, not even the usual night breeze.Birds were smart and asleep. Even the chickens that ran free over the island weren’t awake yet. The clatter of the night insects was eerily silent.

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