Page 92 of Distracted

But that didn’t mean things couldn’t get better. They had, and I would never take any of the lessons I’d learned for granted.

Sadly, as I stood motionless in front of the television, I didn’t know if what I was feeling was the right thing.

I certainly didn’t believe that anyone else who might have been watching the same story that I was right now would be feeling similarly to me.

A man had been murdered.

He had lived here, in Steel Ridge.

At the top of the news story, I became frozen to the spot for a completely different reason than I was right now.

Initially, I hadn’t managed to make it to the couch because, as it had been stated, the police were on the hunt for a killer. That was enough to have anyone in their right mind riveted to the screen.

A killer.

Here in Steel Ridge.

For someone like me, someone who lived on her own, the notion of a killer being on the loose was unsettling. And when the initial report had indicated that this didn’t seem to be an isolated incident, I felt a shiver run down my spine.

Someone being murdered was never a good thing. Knowing that there wasn’t any obvious motive, or that there wasn’t anything that could explain why the man wound up dead, was the kind of thing to set anyone on edge.

But the minute the name of the victim had been revealed and his face flashed up on the screen, I felt relieved.

And it felt wrong to be relieved that a man was dead, especially considering he’d gotten that way because he’d been murdered.

Seeing his face in front of me, I had to admit I didn’t feel an ounce of sadness. I didn’t even feel guilty about my lack of empathy.

It was hard to forget a face like that. As long as I lived, I knew I’d never forget his face. In the moment, I was grateful I was seeing him where I was seeing him.

Because if he’d been standing in front of me, my reaction might have been a whole lot different.

Or maybe it wouldn’t have been.

It’s difficult to know how I might have reacted when coming face-to-face with someone who’d abused and violated me in some of the worst ways imaginable.

But now I was wondering if perhaps I was right.

Maybe I was a monster.

Because regardless of what he’d done, a man was dead.

And I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but happy about it.

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