Page 16 of Tangled Past
The warm bistro dissolved around her. Rain drummed against a barn wall.
A flashlight beam! A voice whispered with urgency and fear.Stay hidden.
She reached out to steady herself on the back of a chair. “That sound . . .” she breathed. “I’ve heard it before.”
“What sound?” Asa asked, his attention turned to the chime.
Rachel came over. “You’re having a memory return.”
Maya swallowed hard, her heart pounding. “It wasn’t just in my head this time.”
That chime. A barn. The storm.
Blood.
The memories slammed into her like a rising tide. A hay bale, a man’s voice shouting. A door creaked open. That same chime had echoed through the darkness before everything turned red.
A scream cut off.
A man reaching for her. He had kind eyes.“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll come back for you.”But he didn’t because someone else came first.
A second voice. Deeper. Harsher. One she couldn’t place.
A flash of light. A gunshot. Later, the smell of burning wood. She’d felt the heat from the blaze, and then she’d run.
Maya’s legs gave out. Someone caught her before she hit the floor.
“Maya!” Rachel sounded muffled and far away. “Are you okay?”
The bistro rushed back into focus. Chairs. Tables. The heat from the fireplace. Asa holding her.
“I remember something,” she whispered. “The chime. I heard it . . . in the barn. The night your father was killed.”
Asa’s eyes locked with hers.
Her voice trembled, but the memory was no longer buried. “You were right, Asa. I was there. I saw it happen.”
