Free The Accused by Jana DeLeon Page A

empty plate onto the nightstand and reached for the next set of documents. This was it, she promised herself. She’d read every document in the file one more time, then she’d force herself to let it go. Sometimes, bad things happened. Maybe this was one of those times.
    She lifted the next document and began to read, unaware of when she dropped off to sleep. Her only memory was the steady hum of rain on the roof and her eyes growing fuzzy.
    * * *
    T HE BEDROOM wasn’t the same when she opened her eyes. A lantern on the dresser cast a dim glow over the room. She could still hear the rain falling on the roof, but the bed was narrower and the sheets silk rather than cotton. A rustling sound caught her attention and she looked toward the bedroom wall where the sound had originated.
    Her baby sister tossed and turned in her sleep. Her fine locks of hair were damp from the humidity the storm had driven in, and clung to her pale skin. She turned to the left and saw her middle sister, curled in a ball in the twin bed next to her, her pink blanket kicked to the floor long ago.
    It must have been a dream that had woken her, she thought as she turned over and closed her eyes again. Then she heard the voices. Mommy and the mean man were arguing again. It happened often, after she and her sisters had gone to bed. They probably thought she couldn’t hear in that big house, but sometimes their voices carried all the way to the sisters’ bedroom.
    She pulled the covers over her head, trying to block out the arguing. Mommy was unhappy with the mean man—she was certain—but every time Alaina thought Mommy would make him leave, she was disappointed. Daddy had never made Mommy cry or raise her voice. Daddy had loved her and her sisters and was never cross or stern with them.
    Daddy was in heaven and couldn’t come back. Mommy had told them that, so it must be true. But Alaina would have been happier with just Mommy. Not as happy as she’d been before Daddy went to heaven, but almost as happy.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move and she threw back the covers, figuring her sister had heard the arguing, too.
    But she wasn’t prepared at all for what she saw.
    * * *
    A LAINA BOLTED UPRIGHT in bed, her eyes locked on to the ethereal figure from her dreams that hovered above her bed near the ceiling. Lightning struck the tree outside the bedroom window, sounding off like a sonic boom.
    But her scream was even louder.

Chapter Eight
    It wasn’t even daylight when Alaina pressed her foot down on her SUV’s accelerator and launched it as fast as safely possible down the road to Calais. She’d seen a café on Main Street as she’d driven through town the day before. Surely it would be open soon. If not, she’d sit in her SUV until it did. Now or an hour from now, coffee was the first order of business. Coffee and a heavy dose of sanity.
    After her ghostly sighting, she’d run out of the house and spent the rest of the night sleeping in her SUV. Her neck and back ached from being in the same position so long and she was more exhausted than she’d ever been before—including law school or when working an important case.
    Just minutes ago, she’d managed to go back into the still-dark house long enough to change clothes, but the thought of thirteen more days and nights locked up in that house with whatever that was in there with her had her rethinking her inheritance. She didn’t need the money, whatever it turned out to be. Per the stipulations in the will, she wouldn’t even find out the worth of the estate until she fulfilled her end of the bargain. And even then, her sisters had to be located and agree to the same ridiculous concession in order for any of them to collect.
    You made a mistake.
    The thought always lingered in the back of her mind, picking its way through like a splinter. She’d managed to keep it at bay for a week—convincing herself that quitting her job and moving off to the middle of the bayou