Free Whispering Hearts by Cassandra Chandler Page A

screaming about voices, covering her ears and thrashing her head. She begged Garrett to make the voices stop, to sedate her. Eventually, her doctors had to knock her out just to treat her injuries.
    At the time, he’d thought the trauma of what happened to her had fractured her psyche. He’d never considered that the voices she was talking about were real.
    Relief flooded through him, washing away the worry he’d been carrying since that night. Garrett didn’t know how it worked, but he was sure he was right.
    People died in hospitals every day. If spirits tended to linger, there had to be an abundance of them walking those halls. And if Rachel could hear them, that would have to be its own kind of hell.
    He reached for her hand, brushing his thumb over the backs of her fingers. “You can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you?”
    â€œI know.” She smiled at him faintly, then pulled her hand away.
    Maybe she wasn’t ready to talk about it. He didn’t want to push, so he went back to his little pile of poppets, taking the matter quite a bit more seriously.
    When they were finished, she had a stack of sixteen little dolls with loops of thick white string attached to their heads for hanging them in the windows. They still had openings in their sides where Rachel had added the cotton stuffing.
    â€œIs it time to close them up?”
    Rachel shook her head and said, “They aren’t ready yet.”
    They looked exactly like the one that had been hanging in her bedroom window. Garrett set down his needle and thread.
    â€œOkay. What’s next?”
    â€œDo you still do a lot of cooking?”
    â€œYeah.” He’d picked up the hobby after he retired, imagining family dinners and special gatherings with friends—like the dinner parties she had helped him host.
    She let out a little breath and smiled. “Great.”
    She slipped from her barstool and walked around the counter where they were working. She opened some cabinets and started pulling down spices.
    â€œIf you’re hungry, I can make us something.”
    â€œI want to get this done first.” She took out a bowl, then started sprinkling spices into it.
    â€œAnything I can do to help?”
    She paused, her gaze sliding to the nearly empty spray bottle she insisted on carrying around with her. He hadn’t seen her use it since the car.
    If she understood that he was open to helping her, she might decide to tell him about what she could do. And he wanted her to tell him. He didn’t want to trick it out of her or confront her with it. He wanted her to want him to know—to trust him enough to share it with him.
    Garrett slid from his stool and walked around the counter. He reached into the open spice cabinet and pulled out a big cylinder of iodized salt, then picked up the spray bottle.
    â€œWhat’s the ratio?”
    She blinked a few times, like her brain was slipping gears trying to process his words. “What?”
    â€œThe ratio. Salt to water.” He held her gaze, noted how her lips thinned, her throat worked to swallow. He had her thinking, and that was perfect.
    â€œAbout an inch of salt at the bottom, then fill it with cold water and shake it.”
    â€œAnything else go into the mix?” He had never seen such intensity in her eyes.
    She stared at him for a long time before saying, “No.”
    â€œShould I dump it and rinse it first?”
    â€œYes, please.” She turned back to her concoction, getting out a fork and stirring everything together.
    After he rinsed out the bottle and added salt and water, Garrett showed it to her before shaking it. If this thing was as important as she acted, he wanted to get it right.
    â€œThis good?”
    â€œYes. Thanks.”
    He sealed it and shook it up, then walked back to his seat. He set the bottled saltwater on the counter within arm’s reach.
    Wasn’t there some TV show where the people