Free Shadow of Doubt by Terri Blackstock

Thirteen
    H e’s getting away with it.” Allie looked up at Celia, who sat with her arms hugging her knees on the big four-poster bed in Aggie’s guest room. She looked so small there, so innocent. And so distraught. “Who?”
    â€œWhoever it is,” she said dully. “He’s ripped my life at the seams twice, and gotten away with it both times.”
    â€œHe’s not going to get away with it,” Allie said. “Jill’s working on it right now. She’s doing everything she can, Celia.”
    Celia wasn’t buying. “For at least two years after Nathan died, I was so paranoid, Allie. I kept thinking the killer was stalking me, watching me, waiting to take my life, too. For a while, I almost hoped he would.”
    â€œI remember when you first came to Newpointe,” Allie said. “You did seem timid, quiet. I thought you were just shy. Then you seemed to get over it, little by little.”
    Celia sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “I knew he was still out there. That never went away. But when I got involved in the church and met Stan, I just started concentrating more on living than dying. I think that kept me alive.” She looked down at her knees, clad in faded jeans. “I trusted him so much that I told him everything. And he trusted me unconditionally. He showed me how much God loved me, because he modeled it for me.” Sick grief reddened her face, and she leaned her head back on the ornate headboard.
    â€œWhat if he wakes up and they tell him I tried to kill him, Allie? What if they convince him that I’ve had some dormant murderous instinct just waiting to jump out?”
    â€œHe won’t believe it, Celia. You know better. He believed you before. He’ll know you didn’t do it this time. And if he wakes up, maybe he’ll know where he got the poison, and the whole thing will be cleared up.”
    â€œOr maybe he’ll die, and it won’t matter what they do to me.”
    Allie got up and went to the bed, sat down beside her. Out of habit, she rubbed her hand over her round stomach. Celia’s eyes followed her hand.
    â€œWe wanted to start a family, Allie,” she whispered. “That’s why he started talking to my parents. He wanted to make things right, so our children would have grandparents on both sides. Today’s my birthday, so he went to see them yesterday in hopes of getting them to agree to come for a visit today. I was starting to think it was all behind me, all of it, that God was returning the days that the locusts ate. I was starting to think he didn’t let me die all those times I asked him to, because he had something wonderful waiting. But was this what he spared me for?”
    Allie wiped the tears springing to her own eyes. “I don’t know, Celia.”
    Celia reached for a tissue next to the bed and blew her nose. “I read about all those martyrs in the Bible who walked into furnaces and lions’ dens and were crucified and beaten and beheaded…and I can’t help wishing that I had some greater purpose for my suffering, too. Does it feel better to suffer for a noble cause? Does injustice carry any peace if you’re standing for some divine plan?”
    Allie couldn’t answer. She pushed the hair back from where it stuck to Celia’s wet face.
    â€œBut there isn’t any grand purpose here, Allie. There’s no greater good. It’s all just a mistake, but even if I’m not convicted of this, there will always be people who think of me as a murderess.”
    She slid off of the bed and went to the window to look out on Aunt Aggie’s backyard. Allie got up and followed her, and saw Chester, Aunt Aggie’s gardener, pruning a pear tree.
    â€œMaybe God’s just pruning you, Celia. Sometimes bad things happen because he’s just trying to prune us. Make us bear more fruit.” It was not what Celia wanted to hear, she realized,