A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,54

had come through for her throughout the night after the asthma patient, allowing her to function on automatic for the most part, and in the times of extreme emergency, adrenaline had pulled her through.

It was a rainy morning out, the sun lazing around somewhere beneath the thick cloud cover, but she had her sunglasses in place over her eyes before she left the building anyway. Her jaw was set with determination to get out of there unscathed.

The silence when she got in her car was deafening. Punching the radio on, it struck her that she hadn’t bothered to check out the radio stations once during the month she’d been back on the island. Who knew if they were the same as they’d been when she’d been a teenager? Come to think of it, who cared?

She hit the scan button and stopped it at the first pop station then cranked up the volume until the steering wheel vibrated. Taking care to look behind her, she backed out and left the staff lot. At the first stop sign, she finally noticed the blaring music. It was upbeat and happy. Nauseating. She smacked the power back off, preferring the silence to someone’s joyful declarations of love.

The entire drive home, she held strictly to the speed limit in spite of a burning need deep down to floor the pedal, whip recklessly around corners and dodge vehicles. Or maybe not dodge them. Maybe hit them.

She was hanging on to control by a microscopic thread. As if she was grasping for dear life, dangling over a bottomless canyon that would engulf her in its darkness and never spit her out. Never let her hit the canyon floor.

She clung to that thread harder yet when she let herself into the empty house.

Rachel stared at the kitchen, feeling disoriented, unsure what to do next. She was too keyed up to sleep, and besides, she was afraid of what might sneak up on her in her dreams. It was easier to stay vigilant when her eyes were open.

Out of habit, she went to the refrigerator and opened it. Searched for a gourmet something her mom might have whipped up and then remembered her mother had left town for a weeklong conference before sunrise this morning. Rachel had been at work for a twelve-hour shift and she hadn’t had so much as a snack. She should be hungry, right? She should eat.

But the thought of food hitting her stomach made her want to hurl. She closed the fridge, again at a loss for what to do. Because, God knew, she had to do something.

A shower. She needed to be clean. Needed to wash the awful night off. That would help.

With a nod of reassurance to herself, she climbed the stairs, went into her brother’s room and opened the dresser drawer for clothes. Comfort clothes. A pair of pink-and-yellow boxers and an ancient, faded, touristy San Amaro Island T-shirt.

Once in the bathroom, she dropped the clothes on the floor, stripped out of her scrubs and waited for the water to heat. When she stepped in, she turned the water temperature up higher yet, needing it to scald her skin, cleanse her. She didn’t allow her mind to veer to what she needed to cleanse herself of. Couldn’t let herself reflect on...anything.

It was too easy for thoughts to invade in the shower, though. It had always been her thinking place, her one sanctuary to process the other twenty-three and a half hours of her day. To slow down momentarily and catch up mentally.

Today, she decided she wanted none of it.

Without soaping or shampooing, she flipped the water off and hurried out of the glass-doored stall. In spite of the shortness of her time under the hot water, her skin was pink from it as she toweled herself off. Then she swiped her towel over a spot on the mirror to clear the steam and squinted at her reflection, only half-aware that she was looking for her sister.

She knew that wasn’t Noelle staring back at her, and yet... She didn’t let herself think too much. Just allowed the relief to seep through her, clinging to the reminder that the sadness that’d been hovering just beneath the surface since the young woman’s death last night...that was not her grief. It was someone else’s. Hers was not fresh or new or different. She knew how to handle her sorrow. It wasn’t a friend, but it was familiar.

“It wasn’t you, Noelle,” she said hoarsely to the