[COMPLETED] When down on her luck, Abby Redding lands a position as the personal assistant for wealthy businessman Alex Carter, her first assignment is to fix up his new cabin in a remote town.
Things don't go as planned when an unsolved murder and...
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5/25/1991
It was a night when only the wicked were brave enough to step outdoors. A flood advisory had been issued, warning residents to stay indoors. Not that they'd be missing much. There wasn't a lot to do in a small town like Bayless which could only brag of a grocery mart that doubled as a supply store. The relentless showers of the afternoon had continued their rally across the rural town's already soggy grounds into the late evening hours.
Inside her two-story cabin, Maggie Caldwell pulled back a curtain to see if her husband's approaching car was anywhere in sight. Her hot breath against the rattling cold glass clouded her view. She wiped the condensation with her hand to see the massive rows of oak trees that surrounded her home, their wet leaves flapping around in panic as though they too were scared of the night's storm. Lightning flashed above, illuminating her face for a brief second. The dogs outside barked incessantly from the nearby shed, begging to be let loose.
"Momma?"
Maggie turned to see her six-year-old daughter, Crystal, standing at the base of the stairs. Betsy, Crystal's beloved rag doll, swayed in her grip as she ran towards her mother in her pink pajamas. Her blonde hair was loose in wild curls.
"Did the rain wake you? Or have you been up this entire time?" Maggie asked the precocious child with a slight smile. Maggie had read Crystal her bedtime story over an hour ago.
Crystal smiled, showing off her missing front tooth before running upstairs, her laughter trailing behind her. Maggie was right behind her, trudging up the steps as her thoughts wandered to her husband's whereabouts once again. After Maggie tucked her daughter back into bed, she twisted the crank to her daughter's music box. It had become a nightly ritual for Crystal to hear the soft melody before drifting off to sleep.
"This song is sad, Momma," Crystal whispered, listening to the delicate melody. Engraved on the music box was a forlorn-looking prince and princess, neither happy with the other. The edges of the box were lined in silver that had begun to chip.
"It is...but someone special gave this to me," Maggie said, stroking her daughter's cheek.
"Is that why you gave it to me?" Crystal asked, hugging her doll tighter to her chest.
"Of course. I want to share everything special with the person I love most in the world," Maggie said before tickling her daughter.
Outside, the sky roared and the lights flickered, causing both Maggie and Crystal to jump.
"Will you read me a story? I'm too scared to sleep," Crystal confessed.
Maggie kissed her daughter's forehead. "Of course I'll read you another story."
After reading her daughter a tale about a brave princess and a ferocious dragon, Maggie's eyes drifted towards the princess clock that hung in her daughter's room. It was close to ten. She made her way downstairs and picked up the house phone, trying to dial her husband's work number. He didn't answer. She thought about the pager he wore and remembered him telling her not to call it unless there was an emergency. Maggie sighed thinking how a wife's emergency could be a husband's annoyance. Her fingers floated above her phone for a moment before she grimaced and decided not to call her husband's work again. Hadn't they just had an argument about her not always calling him at work?
