Week 83 – She was startled by the crystalline sound of the back window shattering

“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

The voice startled Rachel out of her reverie and her head whipped sideways to see a man standing in her bathroom.

A man.

In her bathroom.

That should shock her, terrify her, concern her in some way but it didn’t. She was too numb. If he had come here to kill her then he would be doing her a favour. Her husband had been murdered and she had miscarried their unborn daughter and nearly died.

Nearly.

If he was here to finish the job she would thank him and walk gladly into death’s dark clutches.

He didn’t move and neither did she.

Then his words sunk in.

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?

That was what Drake always used to say to her because he thought she looked like Snow White.

Rachel gasped and her gaze darted to the man’s face. He looked familiar, he felt familiar, was he one of the men from the lake?

Six months ago she and her undercover cop husband had been awakened in the middle of the night by a gang of men in their bedroom. The men had tied them up, thrown them in a car, and driven them out to a secluded frozen lake where they had stripped them both naked and tortured them for hours.

Someone had saved her life that night.

Come back for her when she and her husband had been left for dead.

Was it this man?

Rachel turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, not bothering to grab a towel to cover her naked body. “Who are you?” she asked. She was sure she knew him she just couldn’t figure out how.

The man reached out and touched her cheek. His touch, she was sure she had felt it before, but his face while it was familiar she was sure she had never seen it before.

“Please, tell me who you are,” she implored. This man might be a friend of Drake’s, he could be the only link left she had to the man she loved.

Before he could answer she was startled by the crystalline sound of the back window shattering.

Someone else was in her house.

The men from the lake?

Had they followed this man here? Did they think he had saved her life once before and now they were going to kill them both?