Sara tried to sit up, but the dizziness and throbbing pain pushed her back down. She listened to her children bawling as Sh.e.l.ley knelt over her.

Face to face, Sh.e.l.ley smiled. "Almost, Sara. You almost had me. Something felt off about the way he was texting. He always asks for black lace, and that comment about the hammer? Total lie. Mother never did a thing to him."

Sara heard shouting overhead. Two gunshots popped a second apart, followed by a single thud.

Next came the sounds of unsteady footsteps clunking down the stairs.

Please be DJ, please be DJ.

And then boom, boom, boom as DJ tumbled down and crashed against the wall. Left arm broken and twisted behind his back, blood pouring out of the bullet hole in his chest, staining his shirt. He spat out a mouthful of blood and saliva, then said, "Police," and collapsed into a lump.

His chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

Sh.e.l.ley smirked. "Everybody dies in the end, huh? Brian. Samson. You. Your little angels."

Sara mustered what strength she had left and swung at Sh.e.l.ley's head.

Sh.e.l.ley blocked it, grabbed Sara's arm, used her leverage to pull backward.

The gla.s.s dug into Sara's back, sliced through shirt and skin as Sh.e.l.ley dragged her across the floor, depositing her in front of the kids. They screamed through their gags and struggled against their ropes.

Sh.e.l.ley used her knees to pin down Sara's arms. Slapped her across the cheek. Yelled for the children to shut up, backhanding Sara across the other cheek. She grabbed Sara's shirt, twisted the material, and yanked her up, screaming into her face, "Where's Michael? Where's Michael? Where's Michael?" growing louder and louder with each repet.i.tion.

Sh.e.l.ley lifted her hand and balled up her fist.

Gasping, Sara said, "Dead. He's dead."

Sh.e.l.ley punched hard and fast.

Sara's nose shattered with a sharp crack. The room went white. Her eyes began to water.

"Did you kill him?" Sh.e.l.ley said, jaws clenched, teeth grinding. "Answer me. Did you kill him?"

Sara gagged on the waterfall of blood in her throat. Tried to swallow it, choking and coughing. She said, "No, he shot-he shot himself."

"Liar," Sh.e.l.ley screamed. She swung at Sara's head again, leaning into the motion, putting everything she had behind it.

Sara was ready this time. She squirmed out of the way and felt the blow grazing against her temple.

Sh.e.l.ley's fist pounded into the concrete.

Sara heard the bones crunching next to her ear.

Sh.e.l.ley howled, leaning backward, cradling her hand.

It was just far enough. Sara swung her legs up, wrapped them around Sh.e.l.ley's neck, and yanked.

The body followed the head. Sh.e.l.ley went tumbling backward.

Sara twisted and rolled with the momentum, tightening her leg-lock on Sh.e.l.ley's throat, squeezing her thighs together, choking her. Sh.e.l.ley flailed and kicked, hammering on Sara's legs with weakening fists.

Sara clenched tighter and tighter, waiting until no more strength remained in the punches. She released her grip and clambered around, straddling Sh.e.l.ley, pounding a fist into her jaw, her teeth, her temples. Pounding, pounding, pounding.

She grabbed Sh.e.l.ley by the ears, leaned down, and pulled the s...o...b..r-drenched face closer to her own. Blood dripped from Sara's broken nose, splattering on Sh.e.l.ley's cheeks, running into dazed and groggy eyes.

Sh.e.l.ley grinned and slurred, "Do it. Kill me."

"No, I will not kill you in front of my kids." Sara ground her teeth together, digging her nails into the back of Sh.e.l.ley's ears. "I don't give a f.u.c.k about the messed up s.h.i.t you had to deal with, but they don't need to see it. They don't need to see it. They're little, they're little, they're little," she said, thrashing Sh.e.l.ley's head around. "How dare you."

Sh.e.l.ley giggled and tried to break free. "But we're having so much fun."

Sara tightened her grip. "You told me I had one last question. Well, here it is, b.i.t.c.h. Are you ready to play my game? I like to call it...Resolution."

She slammed the back of Sh.e.l.ley's skull into the floor once, twice, three times, knocking her unconscious.

Sara fell over. Exhausted. Relieved.

Knowing she'd done it.

Knowing her children were going to be okay.

Knowing she'd won...the game.

EPILOGUE.

Sara struggled with letting the kids out of her sight, even months later. Like most children, time pa.s.sed differently for them, and the events of that day were a distant and lightly scarred memory. Something they referred to as 'Remember that time?' while Sara dreamed of dying in a cage beside Teddy's lifeless body, night after night. At the office, she was a frazzled mess in a well-pressed business suit. The only things on Lacey, Callie, and Jacob's minds were the inevitable end of summer break and the return to school in a week. She dreaded sending them back to where it had all started and had entertained the idea of homeschooling.

But life had to go on. She kept reminding herself that she'd succeeded, but peace of mind was not a prize that she had won.

The only thing that gave her comfort was a single news article regarding an incident at Coffee Creek, a female correctional facility nearby. It was vague, hinting at what happened to those who committed crimes against children. It was easy to a.s.sume that many of those women were mothers themselves and hadn't taken kindly to the new inmate. No names were given in the article, but Sara had a good idea of whom the victim might've been.

Miss Willow became a bigger part of their world, often staying over and holding Sara's hand at three o'clock in the morning, talking, and watching wisps of steam rise from chamomile tea. These impromptu therapy sessions helped Sara sleep through the remainder of the night.

Sometimes.

Sara knew that someday she would emerge from the coc.o.o.n of regret and self-doubt as a stronger, take-no-s.h.i.t person, but for now, the recovery process was doing its job, albeit slowly. But it was better than sitting in a padded room, bound in a straightjacket.

She'd started referring to Jacob as "Little Man," dropping his first name in an attempt to disa.s.sociate him from the memory of his father's betrayal. Some days, it worked. Some days, it seemed silly to try. So many of his facial features-his smile, the dimples in his cheeks-were all carbon copies of his dad's, making it difficult to forget and move on. One day.

Teddy, bless his narcissistic, egotistical heart, had returned to his normal self around LightPulse. Offending everyone in proximity, pushing the limits of acceptability, causing two of their strongest employees to quit. He'd stared Death in the face, and had come away from it with a renewed, invigorated sense of being untouchable. Jim had called Sara into his office one afternoon, asking for her counsel on how he should go about firing his own son. She'd talked him out of it, and, as far as she was concerned, she and Teddy were an inch closer to being even.

Besides, when they were on the private side of closed office doors, he treated her with the reverence and respect that had been missing from their professional relationship for so many years. He said 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am'. Liked to call her B.C., short for 'Bada.s.s Chick'. She'd stopped calling him 'Little One' as promised, and encouraged the rest of the senior staff to do the same. Yet another fraction closer to making up for playing G.o.d with his life.

And then, on a wet Sat.u.r.day in September, she loaded the kids into the minivan, stopped to pick up Miss Willow, and drove to the cemetery.

Sara parked and stepped into the drizzly, gray morning, leaving them behind. The light rain sprinkled her face as she zipped her jacket higher to block the wind, holding the bouquet of lilies and baby's breath close to her chest. She trudged up the gra.s.sy hillside, breeze lifting the hem of her black dress, pa.s.sing simple plaques with nothing more than a last name jammed into the muddy ground. Markers with elaborate designs carved into the granite. Ornate cherub statues placed by those with enough money, or enough care, to do so.

So much death buried around her. Such little time they all had. How many broken hearts were out there in the world while their loved ones rested peacefully underneath her feet?

She stopped at the gravestone she'd come to see, which was nestled amongst a group of plain gray rectangles with simple designs and simpler lettering. Sara swiped her rain soaked hair from her face, stared at the name carved into the rock. Knelt down close to it.

"You were a good man," she said, "and it wasn't supposed to happen like this. But how often do things turn out like they should, you know? I think about you a lot. I wonder about what you'd be doing, where you'd be right now. You're here because of me, and-and I haven't figured out how to deal with that yet, but I'll keep coming back until I do, I promise. Maybe after that, too. See you next week, okay?"

She laid the flowers down at the base of the granite block, read the words as she had so many times before.

DET. JONATHAN JOHNSON.

"LOVED AND RESPECTED"

1977-2012.

Sara stood, traced her fingers across the top of the gravestone, and walked down the hillside, back to her family.

Back to where they were close.

Close...and safe.

-the end-.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR.

Thank you so much for reading SARA'S GAME. At times, this intense little novel had me holding my breath as I followed Sara's path, wondering what was going to happen next. Even though I knew who "the bad guy" was going to be early on (and you probably figured it out as well), there were certain plot twists that even I didn't see coming until I was deep into creating the scene. I've written other mystery/suspense novels where the "Ah ha!" moment didn't come until I was a sentence away from tapping it out on the keyboard (GOING SHOGUN, for instance). I like to think that if a story can surprise the one person that knows where everything should be leading ahead of time, it'll be a fun moment for the reader to experience. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

I take great pride in my work and had a number of readers and a professional editor go over SARA'S GAME before it was published, but the occasional oops does occur. If you happen to catch anything and would like to point it out, please feel free to let me know at I'll reciprocate with a gargantuan thank you and sing your eternal praises. (Honestly, I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, so the singing part may be a bit of a stretch.) Or, if you'd just like to send me a comment, you're more than welcome. You can also visit my website at http://www.ErnieLindsey.com to sign up for my newsletter, check out some poorly drawn cartoons that are certain to elicit an eye-roll or two, and learn more about me and my other works.

Lastly, if you enjoyed SARA'S GAME and would like to support the author, nothing is more effective than word-of-mouth. Please give some thought to posting a review and sharing with your friends and other readers on your social networks.

Thank you!.

-Ernie Lindsey, October, 2012.

end.