When she realized that Danni hadn’t sent the call her way, she reached in her knapsack and pulled out a stack of technical articles on winemaking that she’d need to read. She wasn’t sure how long she sat in the silence combing through the articles. Her aunt had always joked Greer filled every second of every day, and Greer had always countered that time was the ultimate resource. It wasn’t limitless. Once it was gone, game over.
When her phone rang, she pulled off her reading glasses, cleared her throat, and on the third ring picked up the phone. “Crisis Center, this is Greer.”
They had a script to follow and protocols to adhere to in all situations. She wasn’t a licensed counselor and if the caller sounded to be in real trouble, she signaled Danni to contact the doctor on call.
“Greer, is that you?” The woman’s voice was soft, insistent.
Her fingers tightened around the phone. Occasionally a caller would ask for her by name but not often and it always unhinged her a little. “Yes, this is Greer.”
“Good. Good. I was hoping you’d answer the phone tonight. You’ve not been at the call center for days.”
She sat straighter. She always kept a clear line between her personal life and the work she did here. “Who am I talking to?”
A hesitation. “You don’t recognize my voice?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
A heavy silence drifted through the line.
Greer shifted in her seat. “Who is this?”
“You should know.” Her voice had an eerily smooth quality.
She began to doodle squares on her pad. “I’m sorry. It’s late. Tell me.”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she teased. “You have to guess.”
She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I’m here to talk if you need help, but I’m not here to play games. Do you want to talk to me about something?”
“I want to talk about someone who takes their own life. Do you think suicide is a sin?”
For a moment the room stilled. She spoke carefully. “I think it’s sad. It’s a terrible shame when a person is so lost they see no way out.”
“But is it a sin?” The last word came out in a hiss. She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and considered signaling Danni. “That’s not for me to say. I know other people more qualified than me to talk to about this.”
“I think you are qualified.”
“I’m not.”
“Didn’t you try and kill yourself? Didn’t you try to take the easy way out, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth. She gripped the phone. Her blood pressure plummeted and she grabbed ahold of the desk to steady herself. She’d changed her name from Elizabeth to Greer to get away from her past mistakes. No one in her current life knew about the past but when she’d held that party on Wednesday night she’d opened a portal to the past.
“Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is I know there was a time you wanted to die more than live.”
She shook her head trying to push back the terror rising in her chest.
A moment’s hesitation followed and then, “I think it’s okay to end the pain when it’s too much.”
Greer had had all kinds of calls. Desperate people. Angry people and yes, some creeps like this one. But this person had her radar standing on end. She rose and snapped her fingers to get Danni’s attention.
The girl saw Greer pointing to her phone and recognized it was a signal to call the police.
Danni nodded and turned to her phone to dial. Seconds later she was talking quietly to the police.
“Greer?” the caller said.
“Yes?”
“Did I lose you for a minute?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about what you said.”
“That suicide is a relief.”
“Right,” she lied.
“You agree?”
She kept her gaze on Danni as if it were a lifeline. “When suicide is an option in someone’s mind they’re in a desperate place. It makes me sad for them and I want to help them get past the pain.”
“Is that possible or are you making that person suffer needlessly?” Urgency lurked behind her words.
“The pain is not forever.”
“Has yours gone away?”
Anxiety banded around her chest. “I’m here to talk about you.”
“I’m fine. It’s you that I worry about.”
“Why do you worry about me?”
No answer.
Danni held up a handwritten sign: COPS TRACING THE CALL.
Greer held her thumb up. “Who is this?”
“You should know me.”
“I’m sorry. I should remember, but I don’t.”
Danni held up another sign: TWO MORE MINUTES AND THEY’LL HAVE IT.
“Are you in pain?” Greer didn’t want an opinion but wanted to keep the caller on the line. Most people liked to talk about themselves, especially when they thought they had a captive audience.
“No. I’m like you. I help those that are hurting,” she said. “Some people aren’t meant to live on this planet. It’s better they move on.”
“At least give me your first name.”
More silence and then, “Looks like our time is up.”
“What do you mean?” Greer said. Less than two minutes. Two lousy minutes. “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Think hard enough, and you’ll figure it out.” A pause. “You should have dug the razor deeper when you sliced your wrists. You didn’t try hard enough to die.”
“Tell me your name!”
She chuckled. “You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool me.” The line went dead, and for several seconds she sat there, her heart pumping in her chest.
“Hey, are you okay?” The sound of Danni’s voice behind her made her jump.
She slammed the phone into the cradle and moved away from the cubicle as if it were a pit of snakes. “That caller gave me the creeps.”
Danni frowned as she moved toward Greer. “Hung up too quickly. The cops couldn’t trace it.”
Greer shook her head, trying to ward off a bone-deep chill. “I think she knew we were tracing her.”
“How?”
She fussed with the bracelets on her wrist. “I don’t know, but she said our time was up.”
Danni cocked her head, studying Greer closely. “What else did she say?”
Some people aren’t meant to live on this planet. “She kept asking me if suicide was a sin.”
Danni planted her hands on her narrow hips. “Judging by the color of your face I’d say she said more than that.”
“It doesn’t matter. We both know strange calls come into this place often enough. We are a hotline, and she was jerking my chain.”
“You’re shaken.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m fine.”
Some people aren’t meant to live on this planet.
Chapter Sixteen
Saturday, June 7, 10 P.M.
Bragg stepped inside his front door and immediately spotted Mitch asleep on the couch. And cradled in his arms was the ugliest damn puppy he’d ever seen. So ugly, he paused to stare. Mitch didn’t stir, but the pup opened his eyes, no, eye, and glared at him as if he were the intruder. The pup growled. Bragg smiled.
Before he could approach, his phone rang so he stepped outside to take the call. “Bragg.”
“Ranger Bragg this is Austin dispatch. We just received a nine-one-one call from the Crisis Center.”
Austin was a big small town and if you had connections word traveled fast. He quickly learned the crisis center had received a threatening call. Normally, he’d not have been alerted, but dispatch indicated the volunteer involved had been Greer Templeton. Days ago, he’d flagged her name, making it clear that if her name came up, he wanted to know about it.
“Thanks.”
He rang off and checked his watch. Ten minutes after ten. If he hustled, he’d catch Greer before she’d left for
the night.
When he pulled up in front of the center, Greer stood by the glass front door with a young girl who looked to be about twenty. Greer walked the girl to her car, wished her a good night, and then headed for her own truck.
“Greer,” he said.
She turned, her expression wide-eyed. He stepped out of the shadows.
He saw her clutching her fingers at her side and realized she held a can of Mace. Dread seeped from her body. She’d struck him as many things, but never jumpy. The caller had done this to her. A primal urge rose up in him, and if he could hunt the caller right now, he’d tear him from limb to limb.
When her gaze met his, the stress eased from her face. He wasn’t sure why that mattered, but it did.
The reverse lights on the dark-haired kid’s car lit up, and she backed up her car. She rolled down her window and glared at Bragg.
She was a slip of a girl, but her eyes burned with ferocity. She held up her phone. “Greer, who is this guy? I have the cops on speed dial.”
Greer shook her head, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Thanks, Danni, but he is the cops. His name is Ranger Bragg.”
“Ranger Bragg.” Danni eyeballed him a moment longer. “And you know him, Greer?”
“I do.”
Bragg held Danni’s gaze as Greer approached him. “We met a few days ago.”
Danni’s gaze didn’t flicker from his. “Name some of the Rangers that work in the Austin office.”