Dying Scream Read Free

doors, and clicked on the radio. She cranked a Sheryl Crow tune. The singer’s words and melody rolled over her and coaxed away her fears. She wouldn’t think about the damn card. Her only priority today was getting the graves moved.
    Adrianna fired up the engine, backed out of her driveway, and soon was skimming east down I–64. She elbowed aside thoughts of the note and used the drive time to call clients on her cell.
    She owned Barrington Designs, an interior design business that specialized in home décor. A business that required not only an eye for design and color, but a talent for managing thousands of details that fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Fabric colors. Shades of tile. Hardware. Furniture selection. All had to be considered, chosen, and monitored. It took endless follow-up calls to keep her projects on time and budget.
    By the time Adrianna exited the interstate and wound down the old country roads to the estate, she’d contacted two painters, a wallpaper hanger, and a furniture company in North Carolina. She concluded her last call as she reached the estate’s white brick pillars.
    The grass by the entrance was overgrown. The paint on the estate’s columns was chipped and several of the top bricks were missing thanks to age and a hurricane that had hit the county in late August.
    A savvy seller in this slowing real estate market would have worried about curb appeal, but the estate had sold within hours of being listed. The buyer, William Mazur, was a powerfully built, fortysomething man with buzzed hair and sun-weathered skin. He had explained that he had always loved the property and had dreamed of owning it since he’d first moved to the area. He’d paid her asking price and his only stipulation was that she remove the family graveyard from the estate. Having graves on the property was too unsettling for his new wife. She’d agreed immediately.
    Now as she drove through the pillars toward the house, she fended off jabs of guilt. The Thorntons had treasured the Colonies. So much family history. So much tradition. And she was selling out.
    Her mind drifted to the last time she and Craig had visited. Just a week before their late September wedding, her mother-in-law-to-be Frances Thornton had asked the couple to travel to the estate and place flowers on the graves of the departed Thorntons. Frances and Adrianna’s own mother Margaret Barrington had been friends since college and Adrianna had grown up loving Aunt Frances and would have done anything for the woman who by then was weeks away from losing her battle with cancer.
     
    “Craig, you really need to take this seriously,” Adrianna had said as she’d knelt in front of the grave.
    Craig’s thick blond hair hung restlessly over crystal blue eyes and he reminded her more of a boy than a man. He wore khakis, a white polo, and Italian loafers with no socks. “I am taking this seriously, babe.” He checked his Rolex watch. “How long do you think this is going to take?”
    “I don’t know. We’re supposed to put flowers on each grave and have a moment of silence.”
    “What’s with the moment of silence?”
    “I don’t know. This is your family tradition, not mine.”
    Adrianna laid the lilies on the grave and rose, brushing the leaves from her designer jeans. “Now take my hand and let’s bow our heads.”
    His smile was loving, indulgent. “You worry about the details so much, Adrianna.”
    And he never worried. “Traditions hold families together.”
    “They suffocate me.”
    “Craig.” The warning note in her voice reminded him that she’d broken their engagement last summer. She’d grown tired of the parties and the glib jokes. She had needed a man, not a boy. Only a great deal of pressure from her mother and his mother had brought her back to him at summer’s end. This was their second chance.
    Craig straightened his shoulders and his expression became somber. “Okay, I’ll be more serious. I promise.” He