Reasonable Doubt Read Free

bed and carefully slid the door into place, securing it with a couple of bungee cords and some rope. She replaced everything in the pile exactly as she’d found it and drove home, eager to begin her work.
    A light rain started to fall as she pulled into her driveway. She jumped out of the truck and rushed to get the door into her workshop before it could get too wet, thankful she’d found it before it had sat in the rain. Once inside, she spent a few minutes moving things around, trying to decide where to put her new project. When she’d converted the garage into her workshop, she worked hard to create an efficient space, but as each potential project piled up, she realized the organizational skills she’d relied on in her past didn’t fit with her new creative career. At any given time, she had four to five projects going at once. As much as she enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment that came with finishing a new piece of furniture using the materials others had abandoned, she loved the freedom of bouncing from project to project more.
    This old door would soon be new again, given a new purpose. A desk perhaps. Or maybe a wardrobe. The first step would be stripping away the beaten finish. The lead glass was a rare find and she might use it on another project altogether. It would make a beautiful wall cabinet.
    Ellery looked at her current project, a custom order. The buyers wanted a large dining room table constructed from the old boards they’d saved when the unstable barn on their property had to be torn down. She’d finished the construction, and now it was time to sand the piece. She pulled a face mask from a drawer and fastened it in place. She loaded her sander with an eight grit belt and began to grind away the rough surface of the wood. The boards she’d chosen for the tabletop were each unique, and she loved bringing them new life. When the initial sanding was done, she reached for her orbital sander and applied a finer grit to add extra polish to the surface without taking anything away from the natural characteristics of the grain. She took her time, and when she was done sanding, she circled the table, smoothing her fingers across every inch of the surface until she was satisfied she’d done her best.
    As she pulled off her mask, her stomach rumbled and she realized she was starving. She looked out the window and saw it was dark outside. Once again, she’d completely lost track of time. If not for the fact she was hungry, she might have stayed outside all night. Making a mental note to get a small refrigerator for the studio, she put away the sander and hung her canvas apron on a hook by her workbench.
    When she opened the door to her workshop a thick wall of wet obscured her view of the house. The light rain from earlier had turned into a heavy downpour, and she was amazed she hadn’t noticed the growing storm. By the time she reached the back porch, she was drenched in the cold wet of the early spring rain. She shrugged out of her coat and boots, left them on the porch, and walked into her chilly house.
    She must’ve forgotten to turn the heat up this morning. A glance at the clock on the oven told her it was six thirty and she’d been in her workshop for several hours. Her cell phone lay next to the stove—another thing she’d completely forgotten. How quickly she’d gone from having it with her always to forgetting it even existed. She started to walk away, but habit drove her to give it a quick glance before she went to change clothes. There was one message and three missed calls. She scrolled through the numbers. One was from April, the woman she’d dated a couple of times over the past month, and the other two were from a number she didn’t recognize. She clicked through to hear the message and April’s smooth, bright voice came through the line. “Hey, it’s April. Just checking in to see what you’re up to. Looks like we’re in for some stormy weather. They say it might even snow.