Shadow of Love Read Free Page B

against the fury of the elements that raged outside. A gust of ice-cold wind pulled on her clothes, drops of rain finding their way under the hood and touching her face like ice-cold fingers. ‘Let’s run.’ They ran to the car parked at the back of the parking lot, its dark shape promising shelter and warmth.
    The restaurant was just a few minutes from the house where Marlene and Sophie lived. Emily had moved out the same year she had started university, eager to start a new chapter of her life without the burden of memories embedded in the home in which she had grown up. As much as she loved its rambling garden and old-fashioned charm, too much had happened for her to see it through the lenses of childhood innocence and happiness. The years after her father’s passing away and her stepmom’s third marriage had destroyed the delicate web of attraction the home had held for so long.
    John Beggins had spent only two years in his marital bliss with Marlene, a sudden heart attack claiming his life just as silently and unobtrusively as everything else in his life. Emily found him dead behind the counter, the polishing cloth still firmly clutched in his hand.
    A handsome sum of money left to her from her mother’s family had helped to provide for Emily’s studies and for a down payment on a flat downtown, away from the shadows of the past. She had ignored the halfhearted protests from Marlene and promised to stay in touch as much as possible, especially since her involvement in the life of the restaurant was crucial. She had spent four years studying nutrition, her degree a type of homage paid to generations of the Beggins family involved in the restaurant business.
    When she had returned to the restaurant, she was confronted with all the changes Marlene had initiated, the change to a more exotic cuisine being only the beginning. Suffering from depression and a bipolar disorder, her stepmother struggled with reviving the place, her manic episodes resulting in changes that were short-lived and not always beneficial for the business. After suffering a series of financial setbacks, Marlene considered selling the whole business to anyone interested, but the will of her late husband, Emily’s father, prevented her from proceeding. Keeping the restaurant was the condition for receiving a yearly bonus for both herself and Sophie; the injection of cash it provided was far too lucrative to be jeopardized by a sale.
    While leaving Marlene half of the business for herself and her daughter, Emily’s father had left the other half to his birth daughter, hoping she would decide to continue with the family tradition. Emily knew how deeply resentful both her stepmom and her sister were after learning about the condition, their idea to sell everything and cash in destroyed before it could take shape.
    Emily’s return from university and her new-found confidence in the business was starting to pay off, the restaurant being resurrected from the brink of utter disaster. Numbers were still in the red, and they needed a miracle to be able to breathe freely, but the direction the business was taking was good, and the future looked less bleak than it had the year before.
    Emily slipped into the driver’s seat, her teeth already chattering from the icy gusts that had somehow found a way to sneak past the protection of the raincoat she was wearing. She would drop off Sophie at the main house before going to her own flat. She did occasionally spend a night at the house, feeling sorry for Sophie at the times when Marlene was hospitalized. The house was old and rather large, the empty rooms and creaky corridors scary in the darkness of night.
    ‘ Listen, Sophie,’ she said, turning to her sister who had been inspecting herself in the little mirror, surveying the damage done by the rain. Not that she could notice any, Emily thought as she started the car and pressed the heater controls, eager to warm up her frozen hands. ‘If anything goes wrong,