Veiled Passages by Terri Reid Page B

to Ian. “But she shouldn’t have had to have an ax in her hand,” he said. “She shouldn’t have had to deal with danger when she was visiting her daughter.”
    Leaning back against the door, Ian closed his eyes for a moment. “She’s the wife of a police officer and the mother of four more,” he said. “Aye, Mary’s not officially an officer anymore, but really, do you think Margaret hasn’t dealt with danger everyday of her life?  At least, in this case, she was the one in control.  She wasn’t at home worrying about someone else; she was doing something about it.”
    “But it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen,” Bradley insisted.
    “Dinna pour water on a drowned moose,” Ian said.
    “I beg your pardon?” Bradley asked.
    Ian grinned. “It’s over, it’s done, and there is nothing you can do at this point to change anything. Just remember, you’re not the bad guy, Copper is. Don’t get distracted with guilt and self-recrimination. It isn’t going to help anyone right now.”
    Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I know you’re right…”
    “Hey, no problem,” he replied. “Oh, and one more thing.”
    Bradley turned to him. “What?”
    “Never, ever, make your mother-in-law angry,” he said with a grin and then handed him another cookie.
     

Chapter Twenty-four
    All the lights in the house were out and Copper sat in the dining room, one tapering candle illuminating the table top.  He was perched on the edge of a wooden chair, the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows, his face unshaven, his hair in disarray and his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.  Lifting the bottle once again, the edge clinked against the shot glass, causing the dark amber liquid to slosh up against the side of the glass.  He ran his finger against the outside of the glass, catching the escaped whiskey and licked away the errant alcohol. 
    He stared at the brimming glass for a moment, then lifted it to his lips and tossed it down his throat.  The whiskey burned and his eyes watered, but the heat was welcoming and the ensuing numbness a respite from the voices that continued to taunt him about his failure the night before.
    His hand shaking, he reached out for the bottle again, lifted it and poured. A few drops of liquid dripped from the bottle into the cup.  He shook it, but no more whiskey came out. Enraged, he whipped the bottle across the room and felt a rush of satisfaction when it exploded against the wall. He grabbed the glass, drank the remnants of alcohol in it and then threw the glass in the same direction as the bottle, laughing slowly at the sound of the impact.
    Pushing himself up from his chair, he stumbled across the room in the near darkness, and headed towards his bedroom. A nightlight cast a dim glow on one wall.  He staggered toward it, his eyes glistening with eagerness and his tongue moistening his lips feverishly.  Photos, hundreds of them, lined the wall, producing a twisted collage of images of Mary interspersed with magazine cutouts of scantily clad and naked women in various seductive poses.  He ran his fingers across the images, as if he were touching flesh, and felt his body respond. “Soon,” he whispered, as spittle dripped from the side of his mouth. “Soon I’ll have you just where I want you, Mary O’Reilly.”
    He reached up, grabbed the edge of a centerfold and ripped it violently from the wall. Holding it out, hands fisted on either side of the paper, he studied the provocative image for a moment.  Dropping one side, he reached up to the wall again and pulled down a photo of Mary he had taken of her in front of her office. Frantically, he hurried over to the dresser in the corner of the room and laid the centerfold down.  Grabbing scissors, he crudely cut the head off of Mary’s photo and laid it over the head on the centerfold.  Hands shaking, he applied several strips of tape over and around the head to keep it in place.  Finally satisfied, he gripped the