White Space Season 1

hers, then quickly drifted to Cassidy’s neck, then her shoulders, then up and along the length of her arms.
    Cassidy moaned, letting her mind wander to her sister.
    What would she think?
    Sarah’s dead, she’d be happy for you.
    Cassidy ignored the screaming inside her and kissed Jon harder, her hands drifting down toward his belt buckle.
    Jon wasn’t wearing a belt, so Cassidy started unfastening the buttons on his fly instead.
    His hand slipped up the front of her shirt, his thumb hooking into the front of Cassidy’s bra, then followed the natural slope to the middle of her left breast. He cruised around the edge of her nipple as she moaned louder, then squealed.
    Cassidy pulled herself from Jon, then climbed onto the mattress, pulling him by the hand up behind her.
    She peeled the tee from her body, then unhooked her bra and tossed it on the floor. Jon had her right nipple, the one he’d missed earlier, warming beneath the heat of his hot mouth as Cassidy’s body made rainbows on the bed, rising and falling as Jon crossed her body with his lips, kissing every inch, like the million times he never had before.
    Cassidy let him kiss her, slowly enjoying her body. She was surprised how long Jon was able to draw out the foreplay, especially considering the alcohol soaking his blood.
    She slid his hand around his hard cock, and he moaned, “Oh, Sarah.”
    She cringed, but only for a moment. And then there was a second where she thought he might realize what he’d said. But then she felt his animal side take over, and she knew they were seconds from changing things between them forever. She nibbled on his ear and whispered permission.
    “It’s okay to think of Sarah when you fuck me,” she said.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 5 — Liz Heller

    Friday night…

    Liz lay in the darkness with the low whoosh of Aubrey’s fan on the baby monitor the only thing sparing her room from total silence.
    While she was glad to have Alex home safe and sound, she couldn’t help but worry what tomorrow would bring. She would be calling Chief Brady in the morning to let him know that Alex had returned home. Brady had insisted that he speak with Alex. But Liz had to wonder if “talking” was just a precursor to an arrest.
    In many ways, her son’s fate seemed tied to the fate of the boy Alex put into a coma. And given that Manny Ortega — the boy her husband had put into a coma — just died, Liz couldn’t help but worry.
    How many deaths would her family be held responsible for? And how could they ever stay on Hamilton Island? Where could they even go? It wasn’t like she was going to get an insurance payout from her husband’s suicide which she could use to pay off her mortgage and move far away. And they had maybe four months savings, at most, before she’d need to go back to work — assuming she could go back to the school. Even if they would take her back, she wasn’t sure she could go back without constantly worrying that someone would target her, or eventually her daughter, once she was in kindergarten.
    Liz closed her eyes and prayed that God would make everything okay.
    She also prayed that the private investigator, Brock Houser, would find something on Roger’s flash drive which would help her make sense of the senseless. Beneath the still in the room and the whoosh from the baby monitor, Liz slowly drifted to sleep.

    **

    Liz woke to the sound of Aubrey giggling, a sound which carried the same creepy feeling it had earlier in the week when she thought she’d heard a voice in her daughter’s room.
    Aubrey giggled again, but it was a wide-awake-sounding giggle, not something that made her laugh in her sleep.
    Liz opened her eyes and saw the time — 1:11 a.m. – for one second before the clock blinked on and off, along with the monitor.
    The power went off again, and then on.
    The clock blinked 12:00 a.m.
    Something in the back of Liz’s brain was drawn to the time, 1:11, but she was still too thick in her sleep to effectively connect the dots.
    “Da-da,” Aubrey said over the monitor.
    “Shh,” a voice whispered.
    Liz felt as if someone poured ice water over her entire body.
    She leaped from her bed, threw her door open, and ran into the hallway. She grabbed Aubrey’s doorknob, turned, and swung the door open.
    And there, standing in front of Aubrey’s crib, was Roger.
    Except, it wasn’t completely Roger. It was as if she were watching a ghosted image on a TV station which wasn’t really coming in,