Shirlee McCoy - Running Scared

“You’re right. It is late, and we both need our beauty sleep. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” But she wouldn’t because she’d be hundreds of miles away, trying to find a new identity so that she could sink into obscurity again. She hung up the phone, her muscles leaden and tight as she grabbed her duffel and walked out of the room. She’d leave the satchel with the grade book and ungraded papers. Eventually, someone would come looking for her and find it.

The stairs creaked as she hurried down, the old floorboards groaning beneath her feet as she rushed into the kitchen and scrounged through the cupboards. She didn’t have much. Just a package of crackers, a couple of cans of soup and the cookies she’d shared with Eli a few hours ago. She grabbed one and took a bite as she shoved everything else into her duffel. It tasted like dust, and she nearly choked as she tried to swallow it down.

Sugar could cure a lot of ills, but it did nothing to tame the fear that beat a hard, harsh rhythm in Maggie’s chest. Her picture was on national news programs, and Derrick had always been a news fanatic. Wall Street news. Cable news. Network news. He’d watched it incessantly, and Maggie had often been jealous that he hadn’t spent that time with her.

She’d been such a fool, so confused about what real love was, what true caring felt like.

And now she was going to pay the price.

Again.

She frowned, hurrying back down the hall, silently saying goodbye to the house she’d scrimped and saved to purchase, the dream she’d built in her head.

She pulled open the front door, stepping out onto the porch, the cold wind bathing her hot cheeks and drying the tears that burned behind her eyes. Ice had accumulated on the front porch, and the yard and driveway sparkled with it. Tall pine trees bent beneath the howling wind, and ice fell from their heavy boughs, hitting the ground with a hushed shattering that was so beautiful, so achingly perfect that Maggie paused, wanting to take it all in, preserve the memory so that she would never forget what was possible if she put her mind and heart into it.

A sharp crack split the air as something exploded near Maggie’s feet. Wood flew up and out, digging into her shins, flying into her face. She screamed, falling backward.

Another crack. Another explosion.

Pain.

Blood. Dripping down her arm. Dripping onto the rotted wooden floorboards of the porch.

She screamed again, scrambling back as a figure appeared in the darkness beyond the porch. A hundred yards away. Coming fast.

Get up! Get. Up.

The world in slow motion as she turned, fell into the hallway, kicked the door shut. Hands slipping as she turned the lock. Pulled the bolt. Blood smeared on the door.

Go. Go, go, go.

She ran up the stairs, expecting the door to explode behind her. Expecting a bullet to slam into her back, bring her to her knees.

Her cell phone slipped out of her hands as she pulled it from her pocket, and she scooped it up again. She tried desperately to dial 911, her hand trembling too much. Fingers hitting the wrong buttons.

Please, God. Please!

A loud bang had her screaming again, lunging for the bedroom door, slamming it shut, turning the old-fashioned skeleton key as the 9-1-1 operator answered.

Another bang as Maggie shouted her address, shouted that an intruder was in her house.

And then silence, deep and ominous and filled with warning.

“Ma’am? Are you still there? Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Maggie responded, backing away from the bedroom door, her heart thudding a hard, painful beat.

Was he in the house? Creeping up the stairs? Standing outside the door?

“Police are in route. Are you in a safe place?”

“No.”

“Can you get to one?”

“No.”

Was that the loose floorboard on the landing creaking? Was that a whisper of fabric, a sigh of breath?

“Do you have a weapon?”

“No,” she barely managed to whisper, as she glanced around the room, trying to find something she could use to defend herself.

“The police are almost there. Stay on the phone with me, okay? Okay?”

But Maggie couldn’t respond, didn’t dare speak or move or breathe. Someone was outside the door. Someone who tapped softly on the thick wood, wiggled the handle as the sound of sirens drifted into the room.

Maggie backed up, moving toward the window, dizzy with fear, sick with it. Waiting for help to come, for the door to explode. For Derrick to appear. Black eyes and hair and snarling lips. Coming to do exactly what he promised he would when Maggie had walked out of his life.

But she wasn’t the woman she’d been all those years ago. She’d changed. Grown stronger, more determined, and she wasn’t going to wait around for whoever was on the other side of the door to break in and finish what he’d started.

She yanked open the window, eyeing the ground as sirens screamed up her driveway. Voices shouted. A gunshot split the air.

And then there was silence filled with nothing but wind and ice and the terrible beat of Maggie’s heart.

Kane hovered in the doorway of the hotel suite’s only bedroom, watching as Eli climbed into bed. He wanted to cross the threshold and tuck his son in as he had so many times when Eli was little, but the dark look Eli shot in his direction froze him in place.

Give him time.

It was what Kane’s mother and father had said. What his sister had said. What the experts had said. It wasn’t what Kane’s heart said. It said fix everything now. Swoop in and take control like he’d done when he’d worked as an attorney. But reconnecting with Eli was going to be a lot more difficult than bringing a case to trial had ever been.

At least he’d finally gotten the kid to bathe and get ready for bed. That had been a battle Kane hadn’t expected to fight with a child Eli’s age. Only seeing the panic in Eli’s eyes when sleep had been mentioned had kept Kane from insisting that his son go to bed at a reasonable time.

Now, at nearly one in the morning, Eli’s excitement and adrenaline seemed to have worn off, and his pale face and the dark circles beneath his eyes hinted at an exhaustion that went far beyond simple lack of sleep.

“Do you want a drink of water?” Kane asked, the question as lame and useless as he felt.

“No. Thank you.” Eli turned onto his side so that his back was to Kane, his red hair just showing over the blanket he’d pulled up around his shoulders.

That was Kane’s cue to walk away. He knew it but couldn’t quite get his feet to move.

“What time does Mom and Dad’s plane arrive tomorrow?” his sister Jenna asked, and Kane forced himself to turn away from his son and face her.

The look of sympathy on her face let him know just how pitiful he looked—a father who couldn’t even offer his son a kiss goodnight. “Ten.”

“Do they want me to pick them up at the airport?”

“No, they’re renting a car.” Kane moved across the room, grabbing the cup of coffee he’d left on a corner table. It was cold and bitter, but he downed it anyway, his throat parched from too many emotions and the strain of holding them in.

“Keep drinking coffee and you’ll never get to sleep.” Jenna rose from the couch, stretched to her full five-foot height. Short red hair spiked around a pale, pretty face. She looked exhausted.

“I’m too hyped up to sleep.”

“Maybe so, but we’ve been up since yesterday morning. It’s time to crash. Tomorrow is another day, after all, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty that needs doing.” She ran a hand over her hair and smiled. Of Kane’s three sisters, Jenna was the only one still single and childless, and she’d been quick to volunteer to hop on a plane and fly to Spokane, Washington, with him. It had been Jenna who’d booked a hotel room. Jenna who’d thought to rent the SUV. Jenna who had been the calm in the storm of Kane’s emotions, but two years fighting leukemia had taken a lot out of her, and it showed in her hollow cheeks and dark-rimmed eyes.