Amy Frazier - The Trick To Getting A Mom

She scanned her surroundings. The house was minuscule. Kit hadn’t noticed—or felt—anything amiss when she’d clambered over the yard sale mess on the porch. The front door opened directly into a living space that elled on the left into a kitchen and eating area. In daylight she could see the entire area from where she stood. Her eyes now accustomed to the dusk, she detected no out-of-place shape or movement.

But she sensed something—or someone.

Straight ahead, the door to the single bedroom hung open. Kit could see most of the room, the double bed, the single dresser. She couldn’t see into the bathroom off the bedroom or out onto the back porch, which opened off the kitchen. Never lifting her gaze from the bedroom doorway, she stood on one foot and then removed a boot. Prepared to flee out the front, she flung it with all her might through the bedroom doorway. The boot landed with a thud against the far wall, the noise echoing throughout the mostly empty house.

Nothing but the racing of her heart.

She slipped her foot out of the other boot, then crept barefoot across the living room into the kitchen. It, too, was empty and silent. She felt a little foolish, Kinsey Millhone in a Nancy Drew town.

Peering through the window over the kitchen sink, she couldn’t see anything on the porch. She tried the back door. It was also unlocked. How many men had Babe given keys? Every sense alert, she stepped outside.

Twilight had receded into night, but the moon hadn’t risen yet. The house was set back from the road in a thick copse of evergreens that hid the neighbors on either side and out back. Kit scanned the line of trees.

Off to the right, a few yards into the trees, was a huge granite outcropping. She couldn’t see it now in the dark, but beyond the trees where the rocks were, a small glow caught Kit’s attention. Too orange for a firefly, it was more like the lit end of a cigarette. As she stared, frozen, the light arced then disappeared.

Sometimes retreat was the better part of valor.

Kit backed into the house and locked the door, jamming one of the kitchen chairs under the knob. Hefting the other chair to the front door, she locked and jammed that too. There were only five windows in the entire house. She checked that they were all shut and locked. It would be stuffy, but in her travels she’d experienced stuffier. Physical discomfort barely registered on her sensory radar. Emotional discomfort…well, better not go there.

She grabbed her sleeping bag and unrolled it under the kitchen table. An intruder would least expect to find her there, although she hoped she was just being paranoid. Too much time spent in this stupid prying town.

An intruder? More likely kids, hearing the rumors of Babe’s flight, had checked to see if the house was empty for a smoke or an illegal beer scarfed from Mom and Dad’s fridge.

Kit quickly shed her jeans, then crawled on top of the sleeping bag in her tank top and panties. Lying under the table, she snorted softly at herself. She should have been wearing her cap-cam. Her Seafaring Cecil fans would have found a video version of this latest adventure a hoot. It would certainly blow her tough-guy persona.

She breathed slowly, trying to regain her center. Four slow breaths in, four out. She tried to focus on a pleasant memory—kayaking in Tasmania. But her mind wandered to Alex McCabe and her small kindnesses.

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