Flood Zone. Dana Mentink

I was going to kill someone, or burn a house in this town,” she said, after drinking deeply of the tea, “that’s not the one I would have picked. And by the way, you were there, too, at the scene. Did you have something to do with Cora’s death?”

      Dallas resisted the urge to raise his voice. “If you thought I did, a quick phone call to the police would take care of it. You came here for another reason.”

      “I wanted to know about Cora, and I’m not asking the police for personal reasons.”

      Very personal, judging from the flicker of emotion that pinched the corners of her mouth. Impasse. They’d gotten there, he could tell. Whatever her motives, he wasn’t going to pry them out of her. Women didn’t work that way, he’d learned. Instead he sat back in the chair and waited.

      * * *

      Mia’s mouth went dry as the garage door stopped with a groan, halfway up. The man hopped off the step and ran to the car. He was coming to drag her out. The old car had no automatic locks so she slammed the button down and realized in a hot wave of panic that he was not headed to her side, but Gracie’s.

      “Lock the door, Gracie,” Mia shouted.

      Gracie sat frozen, staring at her mother.

      Mia dove across her and hammered the lock, the back door, as well. The man banged his palms against the glass.

      Gracie screamed. “Stop, stop!”

      Mia nearly screamed too until the man stepped away suddenly. He picked up a metal bucket and swung it hard at the passenger window with a deafening crash until the glass was etched through with cracks.

      “Get down onto the floor,” Mia yelled to Gracie, “and cover your head with your hands.”

      She yanked the car into Reverse. After one quick breath, she stomped on the gas. The car shot backwards into the garage door. There was a terrible moment when the roof met the unyielding mass and she thought she had made a fatal error. Groaning metal, the sound of breaking glass and then quite without warning the car punched through, shearing the garage door into a crumpled mess, exploding onto the rain-slicked driveway.

      Mia was oblivious to the damage. Only two facts remained, her car was still functioning and they were free from the garage. She reversed down the slope, cranked the car into Drive and sped off down the road, putting as much distance between the man and Gracie as she possibly could. One mile, two, her stomach remained in a tight knot, fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

      She forced several breaths in and out before she could coax her voice into action. “Gracie Louise, are you hurt?”

      Gracie’s tiny voice floated up from the floor. “Scary.”

      “You’re right,” she said, relief making her voice thick. “But it’s okay now. You can climb back on the seat. Be careful of the glass.”

      Gracie emerged like a hare having narrowly escaped the fox. Her lips were parted, eyes wide and wet. “Mommy, that was a bad man.”

      Mia gave a shaky laugh and took her daughter’s hand. “Yes, he was.”

      “Why was he in our house?”

      She swallowed. “I don’t know, but we’ll go someplace safe until we find out, okay?”

      “Where?”

      The million dollar question. The nearest hotel was an hour away, and they didn’t have the money to stay in one for long anyway. Rain splattered through the side window that had broken when it impacted the garage door. She felt the bitter tide of anger rise as she contemplated her own helplessness. Mia risked a quick stop, engine running, to move Gracie to the backseat and buckle her into her booster. She kissed her and caressed her daughter’s plump cheeks. “I’m going to figure out something, okay?”

      Gracie nodded, shaking the box of macaroni she still clung to. “But I’m hungry.”

      Mia smiled as she climbed back into the driver’s seat, but worry soon overwhelmed her. She didn’t even have a cell phone to call the police. The storm intensified as she drove along, rattling the sides of the car. If she could call her sister for advice...

      Your sister who is busy with her new husband and her new life. They were tight now, together again after all the anguish Mia had caused, but still there remained in the shadows between them, a heavy weight of guilt. It stemmed from the fact that her sister had been right about Hector when Mia refused to hear a bad word about him, a feeling that burgeoned during her time in jail with all its horrors. Because of Hector, Antonia was almost killed and there was nobody to blame for bringing him into their lives but Mia. No, she would not call Antonia.

      “Why not call Hector?” her derisive thoughts chided her. He was sitting around in prison with nothing much to do and a reach that seemed to exceed the metal walls that caged him. She could grovel even more and throw herself on Dr. Elias’s mercy. Was there any pride left to salvage? Self-pity gave way to a hot flood of determination.

      Stand on your own two feet, for once in your life.

      Mile after mile gave her no clarity, no better sense of what to do. Only the instinct to keep going, to get away from whoever had violated their home, kept her pressing the car forward. She’d made up her mind to stop at the next town she came to and call the police when she realized where she was, at the entrance to the trailer park where Dallas lived. She’d given him a lift there once when his truck had engine trouble.

      She saw the silhouette of his vehicle, and she pulled her car next to it, motor still running.

      “Where are we?” Gracie said, unbuckling her strap.

      “Nowhere, I was just stopping to rest my eyes for a minute.” What was she doing? She would not go to Dallas for help, the man who already seemed to have a strange influence over her pulse. An image of long-stemmed yellow roses floated into her mind. It was followed by a vision of Hector, the man whom she’d loved desperately, blindly, the husband who lied to her from the first kiss and right on until his arrest for drug dealing and later for the attempted abduction of her sister. Fool, fool, fool. Tears brimmed, captive in her eyes.

      She swallowed hard. “Put your seat belt back on, we’re not stopping here.”

      “But there’s Juno,” Gracie gabbled, shoving open the door and hopping out.

      “Get back in the car right now, Gracie Louise,” Mia said, noting the spill of light from Dallas’s door as he emerged onto the trailer steps, peering into the darkness.

      “Hi, Dallas,” Gracie called. “Can you make me some mac and cheese?”

      Mia sighed. God could not lead her to another dark-haired man who would prove her a fool again. If that was His plan, Mia was going to make one of her own. Jaw tense, she stepped out of the car and went to retrieve her daughter.