“Well, we better hurry up. I’m not getting any younger, and the pool of decent men is shrinking every day. With my luck, I’ll finally find Mr. Right and then find out I’m related to him.”
“Anything back on your DNA tests?”
Jules had been adopted as a newborn, and she’d recently become determined to find her birth parents through any means possible.
“It’ll be any day now. I should probably take those little tubes on dates with me. ‘Here, spit, so I know we’re not related.’” Jules groaned. “Can you grab dinner? I didn’t even get to eat before I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I would love to, but I told Bryan I’d be home. He probably already started cooking.”
“Seriously, Beck? He’s handsome, and he cooks?”
“Wanna come over for dinner? I’m sure Bryan wouldn’t mind. It’s not like he didn’t know we were a package deal when he married me.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll grab something on my way home. I’ve got some proofs I need to go through tonight anyway. I just need to figure out how to sneak back to my car.”
“My car’s in the back. Want me to drive you?”
Jules dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “Nah, I’ve done this before. I can handle it. Tell Bryan hey for me. Call me tomorrow.” She sauntered out of the office, and the bell sounded as Tonya let her friend out the front door.
Purse in hand, Becky pushed open the back door and took a quick look outside. The lot was dark, an eerie silence hanging in the air. Now she regretted not making Jules walk out with her. Crinkling her nose, she pulled the door closed.
As she stuck her head out the office door to look for Tonya, the sounds of a one-sided conversation echoed in the empty store. Elbow on the front counter and her cell phone to her ear, Tonya glanced over at Becky. Without missing a beat in her call, she lifted her hand and gave a slight wave goodbye.
Becky waved back but lingered in the doorway until it was clear Tonya wasn’t ready to go. A twinge of guilt swept through her that Bryan had already waited so long for dinner. She headed back into the office. After grabbing her keys off the desk, Becky pushed open the back door again. She took a deep breath and headed out into the darkness.
Chapter Two
Becky
Becky scanned the small employee lot behind their row of stores. She and Tonya had the only two cars left in the otherwise empty lot. Her gaze drifted skyward. No help there. The cloudy day had dulled the shine of what there was of the moon. High atop a pole at the entrance, a dirty globe threw off a bit of dingy light.
She frowned as the door slammed behind her. The darkness had always made her wary, set her nerves on edge. If she couldn’t see into the shadows, how could she possibly know there wasn’t anything there? It was irrational, yet she just couldn’t escape the feeling that someone could be hiding, ready to pounce.
As a car unexpectedly made its way up the side street, she flinched. After one last look down the length of the parking lot, she was satisfied she was alone. With her keys gripped firmly in the palm of her hand, she scurried to her car.
Her teeth chattered slightly, the shiver only partly due to the temperature. There was a slight nip in the air, an unusually late cold front pushing down from the north. This brisk weather was refreshing but temporary, one of the benefits of living in North Florida.
Their house, though older, had a fireplace they didn’t get to use very often. She hoped Bryan had restocked the firewood. This was a perfect night to light it, and it might be their last chance for a while. They never had much of a spring and usually went barreling right into summer.
As she glanced around her car, she pushed the clicker on her key fob and opened the door. The inside of the vehicle illuminated. She slid in, the overhead light the security blanket that calmed her racing pulse. She slammed the door, then hit the button to lock it, and exhaled.
She sent a quick text to Bryan. Leaving store now. See you soon!
Her phone buzzed with his response: Home from the gym. Starting dinner. As if on cue, her stomach growled. She didn’t blame it for protesting. The day had been busy, and there hadn’t been much time to eat.
She pulled out of the parking lot, then made the turn onto the side street. It brought her around to the main road in front of the store. There was no sign of Jules. By now, she was probably halfway across the courtyard back toward Riley’s.
The streetlights cast a soft haze over the road, but she was the lone set of headlights. As she passed the front of the store, she glanced inside. Most of the stores on their side of The Village were dark, but the boutique was lit up against the night, on display for anyone driving by. Tonya hadn’t moved, still standing at the front counter where Becky had left her with the phone to her ear. It was a good thing she hadn’t waited.
Twenty minutes and she’d be home. The drive took her mostly on back roads to get to the highway for the three short exits to her house. Without the sun to keep it warm, the inside of the car had gotten chilly. She turned on the heat, a rarity for Florida weather. A stale smell wafted from the vents as they blew out a bit of warm air.
The rural road she was on was starting to show some life. As she approached the entrance to the highway, she hit her blinker and merged to enter.
After turning on the radio, she punched the preset stations one by one. As the disc jockey offered up the best hits of the fifties and sixties, she paused, her finger hovering momentarily over the next button. A dull ache filled her chest, and she leaned back in her seat. This music took her back to her childhood. Her mother’s fingers flying across piano keys. The record collection her dad kept in the old wooden crate.
The first few bars of the next song were instantly familiar—one of her father’s favorites. Most times when she was thinking of him, she felt like she got a little hello from Heaven that he was still looking out for her.
“Hey, Daddy, I miss you,” she whispered in the dark interior of the car.
She peered down to adjust the volume. As she brought her gaze back to the road, a bright light blinded her. She gasped involuntarily.
“What the—” She winced and blinked hard. The night and the road in front of her disappeared as if she had stared directly into the sun. She crushed the brake pedal to the floor in a frenzied panic as she couldn’t see where she was going—she couldn’t see anything. Her heart thudded. A clammy sweat formed on her face and body as adrenaline coursed through her like a sudden flash flood.
The car skidded out of control. She didn’t know how to correct it. Were there cars to the right? To the left? Was she even still on the road?
Every part of her body tensed as it braced for an impact that seemed inevitable.
Mere seconds felt like minutes as images of Bryan, her mom, her dad, and a newborn baby tumbled over each other in her mind. And then, just as quickly as the stark white light had taken her sight, the car came to a sudden abrupt stop.