Desperate Rescue. Barbara Phinney

she ignored her growing empathy. “Go away. I’m tired and I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”

      “Not even when it means saving someone else?”

      She gave him a level stare. “If you think pushing guilt on me is going to crumble my resolve, think again. They want to be there. Besides, what are you hoping will happen? That she’ll just leave and walk into some counseling service just because you’ve asked her to?”

      He blinked, swallowed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m at the end of my rope. If I weren’t so desperate, I wouldn’t have come here to ask you for help. I was hoping you could talk to her.”

      Her heart tightened, but she gritted her teeth. “I had hoped the same thing.” She’d done more than hoped. She’d considered kidnapping, as dangerous and traumatic as it could be. Now Trisha was dead. “Leave your sister alone. She wants to be there.”

      With that, she walked away from the door and into the living room.

      With rattled nerves, she sank down onto her secondhand couch. Why, Lord? Why did You drop him into my life? He’ll bring nothing but grief. Why do You want me to suffer so much? It’s not fair.

      Lois Smith, her right-side neighbor, had told her to pray, but her gritty prayers had a petulant edge. And God never answered her, anyway.

      The outside fell quiet. She liked the stillness, the peace it could bring. But today? No.

      Abruptly, the phone rang and she let out a short cry.

      Eli? Did he have a cell phone and was now calling her from her front door? Shaking, she listened to the insistent rings. Four, five…She snatched the receiver. “Leave me alone!”

      “Kaylee, dear? What’s wrong? Who was that man at your door?”

      She sank against the wall. Lois. With their homes being so close, Lois’s wisdom, along with her hugs and a hot cup of tea, were barely ten feet away. All that stood between them were some dying pansies and a chipped, cracked walkway.

      No. Today, Eli Nash stood between them.

      Kaylee fought back tears and after a swallow whispered, “That was Noah Nash’s brother.”

      She heard Lois’s little gasp. “Call the police, dear!”

      “No. I think he left.”

      “I’ll check.” She could hear the older woman walk to her front window. “Yes, he’s gone. Kaylee, dear, do you need some company?”

      She wasn’t the kind to grab company when it was offered, unlike so many of the friendly people here in New Brunswick. But Lois would provide a hug and a sympathetic ear, make the tea and offer advice if asked.

      And if asked, the sweet old lady would suggest she help Eli. The Christian thing to do. Not what she wanted to hear right now.

      Kaylee bit her lip, not wanting to snub her neighbor, and not sure she wanted to be alone.

      “I’ll be right over,” Lois decided after the pause. “Let me put the dog out first. He hasn’t been out yet today.”

      Minutes later, sympathy crinkling the skin between her sparse, graying eyebrows, Lois arrived. She held Kaylee’s keys in her thin, arthritic hands. “I found this in the lock. Look at you! You’ve had a fright! You could use some hot tea.” She bustled into the kitchen. Kaylee shuffled in behind and dropped into the nearest chair.

      “What did that man want?” Lois asked.

      She rubbed her forehead. “His sister’s in the cult and he wants me to go back in to talk to her.”

      “Oh, my! What did you tell him?”

      “I refused. I can’t go back there.” She watched Lois pour the tea, thinking of all those times she’d been monitored by the women in the compound. And ogled by some of the men. Never having a moment to herself.

      It had pushed her, a natural introvert, to the point of desperation. Noah had known what would grate at her. She hadn’t fallen under his spell as quickly as Trisha, but the months of poor food, cold nights and raw nerves had lowered her resistance. Then the unthinkable happened.

      Noah had begun to make sense.

      Lois squeezed her hand. “You’ll get over this. Trust the Lord. He’ll do what’s right. He knows where you are in your life journey and will meet you right there, if you ask Him.”

      “He’s not moving fast enough,” she muttered, disliking the words even as she said them.

      “The pain of loss never goes away fast enough. You know, I lost a baby and my mother the same month, a long time ago. It took me years to get over the loss.”

      With a furtive glance over her mug, Kaylee sipped her tea. Lois always knew the right thing to say. Had her counselor subcontracted her work out to Lois? It sure seemed so.

      The old woman smiled sadly. “But I had a wonderful husband, even if I had to share him with the army. He went to Korea, you know?”

      “It must have been hard for him to leave.” Harder than me leaving Trisha that day, three weeks ago. A knot of tears choked her as she remembered when Trisha had accidentally left her, and the back door, unattended. A split-second decision later, Kaylee slipped outside and then out through a gap in the chain-link fence. She went straight to the police.

      Oblivious to Kaylee’s memories, Lois chuckled. “I had a friend whose husband was going to Korea on the same ship as Walter. We were supposed to say our goodbyes at the train station, but my friend devised this plan to drive down to Halifax where their ship was waiting.”

      Looking conspiratorial, Lois leaned over. “Two women traveling all that way alone? There was no highway and her car was held together with rubber bands and a fast prayer.”

      Despite herself, Kaylee smiled. “What happened?”

      “We broke down as soon as we reached Nova Scotia.”

      “So you missed your husband?”

      “No! An elderly man stopped to help. He drove us straight to the dockyard! Oh, he was as nervous as we were, not knowing who we were or what would happen.” She finished with a teary laugh. “We wouldn’t have made it to Halifax without that man!”

      Kaylee’s lips thinned. “You’d have found a way.”

      “No. The Lord sent us that man. God wanted him to help us, even if we did scare him. He was so sweet and a good Christian man to trust the Lord.”

      Eli and his desperate situation filtered back to Kaylee. Phoebe could easily end up like Trisha. Her heart clenched. God may have been showing her that she was supposed to help Eli, but it was too late now.

      Eli was long gone.

      TWO

      Kaylee struggled through work that next Monday. Eli’s plea dogged her steps. Since she’d returned to normal society, she’d been fortunate enough to get a job in the town’s recreation center. It paid minimum wage, but she hoped to find a better position soon.

      She assisted the rec coordinator with everything from sorting well-worn sports equipment to brushing the autumn leaves off the basketball courts.

      But working proved futile. On Mondays, she should be tidying up after the weekend’s activities, but all she could manage was leaning heavily on her broom.

      “You’re in another world. What’s wrong?”

      She looked up at Jenn, her supervisor. “Bad weekend.”

      Jenn strode across the gym floor. “What happened?”

      “I don’t know. Stress, maybe?” Together they looked around the small gym. Kaylee hadn’t done too much. “Sorry, I’ll try to get the sweeping done before noon. I’m not lazy, you know.”

      “I