Danger in a Small Town. Ginny Aiken

wail ripped through the silent night.

      “We’re in!” Steve cried.

      Time blurred for the next few seconds. More shots rang out, these without benefit of a silencer. As Ethan rushed deeper into the alley, he tripped over something—someone who moaned.

      Not Steve, Lord, please.

      “Man down!” On his knees, Ethan reached for the victim’s neck to check for a pulse. Close enough to feel the shallow puffs of breath, Ethan got a better look at the pain-stricken face. His stomach heaved. The victim was only a boy, a teen.

      Ethan sucked in a harsh breath. This was his worst nightmare, everything he worked so hard to prevent. As dark as the night was, he still could see the bloom of blood on the boy’s chest.

      Another moan soughed out. The teen opened his eyes. “P-please…”

      Sudden brilliance from a floodlight almost blinded him, but as he blinked, a man hurtled past him out of the alley. Ethan looked up and met black eyes filled with hatred. And then Moreno was gone.

      “Nooooo!” Ethan sat up, panting, face drenched in tears. Over the past few weeks, the tormenting dreams had come farther apart, lasted less time, milder in their intensity. Tonight, however, he might as well have been back in Chicago, Robby Stoddard dying on his lap, his partner down with a bullet too close to his spine and Moreno getting away.

      “When, Father? When will I be free of these dreams?”

      A vicious bolt of lightning shocked Tess awake. Gusting wind blew a fine mist through the screened window and dampened Tess’s face. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees, turning her warm cocoon into a cold, soggy mess. Her heart pounded at the suddenness of the storm.

      The crash of another thunderbolt got her on her feet and moving across the room to close the window. She bolted the window shut, then watched the wind thrash the branches of the oak tree outside. She willed her heart to slow down and her breathing to return to normal. To try and restore a sense of normalcy, she stripped the wet linens from her bed. She’d have to sleep on the couch downstairs until her mattress dried.

      Five minutes later, in a dry nightshirt, Tess was still on edge. She’d never liked thunderstorms. She went to the dresser, straightened her hairbrush, mirror, bottle of perfume and makeup case.

      Thunder crashed again and lightning streaked the dark sky outside her window. She loved the sense of safety in her cozy yellow-and-green room and didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t climb into the wet bed again. Fed up with her jumpiness, she went to the bathroom for a drink before heading downstairs. But once she turned off the tap and took her first sip, she heard more running water. She put the cup down on the countertop, and went out to the hallway.

      Tess paused to listen, hearing nothing but the continued battering of the rain. She waited, attentive to every creak the old home gave out. She must have imagined the sound.

      A fierce gust of wind slammed against the house. Heavy raindrops beat against the slate roof and the leaded windows. Tess shivered, thankful for the shelter the sturdy house provided.

      Then she heard the rushing water again, and this time there was no mistaking it. Water was running inside the house. She’d have to find where it was coming in before they suffered water damage.

      In an excess of caution, she listened outside the private bathroom in Uncle Gordon’s room and then started down the stairs. It sounded like a running faucet, but Tess had done the supper dishes herself. She knew she’d turned off that tap. After years of paying for her own utilities in Charlotte, she wasn’t about to let water run overnight.

      By the time she reached the foyer, she realized it wasn’t a faucet dripping after all. What she heard was a full-fledged pour, and it came from the basement. Another buffet of wind hammered the house, the heavy rain thudding against the wood siding, crashing against the windows. The old quote, “It was a dark and stormy night” popped into her thoughts, and Tess laughed nervously.

      It was silly to let a storm shake her up like this. “Get a grip,” she said, her words echoing in the large kitchen.

      Tess opened the basement door, flicked the switch in the stairwell and carefully made her way down the steep basement stairs. She didn’t need to get hurt, too.

      At the bottom of the stairs, she took a good look around. Stacks of boxes lined the walls, chairs were piled haphazardly on two tables in a corner, a collection of buckets covered Uncle Gordon’s old and unused workbench and additional plastic storage containers, suitcases, and even a lawnmower took up every visible inch of space.

      “Wow!” As Tess stared at the mess, another blast of wind set off the sound of running water again. And while she didn’t find a flood, she did find an open window, one through which the rain poured in.

      “Why would Uncle Gordon have left it open?” She didn’t think it could have blown ajar during the storm, but the how didn’t matter right then. She had to get it closed before the basement flooded. She climbed over a stack of boxes, then shoved three suitcases to one side. She never would have expected to find Uncle Gordon’s basement so cluttered. He was more the neat-freak, organized and squeaky-clean type.

      And to leave a window open…?

      Then she realized that wasn’t the case after all. No one had left the window open. The frame was locked, as it should have been. The glass pane, however, was broken, its jagged remains like a row of shark teeth along the wooden edge.

      And, if she was right, the broken window flanked the torn-up rosebed outside. She looked for something to use to block out the rain. “That dog of Mr. Anthony’s must really be something,” she muttered. “First, he mangles half a dozen rosebushes, two azaleas and a border of petunias. Now, he’s busted in a window…”

      Armed with the blue plastic lid to a storage container near the broken window, she reached up and jammed it into place. Her guesstimate was good; it covered the opening, but she would still need tape to get it to stay.

      Tess remembered the roll Uncle Gordon kept in the laundry room off the kitchen. She ran up, grabbed the shiny gray duct tape off the shelf and hurried back down. In the dimly lit cavern, she picked her way to the window again over and around the many hurdles. As she pulled out the lid to readjust it, she thought she saw a shadow move out in the yard.

      Her heart sped up.

      Her breathing grew shallow.

      Her hands shook, and she had to fight the urge to run upstairs and dive into her bed.

      As she stood frozen, scared, Tess told herself it must have been a play of the streetlight on the branches of the oak tree outside. But no matter how many times she repeated the thought, she didn’t convince herself. Her impression had been one of a head, strong shoulders and legs. True, it had only lasted an instant, but she knew what she’d seen.

      Would anyone believe her? Believe she’d seen someone walking out in the yard in the middle of a monsoon?

      Probably not. Especially since now, a few minutes later, she was busy thinking up possible alternate scenarios. Like the unlikely oak branches.

      She would only tell someone if she thought she’d be believed. The last few months at Magnusson’s had left a deep scar. Tess didn’t need anyone doubting her again.

      Drenched, Tess made sure the plastic lid was crammed into the space as tightly as possible. Then she spread strip after strip of tape across it, and by the time she’d used almost the whole roll, the flood had been reduced to an occasional drop coursing down the wall.

      “It’ll have to do,” she murmured, as she stepped back to admire her handiwork. It wouldn’t win any beauty awards, but it worked—for the time being. She turned toward the stairs and started to make her way around the clutter again.

      She put her hand on the top box to her right, slipped her fingers into the now-open plastic container whose top covered the window, and hauled herself over the rain-sodden