Nanny Witness. Hope White

couldn’t be right, not in this remote mansion with a solid security system.

      “Calm, be calm,” she coached herself.

      Dashing across the room, Carly picked up Mia. There was no way she’d let any harm come to this child. Still asleep, Mia pressed her cheek against Carly’s shoulder.

      “Call 9-1-1!” Mr. B. shouted.

      “I can’t find my phone!”

      “You can’t hide from us,” a male voice said.

      Carly scanned the room. Should she take refuge in the closet? Then she’d be trapped if the shooter came upstairs.

      The shooter. There was potentially a gunman in the house.

      Her hands started to tremble. No, she was not that person. She’d given up fear and anxiety long ago, replacing it with faith and strength.

      Strength she’d need to save Mia’s life.

      Clutching the baby firmly against her shoulder, she grabbed the monitor to keep tabs on the intruder’s location and muted her side of the line. She cracked open the nursery door and slipped quietly into the hall.

      “Harry!” Mrs. B.’s panicked voice cried.

      Carly hurried into her room next door to Mia’s and locked the door. That wouldn’t stop a gunman, but it might slow him down long enough for Carly to escape onto her second-story porch and down the stairs to her car.

      Carly felt an odd detachment to what was happening. Such detachment would make her a good nurse in a crisis, because she could distance herself and remain calm.

      This situation wasn’t about offering aid in a crisis. There was a gunman in the house and she needed help.

      She grabbed her phone out of the side pocket of her purse.

      Hesitated. Childhood trauma flooded her chest.

      She had no choice. She had to call the police.

      “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

      “I am at 536 Black Hawk Drive,” Carly said. “Someone broke into the house and I heard gunfire.”

      “Gunfire?”

      “I’m the nanny and I’m upstairs with the baby. I can hear it through the monitor.”

      “What is your name?”

      “Carly—”

      “Oh, no, you’re hurt!” Mrs. B.’s voice cried through the monitor.

      “Did you hear that?” Carly said to the operator.

      “Officers are on the way, Carly. Please stay on the line.”

      Carly slipped the phone into the side pocket of her purse and flung it across her shoulder.

      “Please, we have a baby,” Mrs. B.’s voice said through the monitor.

      Carly grabbed the soft baby carrier off her dresser and opened the porch door.

      A crash and scream echoed through the monitor.

       Keep going. Don’t stop.

      Carly crossed the small porch where she’d spend quiet nights reading and breathing in the crisp Colorado air. She glanced down at her car in the driveway. It was blocked by a black SUV. Time to come up with plan B.

      As she descended the stairs, Carly eyed the forest in the distance. It was about a hundred yards away.

      “Where is she?” a male voice shouted through the monitor.

      “No,” Mrs. B. cried. “Not the baby.”

      “Go get her.”

      A shiver pricked Carly’s shoulders.

      Carly placed the baby monitor on the stairs and pulled out her phone. “I’m taking the baby into the forest behind the house,” she told the emergency operator.

      As she jogged across the property with Mia in her arms, she prayed to God that the criminals weren’t watching her from the picture windows spanning the back of the house.

      “Such a good girl,” she whispered against Mia’s soft head of hair.

      Closer. She was closing in on nature’s refuge, perfect camouflage from the intruders.

      Another muffled shot echoed across the property. She guessed they had reached her bedroom door and shot the lock open. They’d check the closet first, maybe under her bed. She had minutes, perhaps seconds, before they noticed the door leading to her private porch.

      Carly dashed into the forest, following her favorite trail, the one she used for reflection on her daily Bible reading.

      She never thought she’d use this trail to flee death.

      “Hey!” a voice shouted.

      Ignore it, she coached herself. No reason to panic about what might happen next.

      Then she realized she’d be easy to follow if she stayed on the trail, so she went rogue and ran deeper into the woods over juniper shrubs and sagebrush.

      As she trudged farther into the mass of flora, she said a silent prayer.

       Dear Lord, please help me protect this innocent child.

      Another gunshot rang out, this one sounding like it was fired outside. Really? They thought shooting at her would convince her to stop running?

      Adrenaline flooded her body. She ran faster, glancing over her shoulder only once. She broke through the mass of forest to a clearing.

      And was looking below at a ten-foot drop to a riverbank. This was where she’d wait for help to arrive.

      She laid Mia on the ground, adjusted the baby carrier around her own shoulders, picked up the child and strapped her in place across Carly’s chest. Carly would need both hands to lower herself and Mia safely to the riverbank.

      A sharp burst of wind chilled her to the core. Casting one last glance toward the Bremerton property, and seeing no one, she planned her descent. She kneeled and looked for a safe way down. A few rocks protruded from the side of the drop-off. That’s where she’d plant her feet. Digging her fingers into the hard earth, she turned and got into position to lower herself.

      The muted echo of sirens wailed in the far distance. Panic rushed through her, but she was no longer a child, no longer a part of that family. This time police might even help her.

      If she could only remain invisible long enough for police to arrest the gunmen.

      She lowered her right foot, still clinging to a rock at the edge of the cliff, her lifeline. Her foot steady on a rock below, she found another spot to hold on to, lowered her right hand and grabbed it.

      Her foot slipped.

      In what felt like slow motion, she fell, landing on the riverbank of rocks. Wind knocked from her lungs and she struggled to breathe, to think. Thoughts eluded her.

      “Open your eyes,” a deep male voice said.

      How...how had the gunman reached her so quickly? Had she knocked her head and fallen unconscious?

      She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t bear to see a gun pointed at her.

      At Mia.

      “No,” she groaned.

      “Let go of the baby.”

      * * *

      Brody “Whit” Whittaker kneeled on the rocky shore next to the blond woman and child. He’d pulled up to his half brother’s house and heard gunshots crack across the property.

      What had Harry gotten himself into?

      Whit covertly made his way onto the property and saw a young woman take off into the woods carrying a