Moving like that, it took her over two minutes to reach the phone in the kitchen. It was dead. But you really didn’t expect anything else, did you? The storm was still raging, and the lines were surely down somewhere. Or perhaps he’d cut the line. Her cell was somewhere in the house, but chances were it wasn’t charged. She rarely used the damn thing; David was always telling her to be more careful. What if she broke down on the highway and needed help? She never listened. I’m sorry, baby, she thought, and moaned. She blinked back tears. Not now. She couldn’t break down now.

It took her another five minutes to climb the stairs, step by agonizing step. But they had no clothes downstairs, and she needed something warm if she was to go outside.

Outside? Are you nuts?

But it was the only way to find her daughter and get the hell out of Dodge, wasn’t it? And that was what she planned to do. She wondered what had happened to her husband and that man he was with, the one driving the old Cherokee. She had to assume they were off looking for her. It gave her a quick, warm feeling inside, and she increased her pace, ignoring the pain from her leg as best she could. The rush of adrenaline worked like a fine narcotic, dulling the pain enough for it to be bearable.

In the bedroom, she struggled into a loose-fitting top and sweater, and then a pair of David’s big, warm corduroy pants, gritting her teeth at the pain when her foot twisted in the pant leg. Fine droplets of sweat clung to her forehead and nose, and ran down the back of her neck as her numb fingers fumbled at the snap on the corduroys. She slid a belt through the pant loops and cinched it tight.

Not much of a fashion statement, she thought as she glanced in the mirror on her slow trip back to the stairs. A bloodied, terrified woman stared back at her, dark hair hanging in heavy clumps over her face, but she was alive and moving, and that was something close to a miracle, even if she did look like death warmed over. I’m certainly not going to win any beauty contests, any- way.

She heard a noise. Just a soft thump, hardly discernible above the wind. Yet it stood out from the noise of the storm and the house settling. This was the heavy sound of something being dropped.

Or someone leaping quietly from the windowsill to the floor.