Nessa awoke when the second wave of the storm seemed to take up residence over Blossom, Texas. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it down deep in her soul when she sat up in bed and pushed back the covers.

Had she left the windows down a little in her SUV? No, she remembered seeing the clouds coming and going all day as they painted three sides of the house. She’d checked the vehicle twice before she went to bed. She looked at her phone and found that it was three o’clock, and then she fell back onto her pillow.

“Something still isn’t right,” she whispered as she got up, padded out into the kitchen, and turned on the light above the stove so she wouldn’t wake April. She poured herself a glass of milk and took a fistful of peanut butter cookies from the jar in the middle of the table. She sat down with her back to the living room and had eaten the first cookie when Waylon came up the hallway, meowing at the top of his lungs.

“Shhh . . . you’re going to wake April,” Nessa scolded.

“She might as well get up. We’re both awake. Damn cat must be afraid of storms.” Flynn yawned and stopped beside the sofa on his way to the kitchen. “Where is April?”

“She’s right there.” Nessa turned around and pointed, pausing. “No, she’s not.”

Her blood ran cold in her veins, chilling her to the bone. She remembered that April had been terrified of storms in their youth, but she absolutely hated the cellar. She might have gone to the waterfall, which was a horrible place to be when lightning was flashing every few seconds.

Flynn turned around and looked down the short hallway. “Bathroom door is open, so I don’t think she’s in there. Did she leave us in the middle of a stormy night?”

Nessa stood up so fast that her chair wobbled before she stretched out her hand to right it. She hurried around the sofa bed and peeked out the window just as another streak of lightning lit up the sky. “Her car is sitting out there, so she must be here somewhere. I hope she didn’t go to the waterfall in all this mess.”

Waylon became a blur as he ran through the open garage door, still caterwauling loud enough to give the thunder competition.

“I understand why he wants to go out there. That’s where his litter pan is.” Flynn started that way. “But why would April be in the garage in the middle of the night?”

“Cellar? It’s storming, and Nanny Lucy was terrified of storms. Remember how she’d stand out on the porch and tell us if we heard thunder, we were all going to the cellar?” Nessa brushed right past Flynn and pointed at the open cellar door. “You ever been down in that thing?”