Framed For Christmas. Jaycee Bullard

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       ONE

      Dani Jones kept her head low as she lifted the nozzle from the fuel tank and set it back on the pump. It was a simple task, but her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the gas cap, trying to screw it on tight. Her eyes flickered toward the tan SUV parked behind her. It was the same vehicle that had been following her since Iowa. Same plates, same driver and passenger, with their ball caps pulled low and their eyes determinedly avoiding contact. She took a deep breath and repeated the familiar words that always steadied her nerves and calmed her racing heart. “I am safe. God is with me. No one is trying to hurt me.”

      It had been more than fifteen years since her twin sister Ali’s brutal murder. Fifteen years without a single incident. She hadn’t been mugged, attacked or threatened in any way. But none of that mattered. The anxiety remained.

      She inhaled. Exhaled. But she couldn’t relax. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the small canopy over the pumps offered little protection from the blowing snow. Squeegee in hand, she set to work swiping through ribbons of sludge on the van’s rear window, until a reflection in the glass caused her breath to hitch. The tan SUV behind her was no longer stationary. It was steamrollering forward on a collision course with the back of the van—and her.

      Her knees buckled and panic threaded through her senses.

      “Stop!” Her strangled cry had no effect. “Hit the brake!” she screamed as she raced to dodge the speeding vehicle. She stumbled onto the raised curb seconds before the SUV slammed into her bumper with a bone-cracking thump, ramming the van forward into the lot.

      Indignation trumped fear as she sprinted toward the vehicle, brandishing the dripping squeegee. “Do you know you almost hit me?” she yelled. Her answer came in a spray of pebbles and slush as the driver spun into Reverse and headed toward the exit.

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