Plain Protector. Alison Stone

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СКАЧАТЬ she didn’t have a boyfriend pestering her to know what she was doing every minute of every day. Nor did she have to worry that she’d inadvertently provide the wrong answer. An answer that would send him into a blind rage.

      Icy dread pooled in the pit of her stomach. How did I allow myself to get tangled up with Jimmy Braeden? She had always considered herself a smart girl.

      Even smart girls made bad choices sometimes.

      Letting out a long breath and wishing she could silence all the doubts and worries in her head, Sarah gathered up her papers and jammed them into her bag with shaky hands. She hated that Jimmy had made her afraid. Made her hide. Made her into someone even she couldn’t heal.

      A shadow crossed the basement floor and Sarah glanced up at the narrow windows that faced the church parking lot. Nothing. Just the fading blue sky, which made her realize if she didn’t hurry, she’d have to walk the mile home in the dark.

      Sure, Jimmy didn’t know where she was. She hoped. But that didn’t mean it was wise to tempt fate as a single woman alone after dark on a deserted country road.

      Sarah hoisted the strap of her bag over her shoulder and flipped off the light switch at the bottom of the stairs when a crashing sound exploded, disrupting the quiet night air. Shards of glass rained down over her head.

      Sarah bit back a yelp and flattened herself against the wall of the basement under the broken window. Her pulse beat wildly in her ears as she fumbled in her bag. She was searching for a cell phone, when she remembered she didn’t have one. It was one of the many things she had given up when she decided to disappear.

      A cell phone was too easy to trace.

      Sarah gingerly touched her head and her fingers came back sticky. She closed her eyes and muttered a silent prayer: Dear Lord, please protect me. If there was one thing she clung to through her turned-upside-down life, it was her faith. One constant in a crazy world.

      Biting her lip, she glanced toward the stairs. Toward the exit. The unlocked door. Dread knotted her stomach. She stood, frozen, until her heart rate returned to normal. Almost. She figured her nerves wouldn’t truly settle until she was safely at home, locked inside.

      Her gaze landed on a large rock in the center of the room. Good thing she hadn’t been struck by that or she might be unconscious.

      Sarah couldn’t stand here forever. She took a hesitant step toward the stairs.

      Was someone waiting for her outside?

      With a burst of courage—the same courage that had her leave her abusive ex—Sarah bolted up the stairs, clinging to her bag as if it could protect her. She pushed the door open and the still night air greeted her. Without a backward glance, she bolted as fast as her legs would carry her across the wide expanse of the parking lot to the pastor’s house on the opposite side.

      She pounded up the porch steps and lifted her fist and hammered on the door, immediately taking her back to another day, another time, when her boyfriend was chasing her. Promising he’d kill her if he caught her. Swallowing her dizzying panic, she glanced over her shoulder.

      No one was chasing her now.

      Just the shadows. And the haunting memories that refused to leave her alone.

      * * *

      When Deputy Sheriff Nick Jennings pulled up in front of the Apple Creek Diner, he had only two things on his mind: coffee and Flo’s pie. His stomach growled as he considered his options. He was in the mood for some banana cream. As he pulled the door’s release, his radio crackled to life. He listened intently, frowning when he heard there had been an incident at the church. Flo’s pie would have to wait.

      “I’m at the Apple Creek Diner,” he said into the radio. “I can be at the church in three minutes.” Nick flipped on the lights and pressed his foot to the floor, not necessary since he was only a few minutes out, but he missed the occasional adrenaline surge. Policing small-town Apple Creek didn’t provide the same rush as serving in the army in times of war.

      Not that he wanted to go back to war.

      “The victim, a Miss Sarah Lynn, is at the pastor’s residence,” the dispatcher said. “The pastor’s wife claims she’s pretty shaken up.”

      Sarah Lynn? The name didn’t register.

      Nick tightened his grip on the steering wheel and as promised, made it to the parking lot of the church in under three minutes. Dusk had cloaked the area in the first hint of shadows, and his headlights arched across two people standing on the pastor’s stoop. One was Miss Ellinor, the pastor’s wife, the other was a petite woman he had noticed around town. That must be Sarah Lynn.

      Nick had only been back in Apple Creek for a few months himself when this young woman arrived. Residents of a small town tended to notice new arrivals, even if they weren’t petite and pretty, which this one certainly was. Flo at the diner, who had a habit of trying to fix him up, mentioned that this woman seemed to keep to herself most of the time, hadn’t even offered up her name. A few speculated on why she had suddenly shown up in town—employment, low rent or maybe she was hiding from something—but mostly the residents of Apple Creek let her be. Nick assumed she probably did have her share of secrets. Having come off a bad breakup with a woman who was a master secret keeper, Nick figured he’d pass.

      Nick climbed out of his cruiser and strode toward the pastor’s neat, white-sided home. He tipped his hat toward the women. “Hello, Miss Ellinor.” He thought it best if he waited for the young woman to introduce herself. That’s when he noticed she was doing more than touching her forehead, she was holding a cloth to it.

      “Are you injured?”

      “I’m fine. My name is Sarah. Sarah Lynn...” The corners of her mouth turned down and the woman seemed to be studying her shoes. This woman was either afraid or hiding something. Perhaps both.

      Apparently the residents of Apple Creek were collectively a pretty good judge of character.

      “I’m Deputy Sheriff Nick Jennings. What happened here?”

      Sarah shook her head, but it was Miss Ellinor who spoke first. “Someone smashed one of the basement windows of the church. I’m afraid Sarah has a pretty deep cut on her forehead. You’ll probably have to call an ambulance. Is an ambulance coming?”

      Sarah held up her hand, her eyes growing wide. “I don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.” Her voice shook. She didn’t sound fine.

      “May I take a look?” Nick stepped toward Sarah and she took a half step back, hemmed in by the front door of the pastor’s home behind her.

      Sarah dropped her hand and her long hair fell over the wound. She stared up at him with a look of defiance, although he may have misinterpreted the emotion in the dim lighting.

      Nick held up his hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “I don’t need to look at it, but someone should.”

      “I’m fine, really.” Sarah’s repeated use of the word fine seemed forced. She bent and picked up a heavy-looking bag. When she straightened, all the color drained from her face. If he hadn’t been watching her, he might not have seen the terror that flashed across her pretty features and then disappeared into the firm set of her mouth and her СКАЧАТЬ