LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Rats!” She leaned in and patted along the floor mat. The cell phone had to be there. Too bad she didn’t have a flashlight.

      Wolfie’s sharp yelp made her jerk. The barrage of angry barking that followed was unmistakable. He was defending her. But from what?

      Maggie had held very still when he began to bark. Now she slowly backed out of the truck cab and scanned their surroundings.

      Hackles up, her dog was looking past her toward the road. A vehicle was idling on the shoulder of the highway and someone was getting out. She cupped a hand around her mouth and shouted, “Have you called 911?”

      The dark figure merely stood there. Wouldn’t an innocent passerby answer? Ask if she was injured?

      “Hello? Do you have a phone?”

      Flustered, she peered up at the other truck. Not only was it the same size and color as the one that had hit her, but the part of it that she could see looked uneven!

      Maggie reached across and clicked off her headlights. Suppose that was no Good Samaritan up there? Suppose it was her unknown enemy? Had he come back to finish the job he’d started?

      Frightened, Maggie gave up the search for her missing phone and edged around the front of her truck. Wolfie was already on the opposite side of the barbed-wire fence separating the roadway from a pasture. Climbing back up to the pavement to flag down a passing motorist was out of the question at this point. So, what options were left?

      She could stand there until her nemesis decided to make the next move, or she could take matters into her own hands. Undecided, she studied him. She had Wolfie on her side and the other driver had...a gun! The glint of a chromed pistol in his hand was brief but quite enough incentive.

      Maggie whirled and raced to the section of fence her dog had shimmied under, dropped onto her stomach and crawled through the way a commando would.

      A gruff shout echoed. “You can’t hide.”

      That actually helped. She rose to all fours, sprang to her feet and ran, positive she heard someone in pursuit. Wolfie paced her for a few moments before diverting toward the nearest patch of woods.

      “Good boy.” Maggie followed, panting. At least one of them was thinking straight.

      Forest shadows swallowed her. She slipped on wet leaves beneath the trees, falling and recovering over and over until her energy and adrenaline were spent.

      Hands resting on the muddy knees of her jeans, she gasped for breath. Wolfie circled back and licked her face.

      Prayer was called for, she knew, but her heart was too dispirited to even try.

      Kneeling in the wet leaves she slipped an arm around her dog’s neck and let tears be her unspoken plea.

      Nobody knew where she was but God.

      And her enemy.

      * * *

      Flint used his emergency flashers and made better time than the sheriff. Spying a cluster of headlights along the opposite shoulder, he knew this was the accident scene. Maggie had almost made it into town. Why in the world had she run off the road? Was she speeding? Talking or texting? Had she lost focus for some other reason?

      None of those ideas made sense. The teenage Maggie he remembered had been conscientious to a fault. Surely her basic nature hadn’t changed that much.

      Flint parked in an open spot on his side of the highway so he wouldn’t have to make a U-turn and left his hazard lights on as a warning to passing drivers.

      Traffic was sparse. He jogged across all four lanes in seconds. Several civilian motorists had stopped and were pointing to the wreck. A uniformed police officer at the base of the incline cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted, “No sign of the driver.”

      Flint’s heart beat hard and fast. If Maggie wasn’t there, where was she? Had she been kidnapped? No. That idea was too far-fetched. But why leave her truck? Nothing made sense.

      He stepped off the outer berm, slipping and sliding his way to the bottom. Plenty of others had obviously been down there, because the vegetation was trampled. What if their carelessness had destroyed evidence that would lead to finding her?

      Pulling the flashlight off his utility belt, he played the beam over the scene.

      Someone touched his arm. “Simmer down,” a deputy said. “As soon as the sheriff gets organized, we’ll form a search party. We’ll find her.”

      “What about her dog? Has anybody seen a big dog that looks like a wolf? They’re usually together.”

      The officer radioed to the top of the embankment, “Any of you guys see Maggie’s dog?”

      Flint felt like a fool. They all knew her and Wolfie and probably cared more than he did. She was one of their own. So why was the urge to track her down so strong in him?

      He walked away, playing his light over the ground as he went. Except for the trampled area around the truck, there was no sign of her. Still, he refused to give up. The minute a search party formed, he’d join it, whether anybody liked it or not. He was going to help hunt for her, period. He was...

      The beam of his light reflected off drops of rain clinging to the barbed wire. The whole fence glistened, except for one narrow place on the bottom strand! Flint’s breath caught. If nobody else had knocked off the water, there was a chance that Maggie and her dog had done so in passing. Hopefully, they were the only two.

      He waved his light like a beacon and shouted, “Over here! I think she went through here.”

      Nobody paid attention. He tried again. A few bystanders waved back and continued to talk among themselves, but other than that, he was ignored. Delaying only long enough to shout at the closest officer, “Tell Sheriff Allgood that I think the victim went through the pasture fence just south of here,” Flint went into action.

      Once he got through the fence, it was harder to tell which way Maggie and Wolfie had gone. The pasture was already springing back. That slowed his progress. Bent grass, broken stems and an occasional crushed weed were all he had to go by.

      The faint path turned so abruptly Flint almost missed the clues. It looked as though Maggie was headed for the woods where her passing would leave no crushed grass.

      That should make it harder for him to track her. Fortunately, it would do the same for whoever she was fleeing from—unless there was more than one person after her and they could fan out to cover a wider area.

      Picking up his pace, Flint prayed he’d reach Maggie before anyone else did. Before it was too late.

THREE

      Being born and raised in the country gave Maggie an advantage. Not knowing exactly where she was took much of it away. Most Ozark homes and farms weren’t located too far apart, but there were also untouched acres of forest that had claimed canyons, and any other land too rocky for pasture or crops.

      Spent and discouraged, Maggie sat on a protruding shelf of shale while she caught her breath. Moonlight came and went as wind from the earlier storm pushed lingering clouds across the sky. Sheet lightning flashed in the distance, providing a snapshot view of her surroundings.

      She closed her eyes and folded her hands to pray, but only chaotic thoughts resulted. They darted madly through her mind like tiny fish in the shallows when a shadow fell over the water. Thoughts of rescue kept recurring. So did divine guidance. And—Flint?

      Maggie’s eyes popped open. “No. Not Flint. Anybody but him.” Surely God could send someone else to save her.

      The soft sound of her voice drew the weary dog and she draped an arm across his shoulders the way she would have a human friend. “Yes, Wolfie, I have you, don’t I? And if I was sure you wouldn’t stop to chase rabbits all the way home, I’d let you lead me.”

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