LITMIR.BIZ

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she’d imagined it.

      The black Land Rover pulled into the middle of the driveway.

      The middle! Why block the entire double-lane driveway? Why today?

      Because they didn’t want anyone to get out alive, that was why.

      “Mommy, Mommy!” Emma tugged at Vanessa’s shirt. “My apple juice!”

      Vanessa sucked in enough air to speak. “Yes, Emma. I have your apple juice right here. You can drink it in the car. We’re going to do the quiet drill again. Remember the quiet drill?”

      To Vanessa’s relief, her four-year-old’s eyes lit up. “The quiet drill. Yes! But Sammy is napping.”

      “I know, sweetheart.” Vanessa handed her daughter the sippy cup of juice. “It will be okay. Can you get your jacket on? And tell Abby. Remember to whisper. Everything will be okay.” Vanessa spoke the last words as much for her own reassurance as for Emma’s. She gave her daughter an encouraging smile, then glanced back out the basement-level window in time to see an all-too-familiar pair of black shoes looking not too out of place in the quiet suburban cul-de-sac.

      And boots. Two pairs. No, three.

      Virgil had extra guns with him today.

      Of course he did. He’d told Jeff on his last visit there wouldn’t be another warning. His money or his life...and the lives of Vanessa and the children.

      As always, Jeff had made the deal without consulting her. Vanessa had no intention of letting him bargain with their lives. She’d been preparing ever since, hiding emergency supplies in the garage, ready to go. Drilling the children on a swift and silent evacuation. She was ready—as prepared as anyone ever could be.

      But why did Virgil have to park in the middle of the driveway?

      The doorbell echoed through the house, and Vanessa flew into action. She might not have much time. Sure, Virgil liked to talk. She hoped he’d try to threaten Jeff a little longer in hopes of squeezing the money out of him, but there was every chance the mobster—gangster, whatever he was, Vanessa had never really wanted to know—might drag the kids out first in an effort to make his argument more compelling.

      Sammy was still asleep, just as Emma said. Vanessa scooped up the ten-month-old and set him as gently as possible into his waiting car seat.

      This was the part of her escape plan that troubled her most, one of the biggest reasons she’d never been brave enough—or desperate enough—to attempt to escape with the kids before. Abby and Emma could be depended upon to flee in silence. But if Sam cried, he would give away their position, and she couldn’t stop him.

      His rosebud lips opened in protest as Vanessa tucked one arm through the five-point harness. Prepared, Vanessa slipped a pacifier into his open mouth and prayed.

       Please, Lord. If ever I needed Your help, it’s today.

      Sammy made a grumpy face, but his eyes stayed closed and he started sucking.

      Gently, Vanessa pulled his other arm through its strap, buckled him in and hoisted up the car seat, all but running to the stairs that led to the garage.

      As she rose toward the second floor, she could hear Virgil arguing with Jeff in the living room upstairs, their voices muffled but angry. They were in the house.

      She had to hurry, and reached for the forbidden keys. Jeff almost never allowed her to drive, not unless he was with her, his gun at his side to make sure she didn’t try to get away from him. That the keys were on a peg by the garage at all was a recent concession, made only after Virgil’s latest threat.

      That Jeff had agreed meant he, too, understood Virgil wasn’t messing around. Jeff had kept her tied up for the first year after he’d kidnapped her, only allowing her a tiny bit of freedom in the locked basement after Abby was born. Even now, he’d strictly told her she wasn’t to try to leave the basement without him.

      But still the keys were there. The door that led to the garage was unlocked. On some level, whether consciously or not, Jeff had allowed her a means of running for her life—even if it meant escaping from him, something he’d long told her she could never do.

      Vanessa grabbed the fat ring of keys as she slipped through the door to the garage.

      Abby and Emma looked at her from inside the Sequoia with anxious eyes as Vanessa carried Sammy into the garage. “Did you get the bags?” she asked her seven-year-old as she settled the infant car seat into place.

      “Yes,” Abby whispered, true to the plan.

      A quick glance in the third-row seat confirmed everything was in place.

      Everything but the enormous vehicle blocking the driveway.

      Vanessa climbed into the driver’s seat. “Everybody buckled?” she asked, latching her own seat belt.

      “Yes, Mommy.”

      Now what? The next step of the drill was to back out of the driveway as quickly as possible, to get away before Virgil or his men could get off a shot. But with the house on one side of the driveway and the steep, terraced side of the landscaped hill on the immediate other side, there was no way out of the garage except the driveway, and Virgil had blocked it. The Land Rover was worse than a solid wall behind them.

      A solid wall.

      Vanessa looked at the wall in front of her. Plywood sheathing, two-by-fours spaced widely apart. And on the other side, vinyl siding.

      How hard could it be?

      She didn’t have time to find out. She didn’t have options. There was certain death in every other direction. Jeff had forced her to witness enough of Virgil’s “disciplinary measures” to know his warnings weren’t empty threats.

      Maybe she should have tried to get away before, even years before, but Jeff had always made certain that wasn’t possible. Even once Abby was born and Vanessa wasn’t bound with ropes or chains, it became too difficult to escape with a baby in tow. Jeff kept them locked in the basement whenever he wasn’t home to guard over her. For the past seven years, her priority had been giving her children a normal childhood—or as close to normal as she could provide under Jeff’s armed supervision.

      Jeff’s threats echoed through her thoughts even now. Jeff knew too much about her family. He’d threatened to torture and kill her grandfather and sister, to take her children from her, malign her as a bad mother, claiming she’d lied to him about her real age and identity

      No, Vanessa hadn’t dared try to escape, not as long as Jeff was alive to come after her or give information for Virgil to track down everyone she held dear.

      But this time, Virgil’s threat was bigger than Jeff’s. Virgil had promised the last time that if he had to come back, he wouldn’t let any of them live, not even Jeff—which meant Jeff couldn’t come after her or tell Virgil anything that might help him find her.

      In some ways the criminal was freeing her.

      If only his vehicle wasn’t barring the way. It was far, far too late to call the police, even if Vanessa had any hope they’d let her keep her children. No, Jeff had made clear what she’d lose if she tried to get the law on her side. Her word against his, and that of his associates.

      There was only one way out of the garage

       Dear Lord, please let this work.

      “Okay, girls, tuck your heads like I told you.” Vanessa had originally planned for the girls to lay their heads on their laps, covered by their arms, to protect them from possible gunfire as she backed down the driveway past the living-room picture window. But a tucked-head position might be just as protective going the other direction.

      She had a good ten feet of empty storage space in front of her, maybe more. Normally she would never start a vehicle inside a closed garage, but they wouldn’t be in there for more than a few seconds.

      She

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