LITMIR.BIZ

      It was dusk. Dew was already settling upon the grass, and the sun, like Humpty-Dumpty, was about to fall beyond the horizon as Rafe Dixon drove into the yard and parked beneath the tree near the back door.

      J.C. came out of the barn just as Rafe crawled out of the cab. Glory swung her legs out and then slid out of the seat, stretching wearily from the long ride. It felt good to be home. She couldn’t wait to get in the house and trade her ropers for slippers, her blue jeans for shorts and the long-sleeved pink shirt she was wearing for one of J.C.’s old T-shirts. They went down past her knees, and felt soft as butter against her skin. They were her favorite items of clothing.

      Their errands had taken longer than she’d expected, and she’d told herself more than once during the day that if she’d known all her father had planned to do, she wouldn’t have gone. She leaned over the side of the truck bed and lifted the nearest sack into her arms.

      “Right on time,” Rafe shouted, and motioned his son to the sacks of groceries yet to be unloaded from the back of their truck. “Hey, boy, give us a hand.”

      J.C. came running. “Daddy! Look! I found another arrowhead today.”

      Both Rafe and Glory turned to admire his latest find. Collecting them had been J.C.’s passion since he’d found his first years ago. Now he was an avid collector and had more than one hundred of them mounted in frames and hanging on the walls of his room.

      “That’s a good one,” Glory said, running her fingers over the hand-chipped edge, and marveling at the skill of the one who had made it. In spite of its obvious age, it was perfectly symmetrical in form.

      “Groceries are gonna melt,” Rafe warned.

      J.C. grinned and winked at his little sister, then dropped the arrowhead into his pocket. He obliged his father by picking up a sack and then stopping to dig through the one Glory was holding.

      “Hey, Morning Glory, did you remember my Twinkies?”

      The childhood nickname made her smile as she took the package from her sack and dropped it into the one he was holding. But the urge to laugh faded as quickly as the world that began to slip out of focus.

      Common sense told her that she was standing in the yard surrounded by those who loved her best, but it wasn’t how she felt. She could barely hear her father’s voice above the sound of her own heart breaking. Every breath that she took was a struggle, and although she tried over and over to talk, the words wouldn’t come.

      Struggling to come out of the fugue, she grabbed hold of the truck bed, desperate to regain her sense of self. Vaguely, she could hear her brother and father arguing over whose turn it was to do the dishes after supper. When sanity returned and she found the words to speak, they were at the back porch steps.

      “Daddy! Wait,” Glory shouted, as her father slipped the key in the lock.

      Even from where she stood, she knew it was going to be too late.

      “Hey, look! I think I just found your keys!” J.C. shouted, laughing and pointing at the puppy, coming out of the barn behind them.

      It was reflex that made Glory turn. Sure enough, keys dangled from the corner of the pup’s mouth as he chewed on the braided leather strap dangling from the ring.

      And then it seemed as if everything happened in slow motion. She spun, her father’s name on her lips as she started toward the house. In a corner of her mind, she was vaguely aware of J.C.’s surprised shout, and then the back door flew off the hinges and into the bed of the truck. The impact of the explosion threw Glory across the yard where she lay, unconscious.

      When reason returned, the first things she felt were heat on her back, and the puppy licking her face. She groaned, unable to remember how she’d come to this position, and crawled to her knees before staggering to her feet. Something wet slid down her cheek, and when she touched it, her fingers came away covered in blood. And then she remembered the blast and spun.

      She kept telling herself that this was all a bad dream, and that her brother would come out of the door with one Twinkie in his mouth and another in his hand. But it was impossible to ignore the thick, black coils of smoke snaking up from the burning timbers, marking the spot that had once been home.

      Still unable to believe her eyes, she took several shaky steps forward.

      “Daddy?” He didn’t answer. Her voice rose and trembled as she repeated the cry. “Daaddee! No! No! God, no! Somebody help me!”

      Something inside the inferno exploded. A fire within a fire. It was then that she began to scream.

      Terror. Horror. Despair.

      There were no words for what she felt. Only the devastating knowledge that she’d seen the end of those she loved most and had not been able to stop it.

      She fell to her knees as gut-wrenching tears tore up her throat and out into the night. Heat seared her skin and scorched her hair as she considered walking into what was left of the pyre. All of her life she’d been separated from the crowd by the fact that she was different, and the only people who’d accepted and loved her for herself had been her father and brother. If they were gone, who would love her now?

      And while she stared blindly at the orange and yellow tongues licking at what was left of her home, another image superimposed itself over the flames, and Glory found herself straining toward it, unable to believe what she saw.

      A man! Walking through their house, running from room to room. She saw the backs of his hands as they hovered above the stove. Saw them twist…saw them turn…saw them kill. And then he ran, and all that she saw was the silhouette of his back as he moved out the door. The hair crawled on the back of her neck as a reality only Glory understood suddenly surfaced.

      Oh, my God! This wasn’t an accident!

      It was a gut reaction, but she spun in fear, searching for a place to hide. In the dark, she stumbled, falling to her knees. Still in a panic to hide, she crawled, then ran, aiming for the dark, yawning maw of the barn door. Only when she was inside did she turn to look behind her, imagining him still out there…somewhere.

      Why would someone want us dead? And no sooner had the thought come, than her answer followed. It wasn’t them. It was me who was supposed to die.

      She slipped even farther inside the barn, staring wide-eyed out into the night, unable to believe what her mind already knew. The guilt that came with the knowledge could have driven Glory over the edge of reason. But it didn’t. She couldn’t let her father and brother’s killer get away with this.

      But who…and why? Who could possibly care if she lived or died?

      Instinct told her that it wasn’t a stranger. But instinct was a poor substitute for facts, and Glory had none. The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed a plan, and she needed time.

      There was no way of knowing how long she’d been unconscious, but neighbors were bound to see the fire and could be arriving any minute. A sense of self-preservation warned her that she must hide until she found someone she could trust. Within a day or so, the killer would know that two, not three people, had died in the fire, and then whoever had tried to hurt her would come looking again.

      “Oh, God, I need help,” she moaned, and then jumped with fright as something furry rubbed up against her leg. She knelt, wrapping her arms around the puppy’s neck, and sobbed. “You’re not what I needed, but you’re all I’ve got, aren’t you, fella?”

      A wet tongue slid across her cheek, and Glory moaned as the puppy instinctively licked at the blood on her face. She pushed him away, then stood. Her eyes narrowed above lashes spiked with tears, her lips firmed, her chin tilted as she stared at the fire.

      Daddy…J.C…. I swear on Mother’s grave…and on yours, that I will find him. All I need is a little help.

      No sooner had that thought come than an image followed. A man’s face centered within

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