She’d forget him in no time, except as one more threat, another person who might be tracking her.
* * *
THE DAY FELT like summer when Helen ushered Jacob out the front door for the grocery expedition. He immediately cried, “Iris!”
Helen turned to see her neighbor returning from the curb with her newspaper.
Iris waved enthusiastically. “Where are the two of you off to?”
With Jacob, Helen crossed her own somewhat scruffy lawn onto Iris’s manicured one. She wrinkled her nose. “Grocery shopping, what else? But since I have to go, is there anything I can pick up for you?”
“Oh, if you wouldn’t mind, I forgot eggs when I went to the store yesterday.” She smiled at Jacob. “Perhaps this young man would like to stay with me while you do whatever you need to. I thought I’d do a little weeding out back, and I have a plastic bucket and shovel, you know. He can help me.”
When she chuckled, Helen had to join her even as her heart ached. Oh, she’d miss Iris. “You’re a saint,” she declared. She’d have had to say no if Iris had intended to work on her front flower beds, but in back...that ought to be safe enough.
One more thing to hate: how often she used that word in her thoughts. Safe.
It was a relief to be able to set off on her own to make another ATM withdrawal and do her shopping. She took her time, calculating what meals would be most practical to make on the run. At last, she went to Walgreen’s and bought several modestly priced new toys that should entertain Jacob during days of driving. She’d leave those in the trunk so they’d be a surprise.
She parked, took the groceries into the house and put away everything that had to go in the refrigerator, then slipped out her back door carrying the carton of eggs for Iris. No fence separated their yards.
Iris and Jacob must be inside, leaving the bright blue plastic bucket and yellow shovel on the grass, and a real shovel left standing in what would be a small vegetable garden.
She had started across the yard, when the screen door slammed open, bouncing against the side of the house. A dark figure burst out. In a shocked instant, Helen realized the man wore a ski mask, and had Jacob slung over his shoulder.
With a scream of rage, she dropped the eggs, grabbed the shovel and tore across the lawn to intercept the man who held her sobbing, struggling child. His head swung toward her at the last minute. In a horrible replay of her nightmare, she swung the shovel with all her strength. This time she went for his shins.
He tried to dodge. The blow was glancing, but enough to send him staggering. In that moment, Helen threw herself at him, closing her hand around Jacob’s kicking leg even as her shoulder connected with the man’s chest or side. Jacob tumbled from his shoulder and she caught him, staggering back.
She retreated a step, her eyes locked on the furious, slitted eyes not hidden by the mask. Heart thundering, Helen knew he’d overpower her easily. She should have held on to the shovel.
She took another step back. He advanced...and they both heard the wail of an approaching siren no more than a few blocks away.
He broke away and ran, disappearing around Iris’s detached garage and down the alley, the slap, slap of his footsteps receding.
With a dry sob, Helen sank to the grass, cradling Jacob. She had him. Thank you, God.
* * *
THE SECOND HE heard Iris Wilbanks’s address over the police radio, Seth switched on his lights and siren and accelerated away from the curb. Yeah, this was a small town, but he didn’t believe in coincidences.
A patrol officer indicated that he was responding. Seth chimed in to say he was on his way, too.
Since he’d been less than half a mile away, he pulled up in front of Iris’s house only seconds behind Officer Todd. He leaped out. His gaze went to Helen’s house, but the drawn blinds didn’t even twitch.
“I’ll go around back,” he said tersely, and Todd nodded. As Seth rounded the house, he heard a solid knock on the front door and the young officer calling, “This is the police! I’m coming in.”
He felt a torrent of anger and relief and probably more at the sight of Helen sitting in the middle of the yard clutching her sobbing boy. Her fear hit him hard. He’d seen the same expression on the faces of parents who’d had a child go missing, or be hit by a car after running into the street. The knowledge that the unimaginable loss might have happened.