Free The Hiding Place by David Bell Page B

house and the car, the keys dangling from her hand. She listened.
    At first, she heard nothing but typical night sounds. The chirps of the crickets, the soft hum of a neighbor’s air conditioner. She waited and started to tell herself that she was being paranoid, that her stressed-out and emotionally tired mind was playing tricks on her, but then she heard it. Two quick sounds close together, the muffled thump of leather hitting the ground.
    Footsteps? Someone running away?
    Janet turned her head toward the back of her dad’s property where the sound seemed to originate, but it was dark and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the night. She strained her eyes, squinting.
    Had she heard anything at all? Had it just been a dog, a jogger, a falling branch?
    Janet turned back to the house. She went to the back doorand gave it two solid tugs. It was locked. Dead-bolted. She looked up at Ashleigh’s window, where the light still burned. Janet considered going back inside and staying home, where she belonged, but she cut the thought off before it took root. Who said she belonged at home? Janet had never wanted to be that person—that woman—and she turned away from the house and back to the car, knowing her father was home with Ashleigh.
    Janet hadn’t told anyone she was leaving. She left a note on the kitchen counter.
Back in a bit,
it said. She felt guilty being so abrupt, but a part of Janet was still angry with her daughter. Typical teenage boundary pushing, she knew, but how dared the little snot mouth off like that?
    Ashleigh wasn’t the only one who could act immature, and immature was the right word for it. Janet felt like a teenager again, sneaking out of the house to see Michael. Jumping when he called, her body filled with a buzzing intensity at the sound of his voice. She felt it again that night as she drove away from the house—the same feeling she’d had in the parking lot. A pleasant tingling, the hint of possibility.
    A traffic circle formed the center of Dove Point’s downtown. Like spokes on a wheel, four main streets radiated out, and businesses, all of them locally owned, ringed the circle. At night, parking was easy, and Janet found a spot two doors down from the coffee shop. She paused in the car, checking her face in the lighted vanity mirror behind the sun visor. Before leaving the house, she’d brushed her hair, trying desperately to bring it to life, and dusted some makeup across her face. She thought she looked tired, her eyes still a little puffy from crying, but a part of her didn’t care. This was Michael. He knew what she looked like. He knew who she was.
    Still, she reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick. Itbelonged to Ashleigh. Janet wasn’t sure how it ended up among her things. Maybe Ashleigh had left it in the bathroom once, or maybe Janet had found it sitting on the kitchen counter and tried it on herself. It didn’t matter. Janet almost never wore lipstick, but she opened the tube and ran some across her lips, then blotted with a Kleenex. She studied herself again. A nice touch, even a little sexy. She was trying.
    But before she slipped out of the car, Janet pulled out her phone. She sent a text to Ashleigh:
How are you?
    Janet waited twenty seconds for a response:
Um, fine. Why?
    Janet wrote back:
Just checking.
And got out of the car.
    Two teenagers, a giggling young couple, came out of the shop as she went in. They looked to be close to Ashleigh’s age, and probably attended Dove Point High with her. The kids looked so healthy, so happy, so all-American in their earnest devotion to each other. So normal. Would Ashleigh ever know that worry-free life? Would the weight of all that had happened to their family always burden the girl?
    Michael waved when she came through the door. He was seated at a table halfway back in the little shop, a steaming mug in front of him. He gave a quick tilt of his head, the smile she always remembered spreading across his face. Janet went over.