space.
She tucked her legs beneath her and thanked God for this wonderful job caring for the sweet baby girl an hour outside Denver in Miner, Colorado. Carly thought it would be good experience, and the salary would help her pay off school loans.
Ever since Carly started as Mia’s nanny six months ago, she’d developed an attachment to the blond baby girl with the bright blue eyes. Even at a month old, Mia had a smile that lit up a room and warmed Carly’s heart.
A smile that also triggered regret. The child was so vulnerable, which reminded Carly of her own utter failure—she should have done more to protect her little sister.
“Practice self-forgiveness.” She whispered her aunt’s advice and grabbed her notebook with review questions for the exam. Yet even now, at twenty-seven, Carly was plagued by a decision she’d made at the tender age of thirteen.
The sound of a door slamming echoed up the stairs. A few seconds of silence passed.
“Susan!” Mr. B.’s voice echoed through the monitor.
What was he doing home this time of day?
“What were you thinking?” Mr. B. said.
“I thought you’d be proud of me.”
“Proud? About you destroying our lives?”
Uncomfortable that she was eavesdropping, Carly got up to turn down the monitor.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. B. said. “It’s a worthy project.”
Loud pops cracked through the transmission.
Carly froze. It almost sounded like a car backfiring.
She stared at the white monitor for a second, wondering if the device was picking up sounds from another frequency. It had happened before.
“Harry!” Mrs. B. cried.
“Get down!”
Another pop echoed through the monitor. No, not a car backfiring. It sounded like...
Gunfire? That couldn’t be right, not in this remote mansion with a solid security system.
“Calm, be calm,” she coached herself.
Dashing across the room, Carly picked up Mia. There was no way she’d let any harm come to this child. Still asleep, Mia pressed her cheek against Carly’s shoulder.
“Call 9-1-1!” Mr. B. shouted.
“I can’t find my phone!”
“You can’t hide from us,” a male voice said.
Carly scanned the room. Should she take refuge in the closet? Then she’d be trapped if the shooter came upstairs.
The shooter. There was potentially a gunman in the house.
Her hands started to tremble. No, she was not that person. She’d given up fear and anxiety long ago, replacing it with faith and strength.
Strength she’d need to save Mia’s life.
Clutching the baby firmly against her shoulder, she grabbed the monitor to keep tabs on the intruder’s location and muted her side of the line. She cracked open the nursery door and slipped quietly into the hall.
“Harry!” Mrs. B.’s panicked voice cried.
Carly hurried into her room next door to Mia’s and locked the door. That wouldn’t stop a gunman, but it might slow him down long enough for Carly to escape onto her second-story porch and down the stairs to her car.
Carly felt an odd detachment to what was happening. Such detachment would make her a good nurse in a crisis, because she could distance herself and remain calm.
This situation wasn’t about offering aid in a crisis. There was a gunman in the house and she needed help.
She grabbed her phone out of the side pocket of her purse.
Hesitated. Childhood trauma flooded her chest.
She had no choice. She had to call the police.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“I am at 536 Black Hawk Drive,” Carly said. “Someone broke into the house and I heard gunfire.”
“Gunfire?”
“I’m the nanny and I’m upstairs with the baby. I can hear it through the monitor.”
“What is your name?”
“Carly—”
“Oh, no, you’re hurt!” Mrs. B.’s voice cried through the monitor.
“Did you hear that?” Carly said to the operator.
“Officers are on the way, Carly. Please stay on the line.”
Carly slipped the phone into the side pocket of her purse and flung it across her shoulder.
“Please, we have a baby,” Mrs. B.’s voice said through the monitor.
Carly grabbed the soft baby carrier off her dresser and opened the porch door.
A crash and scream echoed through the monitor.
Keep going. Don’t stop.
Carly crossed the small porch where she’d spend quiet nights reading and breathing in the crisp Colorado air. She glanced down at her car in the driveway. It was blocked by a black SUV. Time to come up with plan B.
As she descended the stairs, Carly eyed the forest in the distance. It was about a hundred yards away.
“Where is she?” a male voice shouted through the monitor.
“No,” Mrs. B. cried. “Not the baby.”
“Go get her.”
A shiver pricked Carly’s shoulders.
Carly placed the baby monitor on the stairs and pulled out her phone. “I’m taking the baby into the forest behind the house,” she told the emergency operator.
As she jogged across the property with Mia in her arms, she prayed to God that the criminals weren’t watching her from the picture windows spanning the back of the house.
“Such a good girl,” she whispered against Mia’s soft head of hair.
Closer. She was closing in on nature’s refuge, perfect camouflage from the intruders.
Another muffled shot echoed across the property. She guessed they had reached her bedroom door and shot the lock open. They’d check the closet first, maybe under her bed. She had minutes, perhaps seconds, before they noticed the door leading to her private
