back, wanting to touch every inch of him. She raked her fingers through his wet hair, pulled his head back to stare into his troubled blue eyes and then drew his trembling body even deeper into her embrace.
It had been seven months since her husband’s death and she had tried to pretend everything would get better. But it hadn’t. The pinpricks of fear that randomly tickled her neck weren’t her imagination. The footprints in the mud behind the apartment had been real. Someone had been watching…and waiting.
Why had the police chosen today to reopen the questioning about Sonny’s death? They had grilled her for hours until she demanded to be released to pick up her son from school. But her timing was off. Friday-afternoon traffic and she’d almost arrived too late.
Tyler looked at her, his eyes swollen with tears, his blond hair plastered against his round face. “He said he was a friend of Dad’s.”
Lightning slashed through the sky and thunder rolled across the empty school yard.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said, hoping her voice belied the terror that had taken hold of her.
A black Mercedes had tried to run Sonny off the road just days before his death. Now, someone driving the same make of car had attempted to grab Tyler. Without a doubt, the person or persons who killed her husband were also after her son.
But why? Because of the evidence Sonny had hidden? By taking Tyler did the murderers think they could get to her? Maybe convince her to turn over the names of the influential people involved in the corruption? Names she didn’t have. Information she’d never seen.
If only Sonny hadn’t been so secretive. So deceptive.
Lydia pulled in a deep breath as a surge of determination coursed through her veins. She had to protect her son. More than anything, she and Tyler needed a safe haven where they could hide—at least for a few days.
Only one place came to mind.
“Tyler, we’re going to Sanctuary Island.”
The night surrounded Lydia, dark as pitch and sinister as the man who had tried to grab her son earlier in the day. Wind howled through the tall Georgia pines and mixed with the roar of angry surf crashing upon the beach as Lydia steered her vehicle down the unlit path.
A flash of lightning momentarily illuminated the foreboding structure before her. Safe haven? The island home looked about as welcoming as a witch’s den with its deep recesses and dark shadows.
She braked the SUV to a stop and pushed open the driver’s door. Fog seeped from the sodden ground as she stepped into the damp night. The smell of musky earth and sea brine hung heavy in the air. Beside the house, a giant live oak stood guard. Draped in Spanish moss, its branches twisted skyward into oblivion.
“Stay in the car, Tyler.”
A pot of geraniums sat on the porch right where she’d been told. She shoved the heavy clay container aside. Groping with her hand across the wet brick, she found the key and folded scrap of paper before she returned to the circle of light falling from the open car door.
Tyler watched her, his brow wrinkled with more worry than a little boy should ever have to carry. Too much had happened too fast. After all these months of trying to get their lives back together, in one afternoon everything had fallen apart. Lydia would cry if she weren’t so tired. And scared.
Clutching the key, she unfolded the soggy paper Katherine had promised to leave with the security code and bent toward the light. Lydia’s stomach twisted into a hard knot. The rain had blurred the ink into an unreadable smudge. A rumble of thunder rolled through the night as if the storm was gathering strength for another onslaught.
“Come on, Tyler. Let’s get inside.”
The boy slid across the seat and dropped his feet onto the wet pavement. “I’m afraid.”
Lydia rubbed her hand across her son’s slender shoulders. She needed to be strong for Tyler.
“It’s okay, honey. Everything’s going to be fine.”
The wind died momentarily, but the sound of the ocean crashing on the shoreline continued. Lydia shivered as she stuck the key in the lock, turned it counterclockwise then pushed the door open. Darkness greeted her.
One step at a time, she told herself, pulling in a deep breath and moving her hand across the wall. She found the light switch, flipped it on, but the darkness remained.
“The storm probably knocked out the power,” she said, hearing a glimmer of hope in her voice. Without electricity, the security alarm wouldn’t work—she turned her head, spied the row of lights glowing from the keypad on the far wall—unless the system was powered by a backup battery source. A high-pitched hum signaled the alarm was engaged, security had been breached. Thirty seconds later, a deafening screech blasted through the night.
Tyler covered his ears to block out the blare. Lydia still held the crumpled paper. If only the rain hadn’t smeared the ink.
She tried to recall important dates—birthdays, anniversaries, anything that might be the correct sequence of numbers. She tapped in four digits, pushed enter then waited for the heinous noise to still.
Frantically, she tried another combination. Then another.
A lump clogged Lydia’s throat as she blinked back tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. She wouldn’t let Tyler see her cry.
A phone rang, the sound barely audible over the roar of the alarm. She moved into the kitchen, worked her hand across the granite countertop, knocked the phone off the receiver, then somehow managed to grab it before it fell to the ground.
“This is Sanctuary Alarm Service,” a woman’s voice drawled across the line.
Lydia clutched the edge of the kitchen counter as her body slumped with relief. “I’m glad you called. The alarm—”
“Password, please.”
“I’m afraid I…You see, my son and I—”
“Password?”
“I’m sorry—”
The phone clicked dead. Lydia dropped it back onto the receiver as Tyler moved closer.
“It’s gonna be okay, Mom.”
She wrapped her arms around her son. As far as she was concerned, things couldn’t get much worse.
Then a beam of light sliced through the darkness as someone pushed the front door open.
TWO
Matt Lawson peered into the darkness, saw movement and aimed his gun. “Hold it right there.” He raised the flashlight in his left hand. The arc of light broke through the darkness. “Sanctuary Security. Step toward me. Hands in the air.”
No reaction.
“Now, buddy!”
A woman moved from the shadows. Slender. Five foot six. Shoulder-length
