Gone in a Flash Read Online Free PDF Page B

more than half an hour late? I’ll tell you. Hundreds!’
    ‘But there’s somebody out there trying to break into the house! What if they’re after the girls? I can’t lose another child!’ I said, burst into tears and fell to the sofa.
    I could hear my ever-supportive husband sigh. ‘Ya think maybe you’re overreacting? Just a smidge?’
    ‘Shut up!’ I mumbled into the sofa.
    ‘We didn’t lose Graham. We know exactly where he is. And we know where the girls are. Do you want me to go pick them up?’
    ‘They have the minivan,’ I said into the sofa cushion.
    ‘I know that. But I can round them up and make them come home,’ he offered.
    I was just about to demand that he do just that when I heard the not-so-subtle sound of the minivan’s muffler.
    I jumped up and started to run for the door.
    ‘You really want the girls to see you like that?’ Willis said.
    I looked at my reflection in the shiny aluminum toaster on the counter near where I stood. I was a mess. Mascara smeared, eyes blotchy, snot – the whole nine yards.
    ‘Shit,’ I said and headed for our bedroom right off the kitchen.
    When I came out, all three girls were on the sofa watching TV, wearing flannel pajamas and their hair in towels. Except Megan – her hair was not in a towel. She’d taken some babysitting money last week, gone to a hairdresser and had all her beautiful, strawberry-blonde curls that almost reached to her waist cut off. She now sported a short, curly bob. As much as I hated to see the hair I’d so lovingly tended all these years gone, I had to admit the new do looked great on her. The other two, still sporting long hair, had towels twisted around their heads.
    Willis was sitting in his recliner watching TV with them. I leaned in and whispered, ‘Did you tell them?’
    ‘Tell them what?’ he whispered back.
    ‘Yeah, tell us what?’ Megan said. My God, that girl has ears.
    I took the remote out of Willis’s hand – I’ve found if you don’t telegraph the move, just make a smooth grab for it and surprise them, it is possible to take a remote away from a man. It’s not easy, but it can be done. I muted the TV.
    ‘Hey!’ four voices said in an echoing pattern.
    ‘Mrs Luna saw two men trying to break into our house today. She said their car has been sitting outside our house off and on since last night. Did any of you notice anything out of the ordinary?’
    Alicia: ‘No.’
    Bess: ‘Uh uh.’
    Megan: ‘What does “ordinary” mean?’
    I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Megan. ‘Ordinary: as in the usual, the same, what has been deemed expected.’
    ‘Hum,’ Megan said. ‘I guess not.’
    I put my hands in my pockets. I couldn’t strangle her if my hands were in my pockets.
    ‘Megan, don’t be a douche,’ Bess said.
    ‘Who are you calling a douche?’ Megan demanded.
    ‘No one. I didn’t
call
you a douche, I
suggested
you not be one,’ Bess said, which elicited a giggle from Alicia.
    ‘OK, girls,’ Willis said. ‘What your mom is trying to say is that these guys are hanging around for some reason and you need to be careful. Stay together. Nobody goes off on their own, got it? E.J., did Luna describe the car?’
    ‘No,’ I said and pulled my new iPhone out of my pocket. The five. It’s fabulous. I selected Luna’s home number and waited until she said, ‘Hello?’
    ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Describe the car please. I’m going to put you on speaker.’
    ‘No, don’t— I’m on speaker, right?’
    ‘Loud and clear,’ Willis said.
    ‘I hate being on speaker. Who else is listening?’
    ‘The girls. I think they need to know what to look out for,’ I said.
    ‘Well, I’ll tell you what they were driving, but I’m sure they’ve changed it by now. It was a rental, a dark blue Ford Taurus. So basically be careful of everything
except
a dark blue Ford Taurus.’
    ‘What do they look like?’ Bess asked.
    ‘One was short and stocky, with black hair. Swarthy-looking, but not Mexican. Not